NOBULL is currently seeking an associate footwear designer to join their growing product design team. This individual will be responsible for collaborating and creating unique, on-brand footwear to meet NOBULL’s growing product range. If you have a passion for creating original and high-quality footwear in an innovative work environment, NOBULL could be the right place for you!

CRAVT consists of four products that all support the concept of bringing back appreciation and value to the art of music and making it appealing to new generations. All items combined, CRAVT provides the user with an ultimate valuable and high-quality experience. To achieve a digital detox, the main items (Album, Speaker, and Remote) need to offer an analog feeling to retain the ritual experience of listening to an LP and require no additional device like a smartphone or tablet.

Digital fabrication, machining, woodworking, bicycle making, welding and sewing: All skills wielded by California-based Amy Qian, a one-woman fabrication shop.

I randomly came across her blog, specifically this shot of a bicycle frame-building jig:

She made it to repair her bicycle, which was run over by a car (without her on it); the frame was destroyed but the components were fine, so she fabricated a new frame out of bamboo.

Then I saw this salt shaker she whipped together out of Delrin, polycarbonate and a brass fitting:

Next, a step-by-step tutorial on how to repair a DeWalt planer using a sprocket from an old bike rear derailleur:

On her Instagram I found a bunch of functional mechanisms that she made with a lasercutter and Delrin:

She's put together a sample board featuring a variety of these flexures for demonstrations:

Check out more of Qian's projects on her site, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram.

If you've ever attended a country fair, you'll see that a popular but kitschy gift is a cutting board in the shape of your state. And while they're technically 3D objects, cutting boards are flat, so they're actually just 2D representations.

Pittsburgh-based Noah Lorang, an ex-data-analyst with a degree in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, has upped the cartography game. Lorang produces and sells incredibly detailed topographic representations of American states. You can't slice salami on them, but they sure do give you a more accurate sense of what your state looks like. For example, here's an outline of California:

Here's California with its topography faithfully represented by Lorang:

It's interesting to see how California's 400-mile-long Central Valley dominates the state.

Similarly, New York state is so closely associated with its namesake city, that it's easy to forget that most of it is mountainous:

Lorang's Elevated Woodworking business sells his maps in sizes ranging from refrigerator magnet to large wall hanging. In addition to the individual U.S. states, he also produces the full continental U.S., 50-state maps and every country on Earth. And if you'd like to play cartographer yourself, Lorang's got a tool on his website that lets you choose any area from a world map and zoom in or out on it to design a custom map that he can build.

If you get your order in by the 13th of this month, it'll arrive by the 25th.

You can see some of Lorang's production process on his Instagram.

It's admittedly a low form of stress, but we've all stood at a crowded luggage carousel and watched in dismay as our bag approached--partially covered by someone else's bag, like one was trying to pin the other. With people jammed in on either side of you, you'll have a brief second to try to work your bag free and yank it off of the conveyor.

That's at JFK, anyway. Around the world, more enlightened airports in London, Munich, Nashville and in this case Singapore, have borrowed a trick from the world of automatic materials handling. There's no bag-banging in Changi:

Seeing this reminds me that I'd be fine with low-speed all-autonomous city driving in stop-and-go traffic. It's the high-speed stuff that makes me nervous.

Back when I was taking long-haul flights more frequently, I always felt bad for those clowns you'd see at the gate clutching their bulky foam horseshoe neck pillows. Because I had an inflatable one I'd purchased in Japan, and that thing was not only a lifesaver, but took up next to no space in transit.

I was interested to see that a company called Aros produced something called the Sleep Hoodie a few years ago. As you've probably guessed, they added a self-inflatable series of membranes to line the inside of the hood:

Aros' Sleep Hoodie

However, this design still lets your head loll around:

Aros' Sleep Hoodie

I find that leads to me waking up with neck pain, so Aros' product wouldn't be right for me. However, I now see there's a competing design up on Kickstarter, called the Pillowdy:

The Pillowdy

This design looks better to me. Once you get used to sleeping in an airplane seat with a horseshoe-style pillow, nothing else will do.

