By Rain Noe - Sep 27 New

Unexpected Design: Check Out How This Traditional Chinese Foot-Powered Lathe Works 

It's significantly different from the Western treadle lathe

It's incredible that over the centuries, folks on different continents devised different-but-similar solutions to the same problem. Both Europeans and Chinese developed foot-powered lathes to turn items on, for instance. But while I'd seen the Western design for a treadle lathe, I could not have imagined what the Chinese variant

By Rain Noe - Sep 27 New

Yea or Nay? The WorkBox, a Hideaway Workstation and Storage Unit

For those who do desktop crafts, the WorkBox is a made-in-the-U.S.A storage unit and workstation that folds in on itself and hides everything away when not in use. Take a look: The design of the storage units is undeniably intelligent. But after watching the video, I teetered back and forth

By Rain Noe - Sep 27 New

Wonderful Furniture and Object Designs from Anna Lindgren and Sofia Lagerkvist

Eyes on Front

Anna Lindgren and Sofia Lagerkvist are the design duo behind Front, the Stockholm-based Swedish design group. The fresh, innovative work they do makes it hard to click away from their portfolio. Check out, for instance, this clever coatrack they did for Materia: Or this beautiful Water Steps faucet for Axor:

By Kat Bauman - Sep 27 New

ID Student Uses Einstein-Designed Refrigeration to Deliver Vaccines Better

This James Dyson Award winner is cool as hell

While you were busy doodling hover cars and sharpening your Wacom stylus, William Broadway developed a final year project that might save millions of lives. Annually. His project, the ISOBAR, aims to help temperature stabilize vaccines for safer delivery in regions with hot climates or barriers to delivery. The cold

By Kat Bauman - Sep 26

An Architect's Take On Cake

3D printing and modeling software meet delicate ganache

An innate fascination with food is a structural part of being human, but what about structural food? Dinara Kasko is an architect-trained pastry chef, and her work melds classic desserts with stark geometry and 3d printing. While inviting, Kasko's creations look less like food and more like architectural renderings or

By Rain Noe - Sep 26

Bad UX: Wireless Emergency Alert Asks Public to Spot Terrorist, But Can't Include Pictures or Links

Why can we Tweet cat videos, but the government can't message a thumbnail?

When a then-unnamed bomber detonated his homemade bomb in New York City on September 17th, injuring dozens, he used a cell phone as a timer. Several mornings later, I was in downtown Manhattan when my own cell phone made the "emergency alert" noise. Here was the message:

By Rain Noe - Sep 26

Why "How Much Does It Cost to Make an iPhone" Analyses are Misleading to Consumers

Please explain this to your non-ID friends

Please circulate this among your friends who are not industrial designers. Because just when we think an awareness of our role has finally permeated society, we see we've still got a ways to go. Take, for example, the rash of "How Much Does It Cost to Make an iPhone?" videos.

By Core Jr - Sep 26

Countdown to the Core77 Conference

Don't miss out on the best design party of the year!

In just a few days we'll be gathering in Downtown Los Angeles for the annual Core77 Designing Here/Now conference. Join luminaries from the disciplines of arts, science, engineering and business this Thursday and Friday (September 29-30) as we share insights on leading successful projects from concept to launch. The

By Carly Ayres - Sep 26

Soon, You Too, May Bedazzle Your Home in Internet

Plume's Adaptive WiFi system is reinventing home WiFi distribution

Anyone who's experienced slow-loading videos and seemingly never-ending downloads knows the pain of a poor WiFi connection. It's a problem many are trying to solve (just take a look at Starry and OnHub), but newcomer Plume thinks they have the solution: magic internet jewels. Advocating for users to ditch

By Emily Engle - Sep 26

This Week: Join us in LA for the Core77 Conference, Analyze Frank Lloyd Wright and Philip Johnson's Relationship, and Get Your Textile On One Last Time

Our Weekly Roundup of Design Events for September 26 - October 2

Jumpstart your week with our insider's guide to events in the design world. From must-see exhibitions to insightful lectures and the competitions you need to know about—here's the best of what's going on, right now.

By Core Jr - Sep 26

Sponsored Post: Ever Wish You Could Photorealistically View Design Modifications While You Work?

The NVIDIA® Iray® for Rhino rendering plug-in helps improve design decision making with fast, predictable visualization

Product designers have used photorealistic rendering of final designs for years. But one area has been impractical until now—using photoreal visualization early on during the design process, while still iterating on a product design. In fact, most designers are just used to doing without it or saving it for the

By Rain Noe - Sep 26

Today Only: Ridiculously Inexpensive Shelf Brackets!

