Just because you work from home doesn't mean you should be lying on the couch in your pj's til noon. Sure, it can also mean that—no judging—for some professions fuzzy slippers just don't count as proper work attire, whether you commute to an office or to your dining room table. In fact, the latest project from Synthesis Design + Architecture proves that even small home spaces can be snazzy, at least if you have $11,000. That's what it cost to turn a London investment advisor's home office, a modest 8' x 11' room, into a sleek, CNC-milled birch work space.

Images and Reporting by Barbara Eldredge

The Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show is a trade-only event and we were lucky enough to be able to attend and cover some of the newest design innovations from the category. Here's a quick photo tour of some of the trends, ideas and innovations from 2012 (and don't miss the timelapse of the show at the end!)

MEDIA DAY AT THE RANGE

The day before the SHOT Show opens its doors, Media Day at the Range provides a preview for that year's best new products while giving members of the press an opportunity to shoot and test the best new products for the season.

Charter Arms Chic Lady - Several smaller handguns were released onto the market this year including this little revolver made by Charter Arms. Marketed specifically towards women, the "Chic Lady" could easily be slipped into a purse. However, I found the double-action trigger pull to be a little difficult and the recoil more powerful than expected. I question how many casual gun users would train with it to the degree it would take to become comfortable wielding such a gun. Cuteness isn't everything.

Gatling Gun - An American invention, the Gatling Gun was the first successfully produced machine gun. It is a weapon that transformed the idea of automated mass production into automated mass killing. At the end of the 19th century, Gatlings were most often used to quell opposition to colonial expansion. This replica was brought to the SHOT Show by Colt as a promotional tool and was so popular they ran out of ammunition half way through the Media Day at the Range.

Graphic Gun Tattoo - The tattoos of this firearms company art director caught my eye.

Beretta Rifles - The middle firearm shown here has a rifle stock made of differently colored wood laminate that has been cut to emphasize contour. Its aesthetic is a long way from the stock of the military-esque injection-molded number on the front of the rack.

When hang-drying that favorite tee I can't afford to shrink anymore, I take a coat hanger and go in through the neckhole, doing that coat hanger version of a three-point turn. On a clumsy day I'll stretch the neck a bit, but manipulating the hanger by going in through the bottom of the wet, clammy shirt is even more irritating.

India-based industrial designer Jaineel Shah (a 3rd year student at DSK ISD International School of Design INDIA) has come up with the perfect solution with his Pinch hanger:

Reporting by Marc Thorpe. Images courtesy of Tokujin Yoshioka Studio.

Paris' semiannual design tradeshow honors the creative genius of designers across architectural interiors, furniture and product design through their design à vivre "Design of the Year" program. 2012's nominees the Campana Brothers, Hubert le Gall and Tokujin Yoshioka showcased their work through special installations at the fair.

We were particularly taken by Tokujin's exhibition of his Crystallized project, an ongoing meditation on the "relationship between [the] power of nature and human beings." Through his series, Tokujin attempts to create a new portrait of nature, manifested in crystalline structures. The exhibition debuted a new crystallized painting series grown by the vibration of music, "Rose," a video art piece, and "VENUS - Natural Crystal Chair" (2008).

Marc Thorpe explains that, "the most interesting aspect of [Tokujin's] exhibit is his understanding of time. The work is evolving and changing. It's never the same exhibit in detail. The objects created are not his design by physical hand, but our design by perception."

Tokujin Yoshioka adjusting his Crystallized project. Image by Marc Thorpe

Crystalized "Rose" and video "Rose" in background

Crystal Painting

Venus Chair

How do you make people with no interest in design become aware of design in the first place? One approach taken by creative studio Perfect Fools is their Kauko Cafe pop-up installation for Helsinki, part of the World Design Capital 2012 list of events. The two-pronged concept behind the cafe is 1) to add a measure of user agency by enabling them to alter the heights of various surfaces, and 2) to populate the cafe with bad design, like sugar shakers and napkin holders that are intended to work poorly, as you'll see below:

I'm not crazy about the second part of the approach, drawing attention to design by making it annoying; I've never been a fan of, say, those uncomfortably-designed chairs that "force the user to recontextualize the concept of seating," et cetera. But I suppose there's no arguing with the efficacy. What do you think of the approach, and/or how would you have done it differently?

