This week saw the emergence of the first International UN Day of the Girl Child, which is intended to promote the empowerment of young girls around the world. One obvious way to do this is to encourage their access to education. Because of this, we thought it was only fitting to celebrate the development of a toy that is meant to promote the education of girls and more specifically, their learning in science and math.

Debbie Sterling was discouraged by the stereotypes that suggested that boys should play with Bob the Builder while girls were left to dress up Barbie. With 89% of male engineers in her program at Stanford, it was obvious that there was a gender gap in the field. But more notably, Sterling was aware that there was a significant gap in the formative space of play. Because of this, she was motivated to spend a year of research with over 100 children in order to develop GoldieBlox: a construction toy for girls.

Images by Noah Fecks

If you've seen a performance at The Public Theater in the last year and been ushered across the torn up lobby floor, tiptoed over rocky wooden boards lining hallways lit by emergency lights and coated in layers of construction dust, then you'll be as pleased as we were to walk into the newly plastered lobby, the scent of fresh paint still hanging in the air. The gallery-white walls are decorated only with the iconic blocky black type Paula Scher designed for The Public in 1994. The entrance and indeed most of the theatre's revitalization was designed by Ennead Architects (formerly Polshek Partnership), but if you find yourself in need of a reprieve from the blindingly bright white lobby and lounge areas, head upstairs to The Library, a welcomingly dark restaurant and bar with signature Rockwell Group touches—sexy, industrial, refined—that's truly a sight for sore eyes.

If the ceiling seems a bit low it's because this second story space was carved out of the 25-foot open ceiling in the lobby to "create a cozy, almost hidden space within the void." The Public's cast iron columns and steel beams were painted black and worked into the dining area, where guests sit on distressed leather chairs and button tufted banquets under a nine foot circular cast iron chandelier that, along with the other blackened steel and brushed bronze lighting, was custom made by Conant Metal and Lighting in Vermont. Antique metal work, white-washed cerused oak walls lined with vintage books and black and white photos from The Public's storied past create the mood that principal Shawn Sullivan and the Rockwell Group envisioned "as a secret corner one might discover at the New York Public Library."

I thought for sure this was a joke, but it appears to be real: A company called UD Replicas is selling a protective motorcycle suit modeled after a Star Wars Stormtrooper's armor. Made from leather molded in forms and some type of unspecified protective plating, "each rounded segment, every chiselled and bevelled edge perfectly replicates the look of the on-screen armor," the company claims.

Folks, I don't doubt that there's some overlap between the motorcycle-riding and Star-Wars-watching subcultures, but isn't this kind of asking for an ass-kicking? Maybe I've been watching too much Sons of Anarchy, but would you not be worried about a gang of thugs pushing each other out of the way in their haste to get to you, eager to win first boasting rights of "I beat the crap out of a Stormtrooper?"

The real rub is that the helmet isn't an actual motorcycle safety helmet. But I can't say what would be more dangerous—riding around with no helmet, or wearing this get-up to Sturgis.

Although 'zines have been a popular format for artists, writers and provocateurs since the '70s, in China, an independent arts press is a relatively new phenomenon. Welcoming visitors at The Factory in the Dashilar hutong design district was a collection of over 100 Chinese zines on display. The exhibition, PAPER INSTINCT, takes an interesting look at the bubbling DIY youth culture in China.

Art and literature chapbooks were displayed side-by-side with more polished lifestyle catalogs. I particularly liked the illustration and comic books, although the photography books have more cache in a multi-lingual context.

From Special Comix by Badger & Press. Click for full-sized Image.

Within this world of rapid prototyping and sleek renderings the notion of something being created to evoke deterioration, or a worn look, seems a bit nostalgic. Every product seems to be sporting a brushed aluminum surface or otherwise a sterile finish.

The case however for Sayan Chanda's project "Fabric Construction" would suggest otherwise against this new-old look. Unlike the trend of retro products that have been sprouting up, Chandra is replicating a natural process onto a different medium—akin to the rust and patina that a vintage car wears or wooden doors constantly exposed to the elements wither and peel.

That natural chemical reaction is reproduced and controlled to create the exposed and distressed fabric you see before you. A multitude of processes were used to create this effect, almost all involving acid and basic stitching techniques.