The Pillowdy has been successfully Kickstarted, and there's still three days left to pledge if this is your thing.

I still think the inflatable neck pillow is the best choice, as it's not tied to a particular clothing item. I looked on Amazon to find an example like the one I have, but don't see anything that's quite the same (I think mine was Japan-market only). But having used it for years, I'd say go for one with a cloth cover that's removable, washable and breathable. Best 2,000 Yen (20 bucks) I ever spent.

It's rare that we see designers invent an entirely new form of personal transportation, with most new scooters, say, being variations on an existing theme. (Hoverboards were an admittedly fresh design, but they have the unfortunate tendency to burst into flames.) The Ireland-based design team behind the YX One, however, has combined design elements harvested from an unlikely mash-up of three activities: Skateboarding, rodeo riding and windsurfing.

The YX One borrows the stand-sideways position of skateboarding, the one-hand-to-hold, one-hand-to-balance practice of rodeo riding, and the lean-and-pull-to-turn method from windsurfing. Then they added off-road tires in a reverse-trike configuration, and here's the result:

Some of the thinking that led to the form:

Why the YX One uses a connected control handle:

When the rider is turning, at speed over a certain "G"-force, body weight on the board alone is insufficient. Greaterdownward force is needed to make the board tilt and turn ina more precise and controlled manner.

When the rider 'pulls' on the handle, much like wind surfing, it 'forces' his or her weight down towards the board, instead of the rider out toward ground!

Rider balance: much like a rodeo, the rider uses one arm to stay on board and the other to provide balance and stability at speed.

Jumping: especially landing, you need to be sure the board is staying with you, with the connected control handle, the rider and the board stay as one.

Disk Brake: The powerful disk brake is a unique feature of the YX ONE. Disk braking works most effectively when directly connected, Bluetooth connections are prone to problems, that put riders at risk.

Manoeuvrability: when not riding, the connected control handle allows you to easily manoeuvre the board, in urban or tight spaces, making it easier to rotate, pivot or lift it, or just to walk it alongside you, like a dog on a lead!

If I was a younger man and/or didn't need to carry tools, I'd seriously consider one of these for zipping around on our farm. The YX One has got a lighter footprint than an ATV or side-by-side, and it's a fraction of the price. Sadly, without any way to safely carry a chainsaw or whatever else on it, it's out of range for me. But if you're keen on one, it's been successfully funded on IndieGogo, and there's still 19 days left to pledge.

Design-friendly products that will make anyone who isn't gifted them go green with envy.

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To promote their epically expensive iPhone 11 Pro, Apple hired direct and stunt coordinator David Leitch to film an epic action short with it. Leitch--director of Deadpool 2, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, and co-director of John Wick--knows the Hollywood formula for action sequences well, and was able to make snowballs at least as compelling as kung fu weapons:

And of course, the behind-the-scenes:

I'm not sure if this says more about formulaic action setpieces or the iPhone, but it was fun to watch.

A team of engineers at Stanford University is working on a "2.5D" display system to make 3D modeling and printing more accessible for visually-impaired and blind users. The project aims to increase access to making by providing a touchable system for evaluating works-in-progress. Like a pin art toy, the display forms shapes from a field of pegs that move up and down to create real-time representations of forms created in an accompanying 3D modeling software.

"Design tools empower users to create and contribute to society but, with every design choice, they also limit who can and cannot participate," said Alexa Siu, a PhD student at Stanford who developed the system, in a press release. "This project is about empowering a blind user to be able to design and create independently without relying on sighted mediators because that reduces creativity, agency, and availability."

"It opens up the possibility of blind people being, not just consumers of the benefits of fabrication technology, but agents in it, creating our own tools from 3D modeling environments that we would want or need – and having some hope of doing it in a timely manner," added Joshua Miele, a blind scientist, designer, and educator who helped develop the system.

