German designer and Design Academy Eindhoven grad Basse Stittgen is bringing attention to food waste and overconsumption with his new project, How Do You Like Your Eggs? Using only expired eggs, Stittgen has created a completely degradable bioplastic which he used to create a range of tableware, including egg cups and plates.

"Annually, an average of 6.4 billion hens lay 1.1 trillion eggs," Stittgen writes on his website. "Simultaneously, one-third of all food per year is lost or wasted, which includes eggs that have a short shelf-life and whose fragile shell is not the most suitable protection against processing and transport."

In terms of process, Stittgen collects unused eggs from local bakeries and first separates them into whites, yolks, and shells. The egg whites are dehydrated and ground into a powder, then mixed with the crushed shells. This combination is placed into an aluminum mold and heat-pressed at 200 degrees, which causes the albumin protein from the egg whites to form polymers, without the need for an additional plasticizer.

It's a similar process to Stittgen's previous project, Blood Related, for which he made a series of objects made of discarded cow blood by first drying the blood and transforming it into a powder. Stittgen received a fellowship for this project at the New Material Awards during Dutch Design Week last year.

Despite his novel approach to "the extraordinary materiality of commonplace items," Stittgen is the first to recognize that sustainable materials are important but nowhere near the end of the solution. "If the production of, for instance, polylactic acid (PLA) made from corn starch was to be scaled up to a point that it would replace fossil-fuel-based plastics, then the production of PLA would become a huge environmental problem in itself," he notes.

More importantly, our behaviors as consumers need to be addressed. "It's possible that there can't be any non-problematic materials until systems and our habits of consumption become non-problematic," he says. By transforming the fragile, life-giving, and symbolic egg, Stittgen suggests that all of our resources should be "handled with great care."

Combining my uncommon perspective of being both a user and a designer with my research and experiments has led me to create commercial products to help people cope with the symptoms of common mental illnesses. Through my chosen study of industrial design, I am now able to address stigmas. I want to avoid sterility and medicalization in my designs in order to avoid the association of mental illness with sickness and sadness. Instead, I'm focusing on the integration and celebration of these products into daily use.

Light Therapy has been shown to be effective in treating some facing Seasonal Affective Disorder, chronic depression and other mood disorders (Rabin, Roni Caryn, "Light Therapy for Depression"). Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, is a type of depression that normally begins in the fall and continues into the winter because of a decrease in exposure to sunlight. SAD lamps and light therapy boxes are used as a way to give off bright artificial light that mimics natural outdoor light.

Even though light therapy is effective in relieving symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder and other mood disorders, SAD lamps are not engaging or comforting. They tend to be boxy-looking, medical, and sterile. Because the one I own is not a beautiful object, I tend to hide it when I am not using it so visitors don't see it. It becomes a product associated with shame. In order to be effective, the user must sit about 16 to 24 inches from the light box for about 20 minutes. It's easy to become disinterested or bored during that time. Why shouldn't this daily routine be an enjoyable experience that the user looks forward to everyday instead of being a 20 minute task the user must complete?

Most recent prototype

Prototype on display at Rebecca's final Thesis Exhibition

Foam shape explorations

User testing and research

User testing and research

User testing and research

Foam model

Wooden prototype for vacuum forming

Vacuum forming a prototype

Early prototype of light therapy pillow

Now that the craziness of NYCxDesign has died down, New Yorkers and visitors alike are able to spend less time party hopping from gallery to gallery and more time revisiting some of their favorite shows that are still on view. One such show is designer Jasper Morrison's first solo gallery exhibition in North America, Corks, which is still on view at Kasmin until June 28.

The exhibition features Morrison's first complete series of furniture made from cork, which is a step in a different, more organic, direction than his usual methods of industrial production. Set within a domestic setting at Kasmin, the collection includes a chaise longue, chairs, stools, bookshelves, and a fireplace.

The particular variety of cork used by Morrison to create these pieces actually comes from unselected wine bottle corks, some still visible in their original shape throughout the collection.

Morrison's designs have stood the test of time in the home, office and even in public spaces, thanks to their stripped down forms, durable materials and strong, yet unassuming presence. While the pieces in Corks still maintain a simple, refined form factor, they definitely have a bolder feel to them based on the material alone. If you're a fan of Morrison's work and want to see a different take on his more classic designs, we recommend paying this exhibition a visit.

Visit Kasmin's 297 Tenth Avenue space in NYC to view Corks until June 28, 2019.

It's every designer's dream to come up with the iconic shape for a product category. Bruce Meyers did it back in the 1960s. Through a very random series of events, Meyers mastered a new production method, applied it creatively to an emerging group of objects, and created what may be the ultimate manifestation of that object to date.

He also got completely screwed by copycats.

There are several design and business lessons in his story. Let's dive in.

Background

In the first half of the 20th Century, automobiles were still manufactured by human beings. Since anything bolted together by a factory worker can be unbolted by a consumer, it was just a matter of time before people started hacking cars.

By the 1930s, if you wanted a fast car, there were manufacturers happy to sell you one. But as America was coming out of the Depression at the time, a handful of thrifty, mechanically-minded folk preferred to build their own swift rides out of spare parts. Ford Model A's, B's and T's were plentiful, and by cruising a junkyard, you could harvest enough unwrecked parts of these commonplace rides to Frankenstein together your own.

Image credit: Tfeverfred, Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

And if you're going to cobble your own car together, why not modify it a bit? A movement originating in southern California embraced this idea, wedging enormous engines into tiny cars, adding fatter wheels, modifying the bodies, adding fanciful paint jobs. They'd then race each other in the streets or even dry lakebeds for bragging rights. The "hot rod" subculture was born.

Image credit: Trekphiler, Creative CommonsAttribution 3.0 Unported.

Just Add Sand

In the decades that followed, the hot rod gained a weird cousin: The dune buggy. In several scattered pockets of the country--Idaho, Oklahoma, Michigan, southern California--people began hacking old cars not for street speed, but for cruising around on the sand dunes present in those regions.

Driving through sand, with no demarcated road lines, was fun. It was also challenging, with traction being a major issue. Four-wheel-drive was a rare luxury, so clever methods had to be developed to give more common rear-wheel-drive cars some decent grip.

Jeep and tractor tires were experimentally added. The driver's seat, which was often little more than a crude DIY bench, was moved all the way back to the rear axle, to put the driver's weight directly over the drive wheels. The sheer weight of a car would lead to it being bogged down in the sand, so to shed pounds body panels were removed, roofs were cut off. (Primitive roll bars were sometimes created by harvesting the handrails from swimming pools.)

As dune buggies began (literally) gaining traction in the '50s and '60s, a southern Californian hot-rodder and art student named Bruce Meyers was watching them buzz past him on the beach. "I'd surf, smoke a little grass, go to art school, race a '32 Highboy Ford at the [Bonneville] lake beds, chase pretty girls and hang out in Pismo beach, watching the water pumpers [named after their water-cooled engines] - the first dune buggies," Meyers told Top Gear.

These Mad-Max hack jobs could do the work, but they were ugly, the domain of dedicated motorheads unconcerned with any aesthetic philosophy. Body panels were removed or frames were welded up from scratch, yielding artless metal skeletons. "I despised what they were doing," Meyers said in a 2005 interview. "I liked their function, but I didn't like their looks."

Beach-Not-a-Bum

Meyers could be called a beach bum, if he wasn't so darn productive. To give you some insight into his personality: When he was a child, one of his brothers drowned to death at the beach. His family subsequently forbade all of the Meyers children from ever swimming in the ocean. Meyers couldn't resist the lure of the water and snuck back to the beach constantly. On the sly he even became a licensed lifeguard, ensuring that not only would he not drown, but he'd be able to help others at risk.