Get your shop organized with 36 brackets for less than ten bucks

For those of you with workshops, nothing is more handy for organizing than building quick shelves. It uses up dead wall space and gets items off of your worksurfaces. Well, I just found out that Lee Valley is having a sale--which unfortunately ends today--where they're selling 36 freaking brackets (12

By Rain Noe - Sep 24

A DIY Multifunctional Toilet Lid, Everything You Need to Know About Buying Chisels, a Folding Brass Key Set and More

Part 2 of this week's Makers Roundup

This is hilarious. Ben Uyeda casts his toilet tank lid in silicone, then creates a concrete dupe that he embeds with arms to hold a variety of items:

By Rain Noe - Sep 23

A Shop Table Made from One Sheet of Plywood, a Folding Outfeed Table, Turning a Table Saw Into a Lathe and More

Part 1 of this week's Makers Roundup

This is nuts. Jimmy DiResta makes, from scratch, a functioning miniature cannon. The amount of fabrication here is impressive, and of course he fires the thing at the end:

By Core Jr - Sep 23

100 Objects that Shaped Public Health, Behind the Scenes of Es Devlin's Latest Project and Some Unexpected Ikea Facts

A weekly selection of great links curated by the Core77 team

Core77's editors spend time combing through the news so you don't have to. Here's a weekly roundup of our favorite stories from the World Wide Web.

By Rain Noe - Sep 23

A Table That Seamlessly Blends Walnut and Brass

Wüd Furniture Design's gorgeous Nola Dining Table

Brass and walnut are two great tastes that taste great together. But I've never seen the two materials integrated in such a beautiful way as this: That's the Nola Dining Table by Brooklyn-based Wüd Furniture Design. The description states that the table is constructed from "bronze encased in resin," and

By Kat Bauman - Sep 23

Surprise! Watching A $2.6 Million Watch Get Made Is Gorgeous

Patek Philippe's complicated wrist watch is process porn for billionaires

Nice watches live in a weird world of engineering and opulence. This video shows some of the tight tolerances, subtle labor and utterly bonkers design that went into Patek Philippe's 175th anniversary wrist watch: the Grandmaster Chime 5175. If you aren't familiar, the Patek Philippe brand is legendary for

By Rain Noe - Sep 23

Medical Hackers Reveal How to DIY an EpiPen for Just $30

It's better than paying $600-plus for a two-pack

Since acquiring the rights to EpiPen in 2007, pharmaceutical company Mylan has raised the wholesale price of a two-pack from around 100 bucks to over $600. This trend will only continue, because the drug companies know there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. Or is there?

By Kat Bauman - Sep 23

How To Make Affordable Student Housing: Stick It In the Bay?

Urban Rigger offers floating studios for $600

How do we deal with skyrocketing rent and housing shortages? Housing start-up Urban Rigger wants to build more low cost apartments on fancy boats. Their first freshly finished Copenhagen project was designed by Bjarke Ingels and it offers a few slick twists on the traditional dorm. The boat apartments are

By Rain Noe - Sep 22

Conor Coghlan's Bow Spring Chair

Watch as this architect creates a beautiful new chair from scratch

Conor Coghlan might be an architect, but as part of his studies at Harvards' Graduate School of Design he participated in a furniture making workshop. Tasked with producing an original design, Coghlan writes that he became "interested in how the arms and legs of the chair could work in unison

By Emily Engle - Sep 22

'Crocs With Rocks' and Other Questionable Footwear Collaborations 

Brands that lost by a landslide...

Those of you keeping up with Spring/Summer 2017 Fashion Weeks know that it's been a time for self-expression and boundary pushing design within the realm of footwear. However, it's not the wacky animal heels or plastics that are getting people riled up this season—it's three internet breaking collaborations. We round

By Emily Engle - Sep 22

How to Grow Objects With Mushroom Mycelium

A close look at growing planters from mushrooms with Danielle Trofe

We're already familiar with Danielle Trofe's Mush-Lume lighting collection and the concept of growing objects with mushroom mycelium. So why am I revisiting such a familiar process? Thanks to Trofe and Ecovative Design, I was able to learn the mushroom mycelium growth process myself. Here's what happened:

By Shannon Rogers - Sep 22

Hand Tool School #3: Difficult is Just Easy Work Done Slowly

Option 1: Cower in fear. Option 2: Suck it up and learn to make this thing!

What was the last difficult moment you had with a project? How did you tackle it? I bet the solution, regardless of the tools being used, was to slow down and take care of it meticulously. If

By Core Jr - Sep 22

How Quantum Physics Might Help Us Design More Elegant and Scalable Solutions 

Jamer Hunt is helping us define the next phase of design practice

As the founding director of Parsons' Transdisciplinary Design program, Jamer Hunt has been championing the possibilities of a systems-based, postindustrial design approach to social innovation and service design for over a decade. Using New York City as an academic laboratory, students work to, "define the next phase of design practice

By Jeri Dansky - Sep 22

Umbra Fall 2016 Collection Helps You Organize Your Kitchen, Jewelry and More

Umbra has always had numerous relatively inexpensive organizing-related products, and the company's newest releases include some items that definitely caught my eye. The Peggy drawer organizers expand from 17 inches to 21.5 inches, so they can fit a wide range of cabinets and closets. The two boards come with 16

By Rain Noe - Sep 22

Unsung Danish Modern Design: Furniture by Louis van Teeffelen

You may not recognize the name, but you'll recognize the talent

While most fans of Danish Modern or mid-century modern furniture are aware of Hans Wegner, Arne Jacobsen, the Eameses et. al., Louis van Teeffelen's name may not ring a bell. Which is a shame as the Dutch designer created furniture every bit as striking as the work of his contemporaries.