Using skills that he learned at India's National Institute of Design, Chanda's fabric designs mimic the wear of the paint and wood. The fabrics display the weave and at times highlight the flaws of the fabric. The idea of creating the inconsistencies in a product aligns itself to making a retro product. Both are tapping into the texture of time yet these textile designs wear with time just as the wooden doors have.

As a textile design major Chanda is always seeking ways to create something new from already existing materials as reflected in his other works.

Yohji Yamamoto in the Courtyard of the Design Museum Holon

Following our trip to Tel Aviv to cover Holon Design Week earlier this year, Design Museum Holon (DMH) mounted Yohji Yamamoto's first solo exhibition in Israel, a site-specific installation that was something of a ground breaker for the museum, which had never before turned itself over entirely to a single artist or designer. The stunning exhibition, which reflects all the ambition and energy of the museum's inimitable chief curator Galit Gaon, will be sent off in style this week during the Holon Fashion Week.

As all cultural events in Holon and Tel Aviv tend to revolve around the architecturally significant museum designed by Ron Arad in 2010, the theme of this year's Holon Fashion Week is, fittingly, "On Clothes and Cities," and will focus on Yamamoto's influence on contemporary Israeli culture as well as the relationship between "fashion, architecture and the modern urban challenge."

Diana Vreeland at Work

From October 15 - 20, DMH will host a pop-up shop, collaborative projects between architects and fashion designers, presentations by Rafael de Cardenas, architect and former fashion designer at Calvin Klein, Ippoliti Pestellini Laparelli, an associate at Rem Koolhaas' OMA in charge of their projects for Prada, Shala Monroque, fashion consultant for Miu Miu and Prada, and Corso Como's Carla Sozzani. Film screenings are scheduled for the well reviewed documentary Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, about the legendary fashion editor of Vogue and Harpers Bazaar and Versaille '73: An American Revolution, a documentary about the legendary 1973 event that pitted "the five lions of French couture Givenchy, Dior, Ungaro, Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Cardin with five American designers Halston, Oscar de la Renta, Anne Klein, Stephen Burrows and Bill Blass."

See the full schedule and list of speakers and follow the happenings on Facebook.

Senior Product Designer
NOOK by Barnes & Noble
Palo Alto, California

The Nook Digital Education team is seeking a Sr. Product Designer to join their growing design team to work on best-in-class, education products and applications. The Designer will produce pixel-perfect mockups in Photoshop, intuitive user interface interaction flows, and motion demos in After Effects or prototypes in Flash. This individual must have an extremely developed sense of design and attention to detail.

The ideal candidate has the talent to create elegant designs, the skills to participate throughout the product development process, and the passion to help us create innovative experiences for their users. This is a full-time, on-site position, located at our Palo Alto office reporting to the Director of User Experience.

As a designer, you've gotta love the Wild West period of a new technology, where everybody's still figuring out the form factor with brazen experimentation. Cell phones, particularly the ones out of Finland and Japan, were fun to look at in the '90s; those days are over now that most are content with aping a certain famous black rectangle.

Cell phone experimentation may be done for now, but a variety of companies are still casting about for form factors for the nascent technology of gesture control interfaces. Leap Motion's got a silver rectangle, the PredictGaze guys are going with what's already built into your device, and now Microsoft is advancing beyond the Kinect with this experimental wrist-mounted device called Digits. (It's clunky-looking now, but let's not forget that cell phones in the '80s came attached to briefcases.) Take a look at what it can do:

This past week, in a 10,000 square-foot salvage warehouse, DesignPhiladelphia hosted an evening of design exhibitions, fashion showcases, and outdoor revelry to kick off the eighth year of this nationally recognized design festival. This citywide festival features five days of non-stop design programming showcasing the work of over 400 designers and creative thinkers in more than 120 public events.

Set on the fringe of Philadelphia's Northern Liberties neighborhood at Provenance Architecturals, guests were treated to a cocktail party amid the many treasures one can find in an architectural salvage shop—Corinthian columns, retro globes, Victorian streetlamps, modern furniture and home decor, monumental church stained glass, slate slabs, stacks of reclaimed wood, 19th-century milling tools and more.