That training was put to the test during World War II. Meyers was a naval gunner on the aircraft carrier Bunker Hill, which sustained two direct hits from kamikaze airplanes within 30 seconds of each other. The order was given to abandon ship and Meyers made the 50-foot jump into the water. Not needing it, he pulled his life jacket off to give to a floundering sailor; he subsequently grabbed a badly burned pilot in the water, and swam the man to a nearby destroyer for rescue.

After the war, Meyers--who was handy with tools--was hired as part of a construction crew to build a trading post in the South Pacific. While living in Tahiti, he got a gig as a ukulele player with the local music radio station. He also mastered the sailing of the outrigger boats used by the natives.

Upon his return to California a couple years later, he began building his own catamarans, which were eventually spotted by a fellow named Jack Jensen.

Learning to Use a Fancy New Material

Jensen was the founder of Jensen Marine, a major manufacturer of sailboats. After spotting Meyers' work, "Jack said 'I need somebody that can do tooling,'" Meyers recalled. "He says 'Why don't you come work for me?'"

Meyers took the job, and soon began producing boats for Jensen. But these weren't shaped from wood, like most sailboats. Jensen Marine, formed in 1957, was using a newfangled material known as glass-fiber reinforced plastic. Lightweight, yet stronger than a lot of metals, this material could be molded into virtually any shape one desired. Commercially it was referred to as "fiberglass" and it could be shaped in molds, yielding repeatability.

Meyers learned to work the material, becoming a master--a "genius," Automobile Magazinewould later write--with fiberglass. On the side he began using it to create his own surfboards and, eventually, a 42-foot catamaran of his own, with the plan of sailing it back to Tahiti. But the boat would take two people to sail, and Meyers didn't yet know that the guy who promised to make the trip with him would eventually flake out.

As we'll see, Meyers would subsequently find another project to sink his time into.

Enter the Beetle

In the 1950s, Fords and Chevys ruled the day. The roads were covered with running models, the junkyards well-stocked with crashed ones waiting to donate parts. For anyone building a dune buggy, the availability of Ford and Chevy parts made them a go-to. They were the cars of the masses.

Image credit: Morven at the Fabulous Fords Forever show. Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

But another sort of people's car had begun making inroads in 1950s America. It was a quirky little car from Germany called a Volkswagen Beetle.

In 1950, just 328 Beetles had been sold.

In 1954, 8,086 units.

in 1957, an incredible 50,059 units, and the numbers would continue to climb.

"There is no longer any doubt about it," wrote Road & Track in October of 1956. "Dr. Ferdinand Porsche's little 'people's car' has done what no other [import] has ever been able to do: it has gained an unmistakable wheel-hold in the garages and hearts of the American car-buying public….

"…The Volkswagen fulfills a need which Detroit had forgotten…a car that is cheap to buy and run, small and compact, light and maneuverable yet solidly constructed, and perhaps above all, utterly dependable and trouble-free."

The car still wasn't cool, particularly if you looked at one alongside a 1957 Chevy.

Image credit: Paddyspig, CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Beetle was weird. It was shaped like, well, a bug. It was tiny. It was slow. The engine was in the back, for chrissakes, where Americans liked to have a trunk. But in 1960, helped along by a self-deprecating advertising campaign by New York ad agency Doyle, Dane and Bernbach, VW sold 117,868 of these uncool cars in the 'States.

As Beetles proliferated on American roads, one person who took notice was Scott McKenzie, a brilliant race driver and car fabricator based in San Fernando, California. While most would laugh at the idea of a Beetle being involved in any kind of performance driving, McKenzie saw that it would be the perfect dune buggy underpinning. Small. Lightweight. Well-built. Engine in the back, putting the bulk of the weight over the drive wheels. And the Beetle was so cheap--$1,565 in 1960 dollars, about $13,500 today--that buying a brand-new one and stripping it down was a reasonable alternative to crawling around in a junkyard looking for parts to cobble together.

No one had used a Beetle to make a dune buggy before, so McKenzie, a pioneer, became the first (though he did replace VW's engine with one that GM used in the Corvair).

Scott McKenzie's skinless, modified Beetle....

...could go just about anywhere.

In the surest sign that McKenzie's concept was sound, others began copying him. Beetle-based dune buggies started to proliferate off-road, just as the unmodified ones had on-road. So it was that Bruce Meyers, watching dune buggies on the beach one day, had an epiphany. Most of the vehicles he saw "spat flames and were a lot of fun, but I knew they were inefficient," he told Top Gear.

"Then I saw someone driving a Beetle floorpan. It skimmed around like a mosquito across water, even with 35bhp [horsepower] and four-inch tires. All the weight over the rear end made a lot of sense in the desert. It was why the Mexicans drove around with 50-gallon drums of water in the back of their pickups - the driven wheels got the best chance of traction, because they're getting pushed down and onto the loose surface."

No Design Considerations

As the Beetle conversions grew in popularity, EMPI (Engineered Motor Products Incorporated), an L.A.-based VW dealership, saw an opportunity to capitalize on them. In the early 1960s they began selling the Sportster, a converted dune buggy Beetle that could be ordered in turnkey or kit form.

The EMPI Sportster

So here we come to a phenomenon that roughly divides human beings into non-design-appreciators versus design-appreciators (or stylists, some might say, with some malice). The first group will look at the EMPI Sportster and say "Hey, cool dune buggy." The second group will think "That thing is hideously ugly." And I'm not talking just about the proportions, I'm talking about the execution.

The EMPI Sportster

Look at the seemingly-random lines on the car.

The EMPI Sportster

Look at the way the flat pieces of sheet metal are assembled.

The EMPI Sportster

The EMPI Sportster

It's utilitarian, sure, but utilitarian doesn't mean it has to be so artless. Jonathan Ward's ICON vehicles, for instance, are both utilitarian and beautiful.

Nevertheless, the EMPI Sportster sold enough models that you can still find surviving ones at auctions. But Bruce Meyers wouldn't be caught dead in one. Instead, in 1963 the beach-not-a-bum resolved to build his own, and correct what he saw as the aesthetic flaws of all Bug-based buggies.

Plenty of Design Considerations (Including Beer)

"I'm an artist and I wanted to bring a sense of movement and gesture to the [form]," Meyers told Top Gear. "Dune buggies have a message: fun. They're playful to drive and should look like it. Nothing did at the time."

In a recent article for Core77, columnist Chris Schwarz wrote that you should be up front about your inspirations. Meyers was; he told automotive historian James Hale, for Hale's book Dune Buggies, of at least four sources that inspired his creation. As Hemmings reports:

"Meyers wanted to combine the Volkswagen Schwimmwagen's high fenders and short wheelbase, the Volkswagen Kubelwagen's stand-up headlamps and simplicity, the open design of Italian beach cars, and the wide wheels and tires he experimented with on his own Volkswagen Type 2, 'all added together with a fine artistic sense of style.'"

Volkswagen Schwimmwagen. Image credit: Oldbug.com.

Volkswagen Kubelwagen. Image credit: By Darkone - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5

Meyers then combined those inspirations with his own wants:

"The top of the front fenders had to be flat to hold a couple of beers, the sides had to come up high enough to keep the mud and sand out of your eyes, it had to be compatible with Beetle mechanicals and you had to be able to build it yourself."

What Meyers was not going to do was make the car out of sheet metal. Instead, he turned to his then-rare skillset--forming gigantic pieces of fiberglass--and designed a then-revolutionary monocoque.

He then set about fabricating the first version in his one-car garage.

"I added all the line and feminine form and Mickey Mouse adventure I could," Meyers said of the shape. He completed his prototype in 1964, and it came to be known as "Old Red:"

Meyers' unibody design jettisoned the Beetle's floorpan altogether. He designed and molded attachment points directly into the fiberglass for the suspension components and engine. Not yet aware of just how strong his design was, "I carried mats, skins and resin [to repair it] because I thought I'd be left on my ass when it snapped on the street," he told Top Gear. "But it was a tough little car, and I got more confident with it. I took it to the dunes, jumped it, and gave that thing a pounding."