Now in its third season, the arrival of the most recent Converse Loves Marimekko collaboration feels like the first signs of spring. We love seeing the bright and whimsical Finnish prints adorning the canvas of iconic Converse silhouettes.

The latest Converse Loves Marimekko collection features five signature Marimekko prints including Poppy in Navy and Yellow. The iconic Chuck Taylor All Star shoe is featured in the popular Unikko (meaning "poppy") and Lokki (meaning "seagull") prints design by Maija Isola and the Kameka print designed by Annika Rimala. The Jack Purcell Helen gets a boost of color in the Muija (meaning "woman"), Lokki (meaning "seagull"), and Appelsiini (meaning "orange") prints also designed by Maija Isola. See the collection after the jump!

One year ago Corning, the upstate-New-York-based glass manufacturer, released a concept video called "A Day of Glass." The five-and-a-half-minute spot featured Microsoft-like depictions of a family living in a world where interface designers appear to have solved more problems than we knew we had, and the vision resounded with viewers (to the tune of 17.5 million YouTube hits and counting).

Now Corning's at it again with "A Day of Glass 2," below. Released almost exactly one year after the first vid, it continues to depict Corning's vision of "how highly engineered glass, with companion technologies, will help shape our world." Be sure to check out the medical stuff that starts happening around 4:03--how could would it be if you could do that with cross-sections of particularly troublesome parts of your product design?

While the cynics among us can't help but project the infrastructure and behind-the-scenes design required to make all of this stuff work--"Ah, I guess there's a server in the closet," "So that little rectangle is cloud-enabled," et cetera--it seems even tighter than the Microsoft vids.

Corning has also released a sort of "For Dummies" version of the vid where an on-screen narrator cuts in to explain the fanciful technologies that the characters are interacting with. Hit the jump to check it out.

Even though Renzo Piano's design for the new Whitney Museum in downtown New York City was unveiled in 2008, this is the first time we've been treated to a flying tour of the space. When it's completed in 2015, the Whitney's new location on Gansevoort Street at the southern entrance of the High Line will be the museum's fourth home. The first was in Greenwich Village when sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney opened the museum in 1931. In 1954 it moved to Midtown, a space it easily outgrew, and then, just a decade later it moved to the Marcel Breuer-designed space, where it still stands, on the Upper East Side.

Now the Whitney's permanent collection of over 19,000 works requires an even larger space. Their new video sweeps through Piano's 200,000-square foot museum that includes 13,000-square-feet for outdoor exhibitions as well as an 18,000-square-foot temporary gallery, "the largest column-free museum gallery in New York City." With the ever expanding High Line, the Whitney and all the smaller businesses that are sure to follow, Chelsea and the Meatpacking District can no longer be called an industrial wasteland, but a bustling cultural center. Watch the tour after the jump:

It's Friday and we are so ready to do some PLAYing over the weekend. To get you inspired, we've got this round's winners for the Core77 and Braun Design in the Wild photo challenge. Readers from around the world submitted every day objects of PLAY ranging from nostalgic toys from childhood to whimsical found landscapes. We loved that some PLAY-things are iconic no matter where you're from: ropes for tug-of-war, boardgames, legos and rubik's cubes. But most importantly, we recognized the joy and delight in everyday objects for play.

JURY WINNER
Let's Play a Tune!
Paul Bennett, United States
This is the Floyd-Rose style floating bridge on my Guitar. I love to play surf music and the floating bridge makes it a snap. Sometimes adjustments can be tricky but it is worth it in the end. The colored balls are the strings, each size string has a different color to help prevent them from getting mixed up during restring operations.

POPULAR WINNER
2,000 filaments
Jennifer DiMase, United States

The Koosh ball has always been a favorite toy of mine. Colorful, soft, tossable, lively. It's a delightfully simple concept: a ball composed of 2,000 natural rubber filaments.