Unlike many design festivals around the world, DesignPhiladelphia aims to demystify design for the general public and make it experiential. They're focused on educating the public—beyond the professional design community—about the importance of good design, and the way design effects our daily lives. As Hilary Jay, Founding Director of DesignPhiladelphia, stated in her opening remarks Wednesday evening, they "envision a future where innovative design is strongly associated with Philadelphia's story, beyond the lore of soft pretzels, cheesesteaks, Rocky movies, and the Liberty Bell."

This is Esther, this is Gladys, and they will bust a cap in your ass

To see a series of interesting, completely random objects from the past, look no further than the Detroit News Archivist. This series of high-quality images taken from the late 1800s to the 1990s contains more black-and-white eye candy than you're likely to find on any website. It is presented completely randomly, with little in the way of curation, but that makes it more fun to browse through. Here are some pics/picks:

In the pre-CG 1960s, the only way to show the public how the inside of a car was constructed.

Who knew that the early municipal water supply was piped through hand-bored wooden logs?

A bookbinding machine from 1930.

We had a blast at Portland's inaugural Mini Maker Faire at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Like the bigger events in Detroit, the Bay Area and the coming world Maker Faire in NY, the Mini Maker Faire hosts an eclectic mix of makers, diy'ers, crafters, engineers, designers and essentially anyone else with something to show and tell.

Portland, OR's maker community runs deep and strong so despite the "mini" status there was maximum maker satisfaction. There was the expected gamut of 3D and laser printers madly pumping out bits and bobs hither and thither, other highlights included Fractal Copper tables, The Handlebar (a human powered mobile bar), dorkbot's Bee Hive enthusiasts and a magnificent trebuchet that hurled pumpkins and watermelons every half hour.

Hand-Eye Supply was out in full force with our brand new mobile bike hand painted by the talented illustrator and hand letterist Mary Kate McDevitt. While the bike tooled around MMF, the Hand-Eye Supply Curiosity Club set up an informational table with some artifacts from some of our past speakers: Blacksmith Lyle Poulin, Perfume Maker and Artist Julia Barbee, Stainless Steel Birdcage Fabricator Joe Diemer, Telmark Skier and Designer Mark Tieszen and Illustrator and Letterpress firm KeeganMeegan & Co.

Special thanks to Julia Barbee and Lyle Poulin for hanging out with us at the Curiosity Club booth, the OMSI team and all the makers who came out to make a fabulous inaugural Portland Mini-Maker Faire. We can't wait for next year!

Will Lolcama spreads the word about the Curiosity Club.

Simran Gleason's fractal copper coffee table is based off the Hilbert space-filling curve.

Simran demonstrates his braising techniques.

Portland's Alter Egos Society develops their own superheros and costumes to raise money for homeless youth.

GlassLab provides designers with rare access to explore concepts in glass. In public "design performances" or private workshops, designers and glassmakers collaborate, rapidly prototyping design concepts and using the immediacy of hot glass as a catalyst for innovation. Using a mobile hot glass studio, GlassLab sessions have taken place in public design venues like Design Miami/Art Basel Miami and Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, offering audiences a live, authentic glimpse of the design and glassmaking processes, while allowing designers to explore the material of glass in a way that few have access to. - Corning Museum of Glass

I live in North Kohala on the Big Island of Hawai'i. I grow food, I chase sunsets and I brew. When it came time to source bottles for my first batch of ginger beer, I went to the transfer station to intercept a few before they were hauled off for recycling. While chatting with the manager, I learned that shipping costs prohibit the bottles from leaving the island, and instead they're pulverized and sold as raw material. (There's rumor of a man laying a shiny road on the island, will keep you posted...) Hearing this while living in a community practicing permaculture and preservation, I was inspired to dust off an old idea.

In 2008 I had a moment of gin-spiration. I was at a gathering watching a group of architect friends attempt to redeem the collegiate party pastime of beer can stacking and I began thinking how much more interesting the game would be if the cans interlocked, if they were more like Legos. Shortly after, I came across the (loose) statistic that "every month [in America], we throw out enough glass bottles and jars to fill up a giant skyscraper." So when I was invited to participate in GlassLab at the Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG) I accepted without hesitation, eager to bring my bottle brick to life and build that skyscraper rather than fill it. The following is my process from concept to prototype.