One of fiberglass' benefits is that it comes out of a mold. Meyers used his mold set-up to crank out a dozen shells, to sell to dune buggy fans in kit form; he figured he could use the proceeds to cover his initial development costs. Or continuing development costs; Meyers continued regularly whipping the car around to see what it was capable of.

It Looks Good--But Can It Perform?

While giving Old Red an off-road workout at Big Bear Lake, Meyers and his friend Ted Mangels encountered a bunch of motorcyclists. In the mid-'60s it was widely accepted that off-road motorcycles were the fastest way to travel long distances off-road. Meyers disagreed.

A debate ensued with the bikers, and Meyers figured out how to settle it. At the time, dedicated off-roaders would time themselves on drives from Tijuana to La Paz, Mexico. Covering virtually all of Baja, this was an 832-mile route of challenging off-road terrain, and motorcycles could blow away any four-wheel-drive vehicle; the fastest motorcycle had done it in 39 hours.

Meyers said his car--which didn't even have four-wheel-drive--could beat that.

To prove it, Meyers and Mangels, his co-driver, brought the car to Tijuana. They had attached three oxygen bottles to the outside of Old Red, to carry extra fuel. He and Mangels then filled a series of milk bottles with yet more gasoline, which they carried between their legs. If they were going to lose this race, it wouldn't be because they were waiting for a gas station to open somewhere along the route.

It took Meyers and Mangels a total of 34 hours and 45 minutes of bouncing, jostling and zooming across the Baja desert before they crossed the finish line at La Paz. They had broken the motorcycle record by nearly four hours.

The Manx Craze

After Meyers' triumphant return home his wife, Shirley, who worked in the advertising department for Road & Track, began writing letters to car magazines describing Bruce's feat. She also asked fellow Road & Track employees what they thought the car ought be named.

Several present said the car reminded them of a manx, a breed of cat with a stubby tail. Elaine Bond, who ran the magazine with her husband John, agreed and went a step further, saying it should be called the "Meyers Manx." Elaine also put out a press release titled "Buggy Beats Bikes in Baja!"

The car was subsequently featured on the cover of Hot Rod magazine:

As the Baja story went viral, orders began flooding in for the newly-christened Meyers Manx. Bruce subsequently figured out that if he retained the Beetle's floorpan but shortened the chassis by 14.25 inches, he could reduce the price of the kit by nearly two-thirds. He now had a hot seller on his hands.

Partially inspired by the Manx's Baja victory, off-road enthusiasts Ed Pearlman and Don Francisco formed the National Off-Road Racing Association, with the idea of formalizing the Tijuana-to-La-Paz route into an official race. They asked Meyers to help; he was too busy producing Manxes to participate directly, but he fielded several of them for the race.

The first Mexico 1000, as NORRA called it (today it's called the Baja 1000) was held in 1967. The winner? At 27 hours and 38 minutes, Ted Mangels, driving a Manx.

The car's reputation grew. Steve McQueen drove a modified Meyers Manx in 1968's "The Thomas Crown Affair," which didn't exactly hurt sales.

As orders came piling in, B.F. Meyers & Co. grew into a company of 70 employees furiously producing Manxes.

Undone by Thievery

EMPI, the L.A. VW dealer, approached Meyers with an offer: Let them get in on the action and help distribute the cars, in exchange for a cut. When Meyers turned them down, EMPI produced a very similar design and began selling them.

EMPI wasn't the only one. Earlier I wrote that the benefit of fiberglass bodies are that they come out of a mold. That's also their curse. Several unscrupulous companies bought a Manx, made a casting from the body, then started selling their own exact copies.

Meyers, who had had the foresight to patent his design, tried taking them to court. The judge presiding over the case, who was either hostile to or ignorant of design, ruled Meyers' creation unpatentable, and took the unusual step of rescinding his patent. With all legal obstacles to copying removed, the market now became flooded with copies.

All told, by 1971 B.F. Meyers & Co. had produced about 6,000 Meyers Manxes--versus roughly 250,000 to 350,000 knock-offs to the present day. The Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame writes that the Manx is "the most copied vehicle in history."

Meyers' company went bust in 1971, unable to weather the onslaught of copycats.

Meyers himself went on to invent the fiberglass hot tub and--fun fact!--that fiberglass children's bed that's shaped like a Can-Am racecar. However, embittered by the untold loss of revenue from countless dune buggy copycats, he avoided going back into the automotive sector.

Whatever Happened to Old Red?

After quitting the business, Meyers held on to Old Red for about a decade, then sold it to automotive executive Richard "Dick" Chrysler in 1982. Six years later, Chrysler sold the car to an employee of his.

In 1996 Chris Lewis, who was dating Meyers' stepdaughter at the time, managed to track Old Red down. He bought it himself, and returned it to Meyers as a present. What a mensch!

You can see Meyers and Old Red on this episode of "Jay Leno's Garage." The car looks better than ever.

The Rebirth

Maybe it was seeing Old Red again, or maybe he realized that he had created something special that no amount of copying could take away from him. Meyers rebooted his company as Meyers Manx, Inc in 2000, and today they sell the classic Manx kit as well as "modern re-imaginings of the classic and iconic Meyers Manx."

It's worth noting that Meyers didn't start building Manxes as a young man; he turned 40 the year he broke the Tijuana-La-Paz record. Today he's in his 90s.

While Meyers never received the millions of dollars undoubtedly earned by his copycats, he did manage to create an iconic vehicle, and one that has put a smile on the faces of thousands. Not to mention, his own.

Make an impact with outstanding products from world-class brands, including 7 leadership brands: OXO®, Hydro Flask®, Vicks®, Braun®, Honeywell®, PUR® and Hot Tools® as a Freelance Brand Design Manager at Helen of Troy. A key function of this freelance position involves partnering with managers and associates across the global and regional marketing organizations of the company as a corporate brand expert.

See the full job details or check out all design jobs at Coroflot.

The elegant, curved lines of the Urbach Tower in Germany's Rems Valley and the idyllic landscape around it are certainly worth your attention, but the real story here is in how the 46-foot tower came together. Created by a team from the University of Stuttgart's Institute of Computational Design and Construction(ICD) and Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE), it's the first example of a "self-shaping" wood construction process.

Though various methods of bending wood have existed for centuries, those typically involve elaborate mechanical forming processes that require heavy machinery. Looking for a less energy-intensive method, the team thought to harness the characteristic shrinking of wood as it loses moisture to essentially "trigger" the wood to twist itself into shape.

"An understanding of how wood deforms due to changes in moisture content is well known in practice and academics," the team explains. "A shift in design thinking, as well as new computational simulations for more accurate prediction, now allow us to use this moisture-induced swelling and shrinking to design and program specific self-shaping movements at larger and larger scale."

It all starts with flat panels of cross-laminated timber (CLT) made of spruce wood sourced in Switzerland and manufactured with a high wood-moisture content of roughly 22 percent. That level is brought down in an industrial drying chamber before the pieces are laminated to create the 12 large panels that make up the final structure. Computational models were developed to design, predict, and optimize the material arrangement required to produce the desired curvature.

"While making this work is relatively simple, predicting the outcome is the real challenge," said ICD head Achim Menges. "Being able to do so opens up many new architectural possibilities."

A layer of glue-laminated larch wood is added on the outside to protect from UV radiation and fungi. The larch wood will allow the structure to take on an even, white color over time—resembling the traditional white chapels of the area.

Once the desired curvature was achieved, the components were put together on site by only four craftsmen, who were able to assemble the tower in a single working day without a huge scaffold or any formwork.

Installed as one of 15 small structures for the Remstal Garden Show, the tower is already a landmark in the city and will be on view permanently.