RKS, the California-based design consultancy, has recently launched their "Design in USA" brand certification mark to help, "enhance and broaden the 'Made In' labeling."

There is no doubt that American design is currently experiencing a renaissance of sorts—"From Apple to Zipcar, creative design is at the heart of entrepreneurial success in the USA," explains Bill Moggridge, Director, Smithsonian/Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. As Ravi K. Sawhney, CEO of RKS explains, "Better branding our design community is one simple but powerful step to make our voice and value better known. I hope the creation and use of this brand will be a catalyst for a broader emergence of recognition, pride and optimism for the incredible things designers are creating every day in America because of our diversity, ingenuity and spirit."

In a time when the strength and value of American manufacturing has come to the forefront of public discussion, it is a curious move to shift the focus to the more opaque conversation of a product being designed in the United States. What are your thoughts for the brand certification? Do you have plans to use it for future products?

There's an exciting new material on the block, and it's showing up in...luggage. Baggage manufacturer Tumi is now using Tegris, a polypropylene thermoplastic composite developed by textile and chemical giant Milliken, and is rolling it out in their new Tegra-Lite collection, starting with a carry-on.

So what is Tegris, and why is it better than, say, the polycarbonate used in Pelican cases? Here are the talking points we think will be of interest to product designers:

Photography by Cemal Okten for Core77

Now in it's fifth year, the London Design Museum's Designs of the Year exhibition presents a snapshot of industry heavyweights across seven categories including: Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Product Design, and Transport. The show features 89 nominations, the winner for each category and overall winner for 2012 will be announced later this year in April.

We're pleased to see Massoud Hassani's Mine Kafon included in the Product Design category. It sits along side nominations such as; The Learning Thermostat by Nest, Jawbone JAMBOX by Yves Béhar, TMA-1 Headphones by KIBiSi, the Invisible Cycle Helmet by Hövding, the Carbon Black wheelchair by I Imagine, and not so surprisingly The London 2012 Olympic Torch by Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby.

There's some interesting statistics posted over at It's Nice That breaking down the type of entries that were nominated, "In the last five years, exactly one third of the nominations for Designs of the Year have been self-initiated, which is a sobering/inspiring thought depending on which way you choose to look at it".

Checkout our gallery for highlights from all the categories, and definitely make an effort to visit the museum's top floor if you find yourself in London before July.

» View Gallery

Designs of the Year 2012
February 8 - July 15, 2012
Design Museum
Shad Thames
London

"Non ti preoccupare, Bruno. Ho comprato una Bike Valet."

While the urge to build a better mousetrap can spring from a variety of factors, it was a particularly ugly type of mouse that motivated Steven Tiller: theft. Product designer and cyclist Tiller lives in Sacramento, which despite its relatively small size—just 2.5 million bodies—suffers from the Bicycle Emancipation Syndrome common to most urban areas. "If we happen to be dense enough to leave our bikes outside they wouldn't last more than a few days, even with the priciest lock around," writes Tiller. "[My wife and I] lost a beautiful, vintage, hand-made Kleine in just such a way a couple years ago. So [now] we bring our bikes inside."

Tiller designed the wall-mounted Bike Valet, a laser-cut, hand-bent and powder-coated frame that supports a bicycle and offers hooks to hang helmets, bags or other gear.

While every cell phone manufacturer in the world seems to be chasing the iPhone, it's nice to see Chinese company TecFace doing their own thing. And that thing is making originally-designed cell phones that you can beat the crap out of.

Their J2 model, which TecFace has amusingly named "Geek," is the second in their line of ruggedized phones that will stand up to temperature extremes, sharp impacts and even being submerged. Each phone reportedly spends 20 minutes underwater before leaving the factory.

Sr. Industrial Designer
Caterpillar Inc.
Peoria, Illinois

Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of earth moving equipment, has an immediate opening in their growing Industrial Design department for a highly creative, talented and self-motivated designer with 5-10 years experience. They are looking for a designer with exceptional design, sketching, electronic modeling, and presentation skills and who is articulate, customer focused and has extensive materials and processes knowledge in metals and plastics!