Like many before, this process began on a napkin. The first study was a simple cartoon of a bottle and a Lego on a date. I thought if all goes well, this design will work itself out.

Imagined first date between a bottle and a toy.

It turned out that more action was required on my part, so in preparation for my GlassLab sessions I spoke with gaffer Eric Meek at CMOG. To best execute this design, we would need a mold. Our best material options for glassmaking molds included wood, plaster and graphite. I decided on a wood mold as this current design is conceptual and would deserve a more adept design before committing to the more expensive—but lasting—graphite mold. The ultimate goal for the bottle is to become ubiquitous and a readily upcyclable, viable building material, but at this stage I was interested in starting a conversation to garner the resources in order to move to the next step.

We decided on a three-part hardwood mold. Eric estimated the wood could withstand the 2,100 degree glass for roughly 6-8 castings. To produce the mold I turned to Tietz-Baccon, a design and digital fabrication studio in Long Island City, NY. After the initial conversation with T-B, I elaborated on the first-date sketch, snapped it with my phone and emailed it across the Pacific. Between a phone call, a quick sketch and a snapshot, this idea was coming to life.

Follow-up sketch sent to Tietz-Baccon

Mold sketch, CMOG

A mockup made from water bottles. Could plastic be an option for implementation?

A few days later I received the CAD renderings and technical drawings from Tietz-Baccon. We increased the scale of the bottle so that it would be easier to work with by hand out of a mold.

Technical drawing, Tietz-Baccon

Rendering 1, Tietz-Baccon

Rendering 2, Tietz-Baccon. Just like my napkin sketch. I don't see any difference...

We decided on a dense cherrywood for the mold because of its ability to withstand the heat of the molten glass without burning away too quickly. The job was cued up, and by the time I would arrive in New York City a few days later, it was complete. The CNC milling required 8 hours, with an additional 4 hours of finishing and construction. When I arrived to the T-B studio, I was greeted with a thing of true beauty:

The sacrificial lamb, closed.

Mold, open.

Man this is trippy. In the beautiful facility you see pictured above, Seattle-based artist Etsuko Ichikawa draws using molten glass and fire. It's one of those things where words doesn't do her process any justice, but luckily there's video of it:

Extract Daybed, Woolen Textiles from Bute

Recent Beijing transplant Henny van Nistelrooy presented a selection of his textile work at this year's Beijing Design Week. Exploring the intersection of craft and industry van Nistelrooy's work centers on the process of creating (and deconstructing) textiles. Although he studied Industrial Design, the Dutch designer found himself drawn to textile design—first learning on the hand loom and later working with an industrial weaving process.

Fabricate 1 Lampshade

On display is van Nistelrooy's screen and daybed he created with the Scottish textile brand Bute, as well as an interesting lamp shade that challenges the idea of mass-production. Using computer-generated design and industrial weaving, he created bolts of lamp shades that are then hand-assembled into pendant lighting.

The push and pull of the design poles of craft and industry continue to enchant designers young and old. This year's Beijing Design Week theme of "Craft" invited Chinese designers to delve into the cultural history of object design in the country while taking advantage of the manufacturing prowess of China today. Although we didn't see a wide-reaching rigor in the design practice on exhibit, it was great to get a glance into future possibilities for design in China.

I had to wrack my brain to remember "Rock-a-Stack," the name of the Fisher-Price toy some of us had as children. Designer Nathan Day's Rainbow Side Table recalls that object's classic form, but updates the base (and top) with classy Jarrah wood rather than plastic; the "donuts" are made from solid timber shop cut-offs, glossed up nicely with automotive paint.

Day is a bespoke furniture maker out of Yallingup, Western Australia, hence the access to Jarrah, the Aboriginal name for a species of Eucalyptus common to that region. For those who've never heard of it, it's an interesting wood, as the Fun Facts below will attest:

After working with elderly people in a Norwegian village, Birgitta Ralston and Alexandre Bau of Ralston & Bau, wanted to create an outdoor lighting system specifically for Nordic cities, which are situated close to nature and have long, dark nights during wintertime. It was also important to Ralston & Bau to design lighting that wouldn't interfere with "the amazing light of stars and aurora borealis," (otherwise known as the Nordic lights) so they came up with Shroom, a series of light fixtures that are fully lit only when needed.