Every day, NYC turns 1.3 billion gallons of sewage into a material called biosolids by feeding it to microorganisms. Though once utilized to enrich soils, around 2.8 million pounds of biosolids has gone to landfill every day for the past ten years. Sum Waste proposes creating a sustainable industry out of it by producing bioplastics and a pigment from it instead.

The final form of this project is a sustainably designed pen and ink from materials derived from biosolids. The pen barrel is designed to be made of PHA, a soil compostable bioplastic that can be produced by feeding biosolids directly to bacteria. While this may seem like a future technology, the Dutch Water Authority is already producing it through their Energy and Raw Materials Factory. One of the designs from this initiative, MOURN by Studio Nienke Hoogvliet, is on display at the Cooper Hewitt.

More than just a material study, the Sum Waste pen is sustainable by design and function. The PHA pen barrel interacts with its corresponding refill to retract like a normal pen, but with a twist that saves a lot of carbon.

Existing retractable pens require multiple parts made from different materials to function, making the interior workings of these pens intimidating to consumers. The Sum Waste pen is made of just two components; the PHA barrel and a standard ink refill with a heat-molded top. The helical channel in the pen barrel bends the ink refill to create just enough friction that the pen tip will not retract when writing. With a slightly harder push of the pen against a surface, however, the tip smoothly retracts. To expose the tip again, simply push on the flat top of the refill. The flat top of the refill is heat-molded from the existing polypropylene tube that holds the ink so as not to add any extra parts to its production. This design, combined with the helical channel in the barrel, eliminates all of the small parts found in existing retractable pens. This makes the pen less carbon heavy to produce, easier to recycle, and saves lot of headache for consumers that find retractable pens confusing and intimidating to refill or dispose of properly.

Users purchase the components separately, putting the barrel and refill together themselves. This is meant to highlight the different material streams, life cycle lengths, and functions that each component serves. Users can employ the same barrel for multiple ink colors, or keep their ink if they want a new barrel. To dispose the pen, users simply compost the barrel and/or recycle the refill to be reclaimed in full. The pen is over an inch shorter than its competitors yet is easy to hold and contains the same amount of ink as normal ball point pens.

Right Waste Poster

Credit: Garrett Benisch

Assembling the Pen

The pen refill slides in the helical channel of the barrel with a simple push.

Credit: Garrett Benisch

Biological Nutrient

The PHA pen barrel can be composted with food and yard scraps or even buried in a backyard where it will decompose in a matter of weeks.

Credit: Garrett Benisch

Technical Nutrient

The ink refill is a standard brass and polypropylene component with a simple alteration on top of it. This component can be fully recycled.

Credit: Garrett Benisch

Solar Carbonizer1

Small samples of biosolids were carbonized by focusing the sun's rays through a fresnel lens taken from an overhead projector.

Credit: Elizabeth Bridges

Sum Waste Components

Credit: Garrett Benisch

Making Ink

The carbonized biosolids pigment was hand ground and suspended in a natural oil to create a rudimentary ink. This ink is featured on every Sum Waste business card.

Credit: Cinematography by Zach Jamieson

Solar Carbonizer2

Small samples of biosolids were carbonized by focusing the sun's rays through a fresnel lens taken from an overhead projector.

Credit: Cinematography by Zach Jamieson

Raw vs. Carbonized Biosolids

Credit: Garrett Benisch

Furniture retailer Inform Interiors will be hosting four Shokunin—the Japanese word for a craftsman—at their Vancouver offices this weekend, who will hold a variety of workshops and discuss how their work maintains strong bonds to the traditions of their ancestors while anticipating the needs of future generations. Takahiro Yagi, Shuji Nakagawa, Toru Tsuji, and Zenya Imanishi will guide participants through four stations exploring their disciplines: making metal tea caddies, wooden buckets, kitchen utensils out of woven wire, and traditional Japanese confectionary. Below, we introduce you to each craftsman.

Taka from Inform Interiors on Vimeo.

Kaikado was established in 1875 in the city of Kyoto by Seisuke, creator of their first signature tin tea caddy. With a manufacturing process that involves up to 140 steps, this 130-year-old Chazutsu (tea caddy) remains Kaikado's signature product and is appreciated for its sleek and functional, airtight design. Takahiro Yagi, who now runs the company, has developed a two-tiered tea caddy and is focused on bringing this object to tea aficionados all over the world.

Shuji from Inform Interiors on Vimeo.

Shuji Nakagawa is a third-generation carpenter at Nakagawa Mokkougei, a studio dedicated to passing on the woodworking traditions of the Kyoto region. Nakagawa has been exploring ways of adapting the design of traditional wooden buckets to modern life. He was a finalist for the 2017 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize and his work can be found in the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris.

Toru from Inform Interiors on Vimeo.

Toru Tsuji is a co-founder of Kanaami-Tsuji, which creates a range of objects inspired by the traditional metal-knitting craftsmanship of Kyo-Kanaami, which is believed to be more than ten centuries old. Using traditional hand-weaving techniques known as kiku-dashi, they craft contemporary kitchen utensils.

Zenya Imanishi works at Kagizen Yoshifusa, a confectionary specializing in Kyoto-style sweets which dates back to the mid-Edo period. The recipes have barely changed and the sweets are made of carefully selected ingredients through the skilled handwork of craftsmen like Imanishi. The taste is just one element, with equal attention being paid to the presentation of the candies—and that's just one of the skills participants can expect to pick up during the workshop.

In addition to a lecture by all four craftsmen that will take place tonight, six workshops will be held on Friday, June 7 and Saturday, June 8, so if you're local to Vancouver consider checking them out!

Brought to you by MAKO Design + Invent, North America's leading design firm for taking your product idea from a sketch on a napkin to store shelves. Download Mako's Invention Guide for free here.

Navigating the world of crowdfunding can be overwhelming, to put it lightly. Which projects are worth backing? Where's the filter to weed out the hundreds of useless smart devices? To make the process less frustrating, we scour the various online crowdfunding platforms to put together a weekly roundup of our favorite campaigns for your viewing (and spending!) pleasure. Go ahead, free your disposable income:

The Dryceratops jar lid combines solar panels and a small fan to turn a simple mason jar into a food dehydrator. Use it to make your own dried fruit snacks, teas, homemade seasonings, and more!

In addition to the navigation features that made the original SmartHalo a hit, the redesigned SmartHalo 2 has a 250-lumen front light, a brand new alarm system, and a 1.5 inch OLED display in the center that displays the rider's speed in real time, fitness metrics, wayfinding notifications, weather alerts, and more. It can even tell you how many C02 emissions you saved by opting to ride your bike.

The sleek, countertop MicroFarm doesn't take up much space and lets you harvest a fresh crop of microgreens in just a week, using only damp paper towels and an outlet to power the grow lamp.

If growing microgreens isn't quite your speed but you still want to exercise your green thumb, check out the FYTA Beam. The sleek sensor and accompanying app keep track of the critical factors impacting your plants: soil moisture, nutrition levels, light intensity, humidity, and temperature.

The Dullo pillow features two design innovations. First, a "center crater" creates a subtle depression to cradle your head and allow your neck to maintain its natural position. Also notable, the space between the top and bottom pillows is designed to increase airflow and keep night sweats at bay— but it also creates a perfect spot to put your arms next time you can't resist a nap at your desk.

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At this week's Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple announced their new Mac Pro desktop, Pro Display XDR monitor and Pro Stand. The latter is a rather sophisticated piece of design and engineering:

"The Pro Stand makes every adjustment of your display feel seamless. Precision tilting and 120 mm of height adjustment help Pro Display XDR adapt to any viewing condition. The angle of the display stays true even as you adjust the height. With the Pro Stand, you get a display that feels weightless, moves effortlessly where you want it, and stays exactly where you leave it."