The team sought input from the blind community throughout the research and design process. "We used a participatory design process to co-design an accessible 3D modeling workflow," Siu explained over email. "This allowed us to understand what interactions helped support a non-visual understanding of 3D geometry for both exploration and ideation. With these insights, we kept refining and iterating before conducting a formal evaluation with blind and low-vision users who used the prototype to ideate and 3D model a variety of new objects from scratch."

"What really is so awesome is that I can view various perspectives of the object and not just the object in its single state," said Son Kim, an assistive technology specialist for the Vista Center for the Blind. "That offers greater dimension to understanding the object that you're attempting to make. And that's the same opportunity that a sighted peer would have, where they too would be able to view various perspectives of their target object."

Advances in tactile displays are promising, though many would say they are coming too slowly. The team has a well-developed working prototype but is working to improve the resolution of the display, which is currently incapable of capturing much detail. In parallel, one of Siu's colleagues, Kai Zhang, is working on a smaller-scale, more affordable model that uses smaller pins.

The team is also exploring ways of creating more feedback between the display and the software program, with one idea being to create a way for users to physically adjust the pins and having the computer model change to match.

After watching the behind-the-scenes for the David-Leitch-directed "Snowbrawl" action short, I scrubbed through it to get a better look at that camera rig. The iPhone 11 Pro Leitch is using is ensconced within this sort of cage:

Thank you, freeze-frame. I looked it up and learned that the BeastGrip Pro, as it's called, is the direct result of a Kickstarter campaign. In 2013 Chicago-based inventor Vadym Chalenko, armed with a 3D printer, pumped out the original BeastGrip:

He was seeking $25,000, and netted nearly $40,000. That was enough to help him get BeastGrip off the ground as a company. In 2015 he launched another Kickstarter, this time for his improved BeastGrip Pro, and this was an all-out smash. Seeking $50,000, they netted a whopping $265,897.

In 2017 Chalenko turned to Kickstarter again, designing this depth-of-field adapter with an anamorphic lens:

That one garnered a respectable $155,052 on an $80,000 goal.

Today BeastGrip the company is thriving, and still based in Illinois. The BeastGrip Pro used in the Apple commercial starts at $112, and you can check out their expanded product lineup here.

I'll make it quick: In their just-published book, User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play, Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant have written a contemporary treatise that is sure to become a foundational text. (And I'll make this simple: If you're looking for holiday gifts and you're a designer-type, buy ten of these, wrap 'em up, and figure out who gets 'em as you're walking out the door. Guaranteed satisfaction for all your employees, partners, clients, and students, this book would also be useful to anyone—or anyone's parents—who wonder what designers actually do.)

This is the second book I've read this year that plunges the reader into the water with a narrative thriller—in the case of User Friendly, the Three Mile Island disaster case study (the other was Susan Orlean's extraordinary The Library Book—with an arson mystery), and the disaster makes for an ideal introduction into the definition and argument of user-"un"friendliness. No convincing necessary; it's sometimes easier to define something through its absence.

There are syntheses in this book that are beyond-astute and likely to be quoted by designers and philosophers for years to come.

The authors then break down the topic into a thoughtful series of ten meticulously, and-kinda-brilliantly-named targeted chapters around the core—from Confusion and Metaphor through Empathy and Peril—each building upon the last with enough backstitching for comfort, but also adding new dividends on previous insights. (This is a nice relief from many popular business books that lay out the thesis in the first chapter and then just repeat it though case studies in every subsequent chapter).

The book ends with a front-row, design-practitioner reverse-overture—a kind of crash course in what designers actually do do—along with a greatest-hits chronology of how we got to 'user-friendly' in the first place. Both of these are terrific and useful, shining even more light on the subject.

User Friendly's got all the elements of a great design tome in ideal proportion—the historical grounding with appearances by the founding fathers (Henry Dreyfus, Bill Atkinson, Alan Cooper, Don Norman), as well as some founding mothers (Jane Fulton Suri, Doris Marks, Patty Moore). It's got lots of fascinating side trips, through characters like K.K. Barrett, (the production designer for Her, Lost in Translation, and Being John Malkovich—some of my faves), and Linden Tibbets, (founder of, also a fave, If This Then That, or IFTTT).