At night the Shrooms maintain a 10% light output, but the when the built-in detection system senses a passerby, the lights smoothly transition to full luminosity, lighting up the path or bus station or park bench. "This is both energy saving and avoids unecessary light pollution."

Chief Designer
Volvo
Goteborg, Sweden

Volvo GTT Product Design in Gothenburg is looking for two Chief Designers for Volvo Construction Equipment. The Construction Product Design department is based in the design studio in Gothenburg, together with Volvo Trucks, Volvo Bus and Volvo Penta. Product Design operates in a multi-disciplinary and global environment, collaborating closely with other functions to create attractive, functional and cost effective solutions for our customers.

Alan Cooper, Jon Kolko and Joe Stewart in Conversation

Design Extravaganza, presented by AC4D (Austin Center for Design), packed twelve extraordinary speakers into two mind-expanding days. The intimate gathering was a refreshing change of pace from the more established and larger scale design conferences. While there were numerous interesting themes that emerged from the presentations, and lively discussions that followed, a few topics really stood out.

Context Driven Design
Nearly every speaker at the event touched on the importance of user and environment centric design. Research has long played a critical role in driving the design process, but as designers are invited to take on increasingly complex and significant design challenges, we must greatly increase our role in the collection and analysis of contextual data. Several speakers specifically highlighted stories of design and client teams making poor decisions based on lack of practical contextual understanding. Additionally, we saw several examples of how frog Design and others have been able to find innovative solutions through contextual research by discovering that they might not even be asking the right questions. When we as designers put our egos and assumptions aside and truly open ourselves up to the realities of our target users and their environments, we can leverage local knowledge to make our projects more relevant and successful.

Systems Design
Increasingly, designers are being asked to solve for larger, more systematic challenges. The majority of design problems we are accustomed to addressing are finite, and have a definable and understandable set of components. Systems design often require teams to model potential future states of complex interrelationships which are exponentially more complex than simply understanding the sum of parts. Dave Cronin, Design Director for GE, encourages designers to look at these expansive initiatives as platforms rather than a series of spot solutions. When approaching expansive systems, there are likely to be more contributors and stakeholders increasing the importance of taking a more open and collaborative approach rather than applying rigid top down design restrictions. Finding success in systems design often means managing more through enablement and goal setting than prescriptive and formulaic approaches.

Dave Cronin, Design Director for GE

We all know the value of bringing in an outsider to shake things up creatively, just as we know that there are spectacularly talented engineers who are well-capable of doing industrial design, even without any of our training. But here's a reminder that sometimes that combination just goes spectacularly wrong.

Robert J. Rumpf was an aerospace engineer who worked on missiles, and in the 1960s Ford brought him in to work on experimental auto designs. What he came up with was this crazy two-handed "Wrist-Twist" steering system, shown here in what I believe is a 1965 Mercury:

Join us Tonight at the Hand-Eye Supply Curiosity Club in lovely downtown Portland, Oregon as Rob Roy, the Butcher and Charcutier at Nostrana breaks down a hog from nose to tail to trotters.

Tuesday, Oct. 16th
6PM PST
Hand-Eye Supply
23 NW 4th Ave
Portland, OR, 97209

As a Butcher in Portland Rob Roy revels in the ability to visit the farms where the animals are raised, to witness the growing of nourishing foods, and to advocate for local farmers. He works to create an important connection between the farmers and the patrons of the restaurant by responsibly butchering the animals we consume.

Rob will be butchering a hog and discussing why it is beneficial for the farmer and the consumer to buy and use the whole animal from nose to tail. You will learn where different cuts of pork come from, how to break them down, and how to prepare them for the table. What part of the hog needs to be eaten first, what should be brined, cured, frozen, made into sausage? He will talk about curing ham, pancetta, guanciale, lardo, making of delicious charcuterie, and more on food preservation. Rob will inform you on the benefits of lard and bone stock and the many ways to cook up a pig head. He will hand out recipes so you can have a breakdown party yourself, then feed your family for months. Come learn how all the parts fit together and how to be responsible with the whole thing.