In the latest "let's make a big deal about something" outrage-fest that our society is now addicted to, the Pro Stand has supposedly drawn a backlash for its $999 price. CNN breathlessly reports "Apple monitor stand that costs more than an iPhone sparks online uproar." Engadget writes "A $999 monitor stand is everything wrong with Apple today." Gizmodo says "$1,000 feels like a lot of money for a monitor stand."

That's because it is a lot of money for a monitor stand.

So let me pick this "backlash" nonsense apart, and let's look at this thing from an industrial design and company ethos point of view.

First off, the Pro Stand is not designed for the average consumer. It damn sure isn't designed for me. The Pro line of objects is designed for hardcore professionals, for deep-pocketed people and companies who can drop five figures on a workstation no sweat. It's for people who actually need the 28 freaking cores that the Mac Pro can handle. They'll drop the money because they'll make it back, or because they're in situations where money is no object.

Jonathan Ive may be one of the most powerful designers on the planet, in terms of being able to call shots. It's well-known that Steve Jobs stipulated, prior to his demise, that within Apple's structure Ive was not to be interfered with. There is no accountant above Ive going "No, I don't think so."

So what do you think Ive's brief was when designing the monitor stand? "Come up with something low-cost that we can sell at Wal-Mart?" No. More than likely, the assignment was to design the finest monitor stand money can buy. More than likely, he set out to design his version of the ultimate monitor stand, one with a fine-tuned, hinged connection point that is probably exponentially more precise than what everyone else is making. Something that a team of engineers had to burn a lot of midnight oil to realize. Jonathan Ive has that kind of juice. Most designers don't.

That's why I feel any other industrial designer can't begrudge Ive. We can be jealous of him, but we can't begrudge him. What would you do in his shoes, with those kinds of resources and that kind of clout?

Look at the grill on the Mac Pro and the monitor. In the promo video, he mentions the grill portion of the housing is CNC-machined on both sides. Could he have figured out a cheaper way to do it? Probably. But the point is, he no longer has to. He works for Apple, where his track record has earned him the right to do things the way he wants to do them. Whether or not you like his aesthetic choices or his chosen manufacturing techniques, that ability to call shots is every designer's dream.

So why the "backlash?"

I see what's happening with Apple as the same as what's happening with our society. The rich and the poor are getting further and further apart. Apple doesn't design for poor people. It could even be argued they don't design for middle-class people. They design for people who can afford $1,000 phones, which leaves me, a middle-class former Apple loyalist, behind.

I think people are angry because they are getting left behind by a brand they once loved. I myself didn't realize overnight that Apple had moved past me; it sank in gradually.

Apple's stuff has always been more expensive than their competitors', but from the moment I had enough money to buy my own computers and objects, I saved up for them, and wouldn't consider using anything else. Because all of their stuff worked for me exactly they way I wanted them to work. Steve Jobs didn't sound like a fun guy to have a beer with, but the man damn sure knew his UX. After years of lugging around a case of cassettes, CDs and later MiniDiscs, iTunes and the iPod was precisely what I dreamed of. The iPhone, the iPad, my MacBooks, they all did exactly what I needed them to, without me needing to get under the hood.

Gradually it began to change. The OS's became bloated. iTunes became more and more confusing, changing the UI that I'd memorized over and over again. I now need to Google how to do even basic things* with my phone or fix something on my computer. Apple's original "you don't even need an instruction manual" ethos seemed to disappear. I figured it was my age; I now pride myself on how little I touch my phone throughout the day, whereas the generation before me can't seem to get their faces out of them. I assume those younger folks, who are tech-savvier than I, have no problem operating their devices. They grew up with them and understand how to get them to do what they want.

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*[One example: My low-tech wife still listens exclusively to CDs. For her last birthday I bought her an iPod. I loaded all of her music onto it, excited at how much easier this would make her life. Once the iPod was loaded, she tried using it, and asked me a simple question: "How can I see every Prince song I own, as a list?"

"Easy," I said, "just do this--" I then futzed with the iPod, and couldn't figure out how to do it. I Googled it. Still couldn't figure it out.

What my wife wants is to be able to see a list of every Prince song she owns, then select the one she wants to hear. To me that is completely logical and rational. But when you select Prince, it shows you a bunch of little squares depicting his albums. If you remember which album every Prince song belongs to, no problem. But if you're like us and don't remember, you have to click on each album in turn to scroll through the list to find the song you'd like to hear. This doesn't make any sense to us, but presumably makes sense to Apple. We are not their target market.]

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Apple has evolved, and I have not been able to evolve along with them, nor increase my earning power to keep up. They have never branded themselves a product company for the masses. When he was still alive, Steve Jobs pointed out that Mercedes-Benz charged a lot more for a car. With their $1,000 phones and now monitor stands, Apple is steadily moving upmarket to provide high-quality goods to the rich. It's actually a great business model, and one with a ready market; Investopedia, after crunching Boston Consulting Group's data, concluded that 1,700 millionaires are made each day.

As a design blogger, I'll never be one of them. Does that make me sad? Yeah. Angry? No. I was trained as an industrial designer, and I live in a time where I get to witness a talented industrial designer with massive resources at his disposal execute his visions absent interference from bean counters. I find that fun to see; a subset of Apple's products and pricepoints are what design unfettered by economic constraints looks like.

My own monitor stand is made from dovetailed pieces of scrap wood. I learned how to cut the dovetails myself by taking a class. My stand doesn't have a swivel nor magnets because I don't need to rotate my monitor nor disconnect it. It doesn't adjust in height because I measured the exact height I needed and built to that. Like Jonathan Ive, I used the resources available to me to create what I wanted, and it is perfect for me.

I think the "backlash" against the Pro Stand is comprised of a bunch of self-entitled whiners who want the design and engineering contained within it, but can't afford it. That's a bad road to go down; it never ends, and every single object you own likely has a better version of it for sale. Take my advice and stop coveting. If your phone lets you down, find ways to use it less. If you want something you can't afford, design and build your own, to suit your own needs. It may not look as cool, but you will find it strangely satisfying.

"I wanted to design a sink with as many maintenance needs as possible. My solution requires an electrician, a servo motor technician AND a plumber to install. The drain is hidden, making it difficult to clear hair clogs; the wiper blade must regularly be cleaned or replaced; and the stretchy material for the surface will wear out over time too, unlike stupid porcelain. Traditional sinks are white so you can see if they're dirty; mine is dark, so you need to get in there with an LED task lamp to see if it needs cleaning. I haven't found a good place to put a soap dispenser, so this doesn't allow you to actually wash your hands, but who cares? The design is magical."

"You know how bottles aren't flat on the bottom, so there's no way to place them onto a tabletop? Well, I designed this thing that lets you hang the bottle from the edge of a tabletop. While it reduces legroom, the trade-off of finally being able to bring a bottle to a table is worth it. (Wait--bottles aren't flat on the bottom, right?)"

"These giant clothespins are really cute because, you have to push really hard on that top part with both hands, and then the garment just drops on the floor. If you want to hang something, you need two people, one to push and one to place. Also, last weekend we got hammered and Darren stuck his nose into the clip part and we clipped his nose and posted the photo on Instagram! OMG LOL! He had to go to the ER but it was hilarious!"

"This braille watch is designed for the blind. Even though by definition they cannot see, I decided to color the crown button red. This raises the manufacturing cost without adding any benefit for the end user."

"I like for my bookshelves to squander a certain amount of wood for unusable space. This bookshelf also communicates that I have a pulse. Regular bookshelves communicate that their owners are flat-lining. They're a bunch of flat-lining losers."

"At design school, we learned to draw straight lines freehand by practicing. We were taught that practice makes perfect. I say, eff that. I would rather buy something, preferably with plastic parts, that means I don't NEED to practice. If I lose it or forget to bring it to class, I won't be able to draw straight lines and will have a good excuse to avoid the assignment."