In addition to plenty of other roadside surprises, the book has its obligatory case studies. I liked the parallel lineup of Disney's "Magic Band" all-access bracelet, to Carnival Cruise Line's similar "Ocean Medallion," and then a sidestep over to Leslie Saholy Ossete and Onyango Omondi's ingenious "Magic Bus Ticketing"—a mobile phone platform that simultaneously ensures safety and eases congestion on buses and bus routes. These and other cases ring emotional bells at turns cautionary and inspiring, and the stories, mixed into the history and the arguments of the book overall, flow in a seamless stream—"with no edges between one place and the next" (to co-opt the authors' words around experience design in the Personalization chapter, albeit for the positive).

But the book's most user-friendly instantiation of all is its writing. I mean, wow. Ask my wife who overheard me constantly exclaiming out loud as I read, "My god, the writing! It's just, like, perfect writing!" (and I figure there's perfect editing in there as well, but my review copy didn't yet include the acknowledgments. Still, hats off to the editor of this book, wherever you are!) Every single sentence is distilled to its absolute essentials. Indeed, after a while, I found this so remarkable that I started to track back through just-read paragraphs—for fun—looking for any stray words, extra flourishes, missing elements, or knowing indulgences. Not a one. And again, this was only a review copy!

There are also syntheses in the book that are beyond astute and likely to be quoted by designers and philosophers for years to come: "Facebook doesn't spread information so much as it spreads affirmation." Or "the ease of readapting user-friendly patterns is the single biggest reason that design now dwells in so many places we wouldn't expect." Hell, here's a whole paragraph that I both highlighted and underlined:

"…it is easy enough for us to tell our phones what we like in micro-detail; whether we want our notifications on or off, whether we like this or that story on our feed. These interactions have been optimized to a fine point. And yet what we cannot tell our phone is what kind of overarching experience we'd like in our digital lives. It is bizarre that we accept this. If you were to go to a personal trainer, you wouldn't start by telling her how many biceps curls you'd like to be doing. You'd start with your goals; you might say something like "I just want to feel better and in a year I'd like to be toned and trim, not swollen." That's not how we interact with our phones, because our phones were founded on the metaphor that they are tools to be used for tasks that we've already defined. As a result, it can be impossible to set forth our broader goals—to be happier, or to be closer with the people we actually care about."

The single exception I take with the book is near its close: "It is Pollyannaish to think that design will solve the world's problems. But it is self-evident that the methods of design will play a role in helping us understand, accept, and then make use of whatever solutions we're able to create." I wouldn't pull this punch, but of course I work in education—and, well, cheerleading. Since I believe that climate crisis mitigation, peacemaking, and social justice will each depend on those fundamental design ingredients of value exchange, stakeholder analysis, empathy&humility, and systems thinking, I actually believe that design is the only hope we have of making it through the next few decades. Loud and proud.

But I know that Cliff Kuang is too conscientious a writer, and Robert Fabricant is too vigilant a practitioner, to over-promise. (And certainly, the media's overplaying of "design thinking" is bound to make anyone gun-shy at this design-historical moment.) Still, I look forward to the secondedition of this book—hopefully before the next ten years are up—where one new chapter might just be added at the end, following the current chapter titled Promise. That new final chapter's name? Fruition.

If you or anyone you know in America has had work done to their home, you've heard (or told) at least one story about an incompetent contractor. It seems every county in this country has people who should not be calling themselves carpenters. My proposed solution for people who are unable to build to code, is to start them off with less demanding forms of infrastructure. Specifically, Swiss cat ladders.

"Arcatecture - Swiss Cat Ladders" is a book by designer Brigitte Schuster, who documents and explains "these fantastic devices," which go way beyond simple ladders, found in the city of Bern.

"This lovingly designed book is aimed at people who are curious about ideas of culture and home, cat lovers and cat ladder designers.