» view

The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

Last week saw the first annual Munich Creative Business Week, the latest in the year-round cycle of global design events. Neverthless, Bayern Design, which organized the event, hoped to differentiate MCBW from, say, IMM Cologne of just a few weeks prior: Executive Director Silke Claus noted that the event team at made a conscious decision to include the word "business" in the name to draw a contrast to the ever-increasing number of design 'festivals' and 'fairs'—not necessarily in terms of commercial appeal but looking towards the future of creative industries.

Bayern Design Executive Director Silke Claus

[MCBW] keeps the realities of society and the economy in mind, taking up the challenge of offering holistic, relevant solutions that take into account our planet's future, promoting contextual discourse about design topics and concepts... [Thus, MCBW] draws attention to the fundamental importance of the culture of design in our living and workign environments and facilitates the formulation of new perspectives for the business sector.

Indeed, the events and exhibitions—nearly 100 in all—benefited from high production value throughout, while the programming itself was thoughtful and thought-provoking. In fact, the relatively small scale of the event meant that it was manageable despite temperatures that hovered around 12°C and persistent flurries.

Looking towards the City Center from the Oscar von Miller Forum

We took a whirlwind tour of a couple exhibitions, as well as the iF Design Awards Night (more on that to come). "MCBW Moments - Thinking Spaces for Design" was notable not only for the exhibits themselves but the interior architecture of the brand new Museum for Egyptian Art—the tour guide noted that the space was still far too humid to install the artifacts that will eventually go on display—a massive subterranean exhibition space in the museum district.

The "Mercury" pendant lamp by Raumfieber was inspired by NASA's "Friendship 7" space capsule

A few months ago, we invited Core77 readers to weigh-in on frog's internal design competition, frog Future or Fiction. In the inaugural edition of Future or Fiction, the design firm called on their pool of 1600 people spread across 10 studios and 15 locations around the globe to find innovative ways and unexpected solutions for rethinking how wind power could be harnessed through leveraging existing infrastructure or incorporating it into new infrastructure. The Core77 reader favorite, a portable wind turbine, was created for outdoor activity and can be easily transported and used to power electronics in remote locations.

Concept

Now after having a designer and engineer take a closer look at the idea, frog shares their rough prototype for the Revolver—a small, portable, consumer-grade wind turbine for charging mobile devices and other personal electronics when you're off the grid.

Transported in a discreet tube, Revolver is easily set up. It can generate up to 35 watts of power from just a pleasant breeze—enough to keep a laptop charged, light up a lantern, or recharge a phone, camera, and other mobile devices—simultaneously.

Watch the prototype in action after the jump and see more information about the Revolver setup and construction. Any feedback? Would you use the Revolver on a remote expedition?

Sign of the times: A multi-tool is a handy thing to have on a camping trip, particularly with tools for opening cans, removing bottlecaps, and cutting or manipulating materials. Manufacturer Gerber has also recognized that a crucial part of the experience, at least among today's younger set, will be recording the weekend goings-on for Monday morning upload to Facebook.

Our friends at go-to maker site Instructables are pleased to announce the "Make It Real" Challenge. The brief is as straightforward as it gets:

To enter, post an Instructable that shows how to turn a virtual item into a tangible object. Examples include: 3D printed objects, laser-cut files, and even printed decals using an inkjet printer. So long as something in your project was designed using a computer and turned into a physical object, you are eligible to enter.

Enter by the April 30, 2012, deadline for a chance to win the grand prize, an Objet30 Desktop 3D Printer and six months' worth of 3D printing supplies (a $50,000 value) or one of the ten first prize packages that include an Up! 3D printer. Additionally, entrants who cross-posts their entry in Autodesk's 123D Gallery will have a chance to win a the 123D Judges' Prize.

In case you missed it, be sure to check out our video interview of Instructable's Artist-in-Residence Oliver Kreitman for inspiration!

Following our post on the Tegris material, reader Niels has asked if a material trademarked as Pure, produced by Dutch textiles manufacturer The Royal Lankhorst Euronete Group and pictured here, is essentially the same stuff with different trademarking.