"Most cafes use chalkboards or whiteboards to list changing items. But I want to use something non-erasable, so that when my employees make a mistake they have to pull the sheet down, tear it off and start all over again. I now have to reorder paper rolls on a regular basis, which helps create more waste while raising my expenses. Bonus: To change rolls, my employees must ascend a ladder while carrying the heavy roll. It's a precarious operation and a lot of fun to watch."

"In summertime, I can never find shoes that allow me to get mosquito bites on that bony part on the tops of my feet. But I finally found these!"

"I designed this piece of wall art for our office to add visual interest. It also creates a new task for our janitor, Thomas. He gave me a lot of shit this year when my team didn't make the playoffs and his did. So let's see you try to clean this goddamn thing every day, Thomas. I painted it white to better show dust, and spaced the gaps so that a vacuum nozzle can't fit between them. Fuck you, Thomas, and fuck the Raptors."

"For the first few weeks, the client kept saying they worried they would fall off of the landing. I solved this by adding a collapsible desk beneath it that would cushion their fall. They suggested I put railings in instead, then I told them 'Hey! Why don't you leave DESIGN to the DESIGNERS!' That shut them right up."

Are you ready to set the pace at which sport and culture collide? Puma is seeking an Apparel Graphic Designer to design and develop the graphic language and embellishments to complement product created for the North American and Latin American regions. Through innovative design, iconic footwear and apparel and authentic partnerships, Puma aims to always push what's next in both sport and culture. Nw's your chance to be a part of the athletic company's ongoing mission!

See the full job details or check out all design jobs at Coroflot.

Mark Cuban calls them "a tax on the American people." The Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimates that the latest increase is costing the average U.S. household $831 a year. Investment banks have said there's a good chance they'll drive up the price of an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods by this fall.

Much of the current talk about tariffs focuses on how they'll hurt consumers. But creators are caught in the middle. They're already hurting: Contract manufacturers are adding risk-mitigation fees to their bills of service; higher costs are crippling fledgling companies; and creative tools like 3D printers are becoming more expensive. Here's how three Kickstarter creators are weathering the changes and doing their best to communicate the unusual circumstances to their communities.

In a chaotic ecosystem, tariffs mean contract manufacturers charge more

Like most small makers, Michael Burtov of GeoOrbital doesn't own his own factory; he relies on middlemen and contract manufacturers to produce limited runs of electronic products.

Michael Burtov (left) with the GeoOrbital team.

As Burtov is making those arrangements for his second Kickstarter campaign, he's finding it much more difficult than it was his first time around. With all the uncertainty about what other tariffs might be imposed soon, contract manufacturers are hesitant to work with small makers who might not have a viable enough business to keep orders coming in—or even survive.

"The contract manufacturers that we work with are losing business because all these companies are failing. Now they have their equipment, rent, and personnel to pay for, but not the volume of orders that makes this arrangement work." So they charge more to mitigate the risk. "On top of the 25 percent tariff set by the Trump administration, they add another 20 percent to compensate for the instability in the supply chain," Burtov says.

Unexpected tariffs can force startups to give up ownership stakes—to foreign investors

Luckily, the tariffs were announced before Burtov started manufacturing or shipping, so he's able to plan ahead. But not everyone has had this luxury. One of Burtov's friends had a shipment of electric bikes in transit to America when the new tariffs were announced. Suddenly, he owed his manufacturer $300,000 more than he had when the ship left. Unable to produce the cash, he had to surrender his product at the port until he could finally convince investors to take on his debt—and ownership of his company. To bail himself out of tariff woes, he had to turn to outside investors, some of whom are Chinese.

"When Trump says that billions of dollars are pouring into the Treasury from tariffs, it's American startups and small businesses paying," Burtov says. "It's companies that don't have an extra $250,000 laying around. Apple does, Ford does, all the big guys that import stuff can afford to pass the cost along to the customer. Startups invest all our money in growth, in development and buying products. This could really kill American innovation."

Communicating with customers helps, to a degree

Some smaller-scale Kickstarter creators who had set prices before being slapped with these new tariffs are able to turn to their backer communities to cover the unexpected costs. Jim Rhodes, the creator of Joto, had worked with a logistics company to determine that his drawing robot was a zero-duty product that wouldn't face tariffs. When that changed—just as he was shipping to backers—he wasn't able to pay the more than $20,000 in extra fees that he was charged for his 800 units.

Jim Rhodes's Joto robot draws pictures you program in from your phone.

"They're in a holding center, held ransom," he says. When we spoke, he was in the process of reaching out to backers to ask for the extra $27 each he needed for their orders. He first sent out a straightforward project update outlining how neither the Joto team nor their logistics partners had anticipated the extra expense, and were not in a position to cover them. "It's been difficult, but posting updates that explain the situation in a transparent way has helped our backers see we're all on the same side," says Rhodes.

The Shenzhen team behind the Snapmaker three-in-one 3D printer, CNC, and laser cutter is also affected by the new list of 3,805 products that have been hit with the additional tariffs.

The Snapmaker three-in-one 3D printer, CNC, and laser cutter.

"We are all hopeful that the tariffs go away by the time we ship out the rewards to our backers," says sales manager Sheila She. "However, this news makes people hesitate when pledging for our product or even cancel their orders since they don't want to pay the additional tariffs."

Joto and Snapmaker both work with third-party logistics shipping partners, but Joto sea-freights products to U.S. hubs that charge imports to the company, while Snapmaker sends the packages directly from Shenzhen, so U.S. Customs charges each backer the extra 25 percent. Snapmaker is doing everything they can to communicate that additional charge; they've sent backers a document explaining that extra fees will apply and shared an online tool to help calculate them.

When the tariffs hit 3D printers, prototyping suffers

Keeping up with and communicating those changes is still difficult for their team, and it hurts that lesser-quality printers on the market won't be hit by the charges. "This new tariff is likely to limit the sales growth of the most high-quality products, but it doesn't affect U.S. sales of 3D printers that are less than $800," explains She. It will become more expensive for makers and small companies to carry out digital fabrication projects—3D printing prototypes is standard procedure for making everything from headphones to health devices—and casual consumers might have a more negative impression of 3D printers if they're exposed mostly to the cheaper models.

Manufacturing doesn't happen without China—creators have to roll with the punches

The tariff situation remains volatile, and it's unclear whether tariffs will increase further or even stay in place at all. But the simple truth is that it's impossible to make hardware without China.

Rhodes says he couldn't have made Joto on his relatively short time line anywhere but China, full stop. Burtov, who manufactures his GeoOrbital electric wheels and bikes in America, has always depended on Chinese imports of materials and components, like aluminum and batteries. "As far as I know, there's no way to get them from American sources," he says. Now that his costs are going up so much, he's considering offshoring his manufacturing to help offset them.

Creators will continue to work with China. Until lawmakers hear and respond to the voluminous complaints, there's not a lot small businesses can do to mitigate the harms these tariffs introduce. They will have to strategize how to assume the extra charges, work flexibly to adapt to ongoing policy changes, and communicate with their communities more than ever to help backers understand why prices are going up.

—Katheryn Thayer

The COFFIRE porcelain pendant light uses used coffee grounds as a coloring material to mimic the texture of marble. The eco-conscious method of staining is inspired by the ancient pit firing technique for pottery making. During the low temperature firing process, the interaction between the biodiesel and the sugar in the coffee grounds, which oxidizes to red matter, forms a random texture on the surface of the ceramics (the surface texture is influenced by many variables, such as temperature, humidity, coffee grounds density, etc).

The aim of the COFFIRE project is to develop an 'imperfect' design language, juxtaposing the the relationship between industrial standardized production and craftsmanship.