"It shows simple wooden planks and scaffolding-like structures, spiral staircases and zig­zag structures.

"It serves for finding inspiration for personal projects and reflects a world in which cats and people approach each other on their own paths."

The 320-page book can be ordered, for worldwide delivery, here.

Fiction Kitchen was a Student Notable in the Visual Communication category of the 2019 Core77 Design Awards. The 2020 Core77 Design Awards will be launching in just over a month on January 7th! Stay tuned for more details.

Food is an experience, but for so many urban young professionals it's become a transaction—long hours, lack of experience cooking, and the accessibility of food-at-our-fingertips, as a result, have led to the creation of mail-order meal kits. Turns out, the kits may have been a fad: people have begun to recognize that buying their ingredients may be easier and more affordable to do separately (and can still be done online), and that the kit packaging is unappealingly waste-heavy.

However, the meal kit idea is still incredibly effective as a quick way to become familiar with interesting ingredients in meal form. And, specific to this demographic, it could instead be a more effective way of entertaining. One group of designers at ArtCenter College of Design realized it may make most sense to turn the whole food-meets-fun experience up a notch further for hosting, versus solo dining. The team conceived of Fiction Kitchen, a meal experience inspired by culinary moments in movies and on TV. Imagine, you get to eat the homemade version of your favorite film food moment! Now that makes for a good dinner party.

Because the gestalt power of food lies beyond just its ingredients, the communal emphasis of Fiction Kitchen's messaging, as well as its branding and packaging design, offers the project further longevity. Not only does the kit yield a home-cooked meal, it also creates an experience for long-lasting memories and builds community through shared palettes and shared cultural or artistic tastes.

One of Fiction Kitchen's most important distinguishing concept factors is its packaging: it's made from recyclable, food-grade paper materials including kraft paper and natural freeze paper. Its design also incorporates paper pulp, a 100% post-industrial raw material that produces zero wastewater and zero manufacturing waste.

With its mixture of food, film and fun, perhaps Fiction Kitchen as an idea could herald the new horizon for meal kits, and dining experiences in general. Let us remain unsurprised when, in the future, the arts and the culinary arts are fully entwined. Bon appétit, cinephiles!

Read more about the Fiction Kitchen meal kit on our Core77 Design Awards site of 2019 honorees

The 2020 Core77 Design Awards will be launching in just over a month on January 7th! Sign up for our newsletter on the Core77 homepage to stay up to date on awards deadlines.

DIY designer/fabricator Laura Kampf has made a habit of repurposing an unusual type of object into her personal workbenches. Here she reveals what it is: Stage elements, i.e. the modular support units that stages are made out of. The first reason for her choice is that the elements are height-adjustable:

Second reason, they're super sturdy. Third, they're relatively cheap if bought used.

They are, however, rather basic. Thus Kampf makes a series of clever modifications here to improve the workbench's UX:

When I saw the lamp hack alone, I nearly smacked myself in the head. I've got the same arrangement of dog holes in my bench, I've got a lamp like that sitting in a closet somewhere, and am always in want of having a light source exactly where I need it.

What should you do if your clothes catch on fire? "Stop, drop and roll" is the method drilled into American schoolchildren's heads.

But what about if your buddy's clothes catch on fire? As fun as it might be to blast them with a fire extinguisher, the Indonesian military favors this surprising method:

Unfortunately, this method requires the person on fire remain still, thus it would never work on me. If my clothes ever caught on fire, I'd be running around and flailing like I stumbled into a hornet's nest. If you ever see me ablaze you've got full permission to blast me with the extinguisher.

Creative Engineering is a product development company specializing in functional products. Our value to our customers is in figuring out a way to make a product do something new, or to solve a problem they can't figure out. This is a dream job for you if: • You love to invent novel elegant solutions to engineering problems • You are most proud of your simplest solutions • You often solve problems in an unexpected way, or by changing the problem • You enjoy prototyping and testing your ideas • N

Before he became a judge on "Shark Tank," Kevin O'Leary founded and ran an educational software company. When Mattel acquired it in 1999, O'Leary became a multimillionaire (current estimated net worth: Roughly $400 million).

