Tag: Design

Here's what we looked at this week:No, airlines are not installing these stand-up saddle-style seats. A design exercise has been turned into misinformation.Obsessive UX design detail: Sugatsune's Slide Hook is a bag hook that retracts. The Great Fredini figures out how to centrifugally mold glass.

The G7 Summit is a big deal, and needed a big deal of a conference table. The Canadian government, this year's host, turned to Toronto-based furniture brand Teknion to create the flagship table for the conference's primary Outreach room.Initial Table ConceptCommissioned by the Canadian government, the initial design for a table featured a large single base and a Starburst veneer pattern. The base was later changed from one large base to two, which significantly improved the aesthetic.

Of all freestanding power tools, perhaps the jigsaw or scrollsaw would be the most fun for kids to use, as they allow freeform cuts. They're also pretty darn dangerous, with the jigsaw being powerful enough to remove fingers.A much safer way to introduce kids to power tools is this ChompSaw, developed by product designers Kausi Raman and Max Liechty. The material it's designed to cut is cardboard, allowing parents to turn Amazon boxes into projects. The tool is

Greenhouses are an excellent way to grow food in a controlled environment. By regulating environmental factors and blocking out pests, vegetable yields are increased significantly. But traditional greenhouses, made with rigid materials and glass, are expensive. You can expect to spend tens of thousands on greenhouses like these: In the 1960s, polyethylene film in wide sheets became available. This set off a revolution in greenhouse design—particularly in the area of cost.

This Spinamic is a scoliosis correction device by South Korean industrial design firm Intenxiv. Designed for client VNTC, a South Korean medical technology company, Spinamic is soft rather than rigid, which brings several benefits. First off, it's adjustable. This allows doctors to tailor the pressure—which can literally be dialed in--to accommodate the patient's specific body and variant of scoliosis. "The compression intensity adjustment dial is an effective design that allows for fine-tuning," Intenxiv writes.

Designed in Austria, this stainless steel device is the Nuki Smart Lock. Since the company's formation a decade ago, they've shipped over 800,000 units—in Europe. Today the company is finally entering the U.S. market. The company says it can be easily retrofitted without needing to drill anything. Once installed, you can unlock your door via smartphone app—hands-free; the company's app detects your proximity to the lock via Bluetooth and pops it as you approach. An internal brushless motor unl

In the '90s I visited a younger cousin in South Korea. Military service is mandatory there, and he was enlisted in the Navy. He had the craziest haircut I'd ever seen—completely shaved around the side, but with absurdly long bangs, like a front-mounted topknot. I asked him what that was about, and was stunned at the answer: "They can use it to pull you out of the water."I found that crazy—and creative. A brutal piece of UX, essentially adding a design feature to sailors.A company called Float Buddy does something similar for smartphones. Their eponymous product, designed for Boat Life people with butterfingers, is a clunky-looking device that attaches to your phone via a mounting disc that you permanently adhere to your phone's case.

Recently an Instagram post featuring these images went viral. The post falsely claimed that budget airlines would begin installing these saddle-style seats, which more or less place the passenger in a standing position, in an effort to cram more passengers in.An online backlash

Here's an example of solving a complex problem by synthesizing existing technologies in a novel way.A Chinese inventor known only as Mr. Feng wanted to create a robot that could persistently return tennis volleys, allowing him to practice his sport without needing to line up a human partner. While humanoid robots have made sharp advances in China, none are up to the complicated task of playing tennis.What Feng realized is that you don't need a humanoid robot; you just need a robot that can simulate the inputs and outputs of a human partner. He subsequently created this Acemate Tennis Robot, a rolling box that can track struck balls using a pair of cameras, and reach them anywhere on the court

Most EDC stuff looks and feels like it was designed by an engineer or machinist. In contrast these objects by the James Brand, which was notably founded by an industrial designer (Ryan Coulter), were clearly created by folks with ID backgrounds.The anodized aluminum Warrick as a bit-holding screwdriver. Its sleek shape was designed both to slide into a coin pocket and to provide leverage. And the included bits aren't throwaway filler; those are Wiha bits.