Coffee grounds ensure a safe product, compared to the traditional pit firing, which tends to use toxic metals as coloring materials. This project also replaces the traditional sand pit with a gas kiln to achieve mass production, solving the problem of the high waste rate of traditional pit firing.

colouring test

Microsoft Surface recently commissioned Dominic Wilcox to come up with two solutions to everyday problems for an exhibition in London, and the results are as wonderfully bizarre as we're used to from the British artist and designer.

First up, inspired by a recent experience at a concert, Wilcox created a device that uses angled mirrors to help wearers see one foot taller than their normal eye level.

"I was standing at a gig and turned to see a small woman dancing away but unable to see the band. This gave me the inspiration to design a way for people to see over obstacles such as tall people like me."

The entire piece was made from one sheet of mirrored acrylic.

Try as we may to avoid it, we've all experienced that awkward "dance of indecision" that takes place when you're walking straight toward someone on the street and don't know which side to take. Wilcox's subtly assertive Directing Jacket takes the guesswork out of the equation, as it literally tells people what direction to go in.

The jacket has embedded green LED arrows pointing right and left. The wearer can activate one side or the other by pressing a soft button sewn into the sleeve cuff. The battery-powered lights last up to a week—though of course, that depends on how much "directing" you'll have to do.

"This may be a very niche problem but it must happen a million times a day around the world—that's about 4 million seconds of time lost through dithering," Wilcox notes. "I've tried it out on the streets of London and it seemed to help. I'll never be late for anything again unless the batteries run out."

At Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference earlier this week, Apple finally unveiled its new and modular Mac Pro. When John Ternus, Apple's VP of Hardware Engineering, took the stage, most of his presentation was a listing of super performance specs and showing off its intricately machined lattice enclosure (the cheese grater is back!).

But what he didn't share was the 6 year journey that Apple's designers and engineers took to get there. Lots of people have been commenting on how the modular aspect was implemented, but not why it was done in the first place. The 2019 design solves the restrictions of its previous one-size-fits-all architecture and makes customization a feature instead of an afterthought. Like other Apple products that came before it, the new Mac Pro has raised the bar for a new trend in product design: modularity.

Why does modularity matter?

In one word: diversity. Today's professionals span a huge range of skills and specializations which are constantly evolving. Just look at the last decade where there's been a surge of entirely new industries like real-time 3D rendering, virtual production in film, or scientific simulation. These industries have introduced new and unique workflows, which pose a moving target for workstation design.

Presenting the new Mac Pro on stage, Ternus said "in designing this product, we wanted to build an architecture that can meet the incredible diversity of pro needs." A year prior, he and other Apple execs shared that its product development was being driven by the many different workflows of its professional users. The end result is what Ternus called "the most configurable Mac ever".

Historically, product designers had to make tradeoffs: either design a product that is highly specialized but for a small group of users, or design a solution for the mass market but exclude users that deviate from the common denominator. Modular products are flexible enough to fit both. But of course, supporting a modular design comes at a cost. There's a lot more design complexity, more testing, and planning for future compatibility. In the case of computers, electrical connectors can be surprisingly challenging to design reliably despite being overlooked by users.

However, these costs are worth it if modularity enables product designers to achieve both the depth and breadth of a product's utility. A modular design meets the evolving needs and diversity of many different individuals in industries that are becoming vast, varied, and complex.

Software's workflow-centric approach

To date, building products for a large variety of individuals has been most easily done in software, where developers can create multiple flavors of products tailored to a very specific workflow. This behavioral understanding is the core of modern software UX design. The emergence of Adobe Lightroom out of Photoshop is just one example; the former conceived around a photographers' tasks in managing and converting thousands of RAW images.

Why now?

Hidden from the public for decades, Apple actually had a modular Macintosh prototyped in 1985. It was codenamed "Jonathan" and led by Joseph Friedman and John Fitch at Apple. Frog's Hartmut Esslinger led its design as he did for other products from that era. The Jonathan Modular Macintosh was made of black plastic, had a 13" CRT monitor, and a lineup of modules that sat like books on a shelf. Different configurations could be made by stacking multiple modules together.

In an internal slide deck to Apple's execs, Esslinger writes "Modules = the concept of the future for PCs and MICROs". Apparently the concept was not well received and the project was eventually killed by then-CEO John Sculley. Maybe Esslinger was 30 years early but that future is now here.

Apple wasn't the only one to try a modular computer. Prior to Apple's prototype, Convergent Technologies had a similar-looking design in the mid 80s, as do the more recent ones like Razer's Project Christine, the HP Slice, or Acer Revo Build. Sure, PCs always had the ability to be modded; research compatible parts, find a screwdriver to unscrew the case and install an aftermarket component. If customization is common and inevitable then it's irresponsible design practice to make the user figure it out themselves. What's changed now is that customization is being considered within the product design scope.

Toward a workflow-centric world

Leading up to the new Mac Pro's launch, Ternus had been managing a new group at Apple: the Pro Workflow Team. It was created to collaborate with industry professionals, like the film composer who scored Solo: A Star Wars Story. Evidently, this workflow-centric approach is what shifted the focus at Apple towards its new approach to hardware design and engineering: modularity and flexibility.

With Apple applying this process to its most high-end Mac, it brings workflow-centric products to the spotlight. As new ways of working constantly emerge, and new software is made to meet this explosion of variety, modularity will inevitably extend into modern hardware products. 2019 will finally be the year it all comes together.

[Prototype photos: Keep it Simple: The Early Design Year of Apple. Hartmut Esslinger. Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart, Germany. Copyright 2013.]

[Apple product and presentation photos: apple.com]

The ultimate all-encompassing role for the ultimate kid at heart! PlayPower, a leading manufacturer of playground and recreation equipment, located in Lewisburg, PA, is seeking a play designer to join their Global Innovation Team. Through drawing, model building, and the creation of presentation materials, the industrial designer will be responsible for assisting the team in developing outdoor play ideas from sketch to finished product. Communication skills are also key for this role, as as the

See the full job details or check out all design jobs at Coroflot.

"I hate camping," says Krystal Persaud, "like, a lot."

When she shares prototypes of her solar-powered phone charger for feedback, she often gets suggestions—often from men—to make it portable enough to throw in a backpack for camping. The former senior director of the product design team at littleBits isn't interested in that advice. "You might go camping once a year; you live in your apartment every day. And I don't want to hang some Velcro camouflage solar panel in my window," she says.

Soon, she won't have to. Today she's launching a Kickstarter campaign to manufacture the Grouphug Window Solar Charger. Instead of creating a solar-powered phone charger for rugged outdoorsmen, she's designed one for stylish apartment dwellers. She hopes it can be a "Trojan horse" to help normalize environmentally friendly choices for consumers who might not have thought of themselves as eco-conscious before—and that the daily recharge will inspire her backers to take bigger steps toward environmentalism.

The Grouphug Window Solar Charger aims to add some environmentalism to daily routines.

From littleBits intern to employee three to design director

After graduating from Georgia Tech's industrial design program, Persaud had trouble finding a job. "I had this intense philosophy about designing sustainable products that should be educational. I couldn't imagine working anywhere where I would have to change my philosophy." Eventually, she connected with Ayah Bdeir, the CEO of littleBits, who was just starting to build out a team for her open-source electronic toy company.

Persaud joined on a six-month design internship. She ended up staying for more than six years, rising through the ranks as a product manager and product designer before becoming the senior director of product design and strategy, running weekly user testing workshops and launching big products with Disney and Lucasfilm and Marvel.

Persaud gained a huge appreciation for user testing at littleBits. "As the director, it was hard for me to answer a lot of questions about what a child would want—I'm not an eight-year-old, so what I like doesn't matter." Her team brought in representative groups of kids to test out the toys and gain insights directly from them. Their responses—good and bad—helped shape the products. "Kids would cry," she says. "Imagine if we didn't do that, and we shipped hundreds of thousands of those [test sets] out."