Until a couple of years ago, he drove a Mercedes SUV, as plenty of millionaires do. When the lease ran out, he not only refused to upgrade, but ditched car ownership/leasing altogether. "You're thinking about buying a car. Let me give you a new idea: Don't," O'Leary told CNBC Make It.

Photo by Kaboompics .com from Pexels

"Cars cost a fortune in maintenance and insurance and just the amortization, which means as they go down in value, you're losing money," O'Leary explains. "Let's say I pay $25,000 for it. Two years later, it might be worth only 12 [thousand dollars]."

Photo by Mike from Pexels

Instead, O'Leary uses mass transit and ridesharing services.

Photo by JESHOOTS.com from Pexels

"You don't need a car. You're working in a city where you can either take the subway or basically use a shared service. Try both.

Photo by Alex Powell from Pexels

"I use my phone to call Uber or Lyft and they take me around the city. I save a fortune.

"Even if you use a car every day to get to work, it's still cheaper to use a shared ride service, because you can choose the level of luxury you want. You can share the ride with somebody else.

"But don't get stuck parking $25,000 into a car. I don't need it. Why should you?"

It's a little more complicated for my wife and I, living as we do in a rural area. Our farm is regularly circled by vultures and hawks, not Ubers and Lyfts. Her truck died a couple of months ago and now we're down to just my station wagon. This has led to some issues that I'll discuss in another post, but I thought you might like (or like to debate) O'Leary's points.

As someone who has not occupied a single apartment for more than 2 years in the last decade, I lament to say that I've never had a meaningful relationship with a piece of furniture. This may be an indictment of my own capriciousness, but it is likely not a unique condition for the university student, young professional, nomadic millennial, etc. Mobility appears to be the condition of many professionals today, which can lead to unsavory furnishing practices, namely the impulsive purchasing and disposing of products that are of low build and materials quality (had I dollar for every IKEA floor lamp I've seen amid New York trash heaps...). In consideration of ecological crisis, and an ill-devised recycling infrastructure, the relationship between an individual and the material of their living space is in desperate need of reexamination.

Loose Parts wants users to both consider the needs of their space, and to play with the material that fills their home. Loose Parts is a modular assemblage system that offers people furniture for the home that lives, grows, and changes, as they do. The product comes as both fully constructed furniture, as well as deconstructed parts of a self-assembly kit. The Loose Parts system avoids unnecessary material complexity by using only wood, recyclable aluminum. Yet its modular design invites the addition of found parts and objects. What is perhaps most compelling about the Loose Parts design is that it expects its users to be unique individuals. It doesn't seek to impose itself upon one's living space, but empowers the user to assemble it to fit their needs.

Asking how we assemble objects to fulfill our needs, is how Jennifer June, designer of Loose Parts, began to develop the system. In June's studies at Parsons School of Design in New York, the city itself invited her to consider ad hoc moments of design. "From the street vendor to the subway busker ordinary acts of re-purpose, appropriation and re-imagining call into question assumptions about how objects and space should be used." says June. Loose Parts provides a creative space between the user and the designed object, one that is rarely found in furniture design for the home. This fluidity of Loose Parts constructions can ease the process of seeking affordable yet well-designed furniture for the home.

This past week, Loose Parts hosted a workshop at their pop-up store in Manhattan, where people could come and build their one furniture using the Loose Parts and found objects.

This process can have a wide-reaching impact when one considers the material we cycle through to arrive at the perfect furnishings. The system's "Parts" are deliberately fashioned for flexibility in the living space. The wood rails are FSC-certified, are sourced from regional suppliers and come in 5 different lengths: 72, 30, 24, 18, and 12 inches. The lengths were determined by June's research of "historical furniture design, ergonomics and architectural norms," so that the user can get the most out of the material given to them, "better materials mean a longer life both of the product and natural resources of the environment." says June. It is with these durable and lasting materials that the parts can be constantly rearranged and reused.