Try this at home

Persaud knew she wanted to start her own company one day, but it was hard to leave littleBits. And she knew she wanted to create an environmentally friendly product, but she wasn't sure what. She quit her job and started spending a lot of time tinkering with green tech, applying the same human-first approach that she'd honed at littleBits.

"I asked people about sustainable habits, and what they would be interested in doing. Composting and gardening came up a lot, but solar did too, often as a question, like, 'I know that I should go solar, but I don't own a house. How would I possibly do that?' I thought that was interesting. You only don't know how to do it because there's not a solution for you, but there easily could be."

Or, at least, she thought it would be easy. She soon came up against the complexities of solar energy. "The first five panels I made shattered—if you drop the thin silicon wafers like an inch, they break. And I started off with a six-watt panel, which is not enough for phones. My battery was wrong; it was taking too long to charge, and it couldn't fully charge my phone.

"I also started talking to people who work at solar panel companies, asking them really basic questions like, 'Why are solar panels rectangles? Why are they blue? Why are they always big? Can solar panels be in fun shapes?' And they were like, 'They can, but why would you do that?' I learned it was just about manufacturing efficiency and costs. When the engineer said that you could have a solar panel in any shape and no one was doing that, it felt huge."

She learned that she could make shapes that are more whimsical—and created a custom cat-shaped solar panel for an exhibition at the New York Hall of Science. She learned that monocrystalline cells from a company called SunPower are more durable, energy-efficient, and long-lasting than the cheaper polycrystalline cells she had been shattering before. "They developed a patented system that layers in a copper netting that goes on the back so that they literally can't break," she says. "They would bend a little, but would still work."

Her final product uses those panels—rated to last 25 years and with best-in-market efficiency of 22 percent—and takes 10 hours of direct sunlight to gather enough energy to charge a phone. Because the panels are so long-lasting, Persaud worked on a modular design that could be repaired every few years when the battery needs a refresh.

Rethinking green branding

"I think if you saw me on the street, you wouldn't assume that I was an 'eco person,'" Persaud says. "I am, but I also value convenience and fashion and home decor. I'm not willing to compromise on those things to be sustainable, as awful as that sounds. And I think a lot of people are like that."

As she's prepared for the release of her solar chargers, she's been thinking about challenging the aesthetics typically tied to environmentalism as a way of reaching a wider audience.

"Historically, designers have thought that consumers need to see, like, a leaf in your logo, the product needs to be green, the whole thing needs to look recycled," she says. "I think it really limits the adoption rate and popularity of products, because it's this clunky aesthetic that not everyone is interested in. It's not a good way to break out of the niche."

She identifies more with brands like Everlane and Allbirds, "which are doing sustainable things that look like mainstream, beautiful designer goods. I want to basically do a Trojan horse eco-product that you want no matter what, and it just happens to be good for the environment.

"I'm tired of the SkyMall look," she adds. "A lot of the reason why I think that this has been such an untapped area is because a similar demographic of people—guys—have been designing solar panels, and these companies are obviously not talking to people."

Her approach is more playful. She developed a "suncatcher" model with plastic prisms that spray rainbows into a room, thinking it would be Instagram-friendly, but found the effect was too inconsistent from window to window. She tested out a variety of styles and landed on a bamboo frame that testers liked because it fit in best with many styles of home decor; she started selling prototypes last holiday season to validate the market for it.

"You don't have to overturn capitalism to be sustainable," she says. "Just fuel it with environmental stuff that people want."

The Grouphug Window Solar Charger is live on Kickstarter through July 10, 2019.

You may not expect to see the words New York City and butterfly sanctuary in the same sentence, but soon enough, a new office building in SoHo will do double-duty as a "breeding ground, waystation, and sanctuary" for the endangered monarch butterfly. Designed by architecture firm/think tank Terreform ONE, the building will feature a double-skin facade that essentially functions like a butterfly terrarium. While plans for the building itself are still in the approval process, a large-scale mock-up of the facade system is currently on view as part of the Cooper Hewitt's Design Triennial.

Image courtesy of Terreform ONE

Monarch butterflies are a "delicate presence" in the city, which is part of their migratory path. Habitat loss due to pesticides and urban development pose a significant existential risk to the species, which is currently being considered for endangered species status by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A recent study led by the nonprofit Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation estimated a 97 percent decline of monarchs overwintering in California compared to the 1980s.

The team at Terreform ONE, led by Mitchell Joachim, is exploring ways of using urban design as a solution for habitat loss. The double-skin facade encloses a climate-controlled space that's about three feet deep and spans the entire seven stories of the proposed building. This "vertical meadow," as the designers call it, "serves as an incubator and safe haven for Monarchs in all seasons." It contains milkweed vines and flowering plants to nourish the butterflies at each stage of their life cycle. Algae will help purify the air while solar panels on the roof provide renewable energy. The butterflies can come and go as they please throughout the building's skin system and roof. Butterfly-shaped drones will hover around the structure, taking readings and mappings of the microclimate and using that data to help maintain the health of the butterfly population.

Image courtesy of Terreform ONE

They teamed up with chemical company BASF—who spearheaded the Living Acres #MonarchChallenge and works with farmers and golf courses to protect the milkweed on their properties—to engineer a specially mixed concrete for the design that would lower the carbon footprint of the building and keep it lightweight.

A big focus of the project is just making the problem of the butterflies' precarity more visible to the public. There will be LED screens at street level with magnified live views of the caterpillars and butterflies inside the vertical meadow.

"The building is intended to serve as an object lesson in enhancing the urban environment with green technologies, including plant life and other creatures, in designing for other species, and in conveying images of new possibilities for the urban environment," the project description explains. "This project alone will not save the Monarch but it will crucially raise awareness about our much-loved insect residents."

We are very excited to announce the Core77 Design-Athlon, a series of skill-based challenges to keep our audience of designers and students sharp through the summer months.

Special guest-judges will work with Core77 staff to crown one winner and four runners-up per challenge, with points accumulating over the summer toward skill-based titles and an overall Design-Athlon Championship.

Each challenge and its results will be announced via the Core77 Instagram, with points totals being tracked on the Core77.com homepage.

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June: Sketching

Challenge S1: Announced Monday, June 10 – Deadline Friday, June 14

Challenge S2: Announced Monday, June 17 – Deadline Friday, June 21

Challenge S3: Announced Monday, June 24 - Deadline Friday, June 28

July: Prototyping

Challenge P1: Announced Monday, July 1 – Deadline Friday, July 12

Challenge P2: Announced Monday, July 15 – Deadline Friday, July 26

August: Rendering

Challenge R1: Announced Monday, August 5 – Deadline Friday, August 16

Challenge R2: Announced Monday, August 19 – Deadline Friday, August 30

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How to Enter and Rules

To Enter a Core77 Design-Athalon Challenge:

1. Follow us on Instagram

2. Explore the topic of the current design challenge and take a picture or screenshot of your best work

3. Post your picture to Instagram. Your post must tag us, @core77, and include the challenges general hashtag #c77challenge, as well as a more specific hashtag based on the type of challenge (#c77sketching, #c77prototyping or #c77rendering)

Rules

• Each separate challenge will end on its deadline date, and winners will be announced within three weeks. Overall winners will be announced within three weeks of the final challenge.

• Multiple entries are permitted in each challenge, but a participant can not have more than one winning entry per challenge.

• Winning entries will be selected by a panel of design professional(s) and Core77 staff based on skill, presentation and ideas. Winners will be awarded points per challenge, and at the end of the Design-Ahthlon, overall winners will be determined by simple addition of points earned within each of the three skills. Overall winners will need to have participated in at least one challenge per skill.

• The contest is hosted by Core77, and there are no eligibility restrictions.

• This contest is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram.

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Do you have what it takes to be crowned the Ultimate Designer? Good luck, and follow along!

Start here: @core77

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Title Photo by sergio souza on Unsplash