By Emily Engle - Jan 19 New

What Political Paraphernalia Will Trump be Remembered for?

A look at past political artifacts to guess what will stand the test of time

Inauguration Day is tomorrow, and it has us thinking—what objects will our newest President be remembered for post-term? To get a better idea of what will make a lasting impact, we took a look at some highlights from the New York Historical Society's vast collection of political artifacts matched up

By Shannon Rogers - Jan 19 New

Hand Tool School #15: New Hardware Storage in the Shop

...from the Container Store, no less

I don't think my workshop tweaking will ever truly be done, but one of the things my remodel did was give me a blank slate to start working from. This also helped to clearly identify wasted spaces in my shop. One of the most obvious was the door into my

By Core Jr - Jan 19 New

Best of Coroflot Sketching Roundup

Sketches that will inspire you to go back to the drawing board

If we want to see the best of design sketching around, we never have to look much further than Coroflot's wide range of portfolios. After scouring the site on a daily basis, searching for interesting products and sketches from our direct community, we've racked up lots of awesome hand-drawn visual

By Rain Noe - Jan 19 New

Cardboard, Combat, Creativity and Chaos: Boxwars

If the main raw material in "Mad Max" and "Braveheart" was recycled cardboard

What do you do when you're bored? When a trio of Australian friends, Hoss Siegel, Josh Spiegel and Ross Koger, found that they "had a severe lack of creativity in our lives" they decided to do something about it. Their solution: Get a bunch of friends together, build cardboard suits

By Rain Noe - Jan 19 New

Server-Summoning Buttons and "Leave Me Alone" Shopping Baskets

Service design in Asia really thinks the user experience through

On a trip to Korea in the 1990s, I discovered every café I went to had a button like this on every table: It was always off to the side, where you were unlikely to accidentally press it, and sometimes mounted on the wall. As far as I could tell

By Neil Ferguson - Jan 19 New

Sponsored Post: 9 Tips For Building Your Creative Online Presence

Congratulations, you've made it to 2017. Last year was a rollercoaster ride and it's safe to say we all deserve a pat on the back for getting through it. With each new year comes new opportunities. We're not talking short-term resolutions - we're talking goals to make big things happen.

By Kat Bauman - Jan 18

A Kinetic Sculpture That Clops

Almost better than Monty Python's coconuts

Maurice Montero Sauvage is a quiet builder of complex art. His sculptures feature miniscule hand-worked wooden pieces that suddenly shift into organic movement with the turn of a crank. This piece, titled Gran Cheval, has popped up around the internet with little or no attribution, and few detail shots, which

By Joel Moskowitz - Jan 18

Tools & Craft #31: The Architectural Woodwork Inside One of NYC's Most Spectacular Interiors  

I'm glad I got to see inside the Palace Hotel before they sold it

Some weekends past I attended a wedding at the Palace Hotel in New York, which has since been purchased and renamed by an Asian luxury hotel operator and will probably be remodeled, if it hasn't already. So I'm glad I have these original photos, however poor the quality. The

By Rain Noe - Jan 18

Wilsonart's Highly Convincing Inkjet-Printed Wood

These aren't real woods. Can you—or your clients—tell?

Wood is a fickle material, and what can be fun for a woodworker can be a headache for an architect, industrial designer or interior designer. I'm talking specifically about picking out actual boards. Whereas a woodworker might relish the challenge of working around defects in boards, a designer might require

By Rain Noe - Jan 18

Bilco's Barracuda Intruder Defense System

Products that provide security and assuage fear will probably increase in popularity

The Bilco Company makes "access products," meaning doors, windows, roof hatches, floor hatches, et cetera. But in a sad sign of the times, they also produce devices designed to prevent access: Mechanical objects that can "lock down vertical doors in a matter of seconds in active shooter situations." Here's a

By Rain Noe - Jan 17

How to Make a Wallet Out of Hot Glue

When the adhesive becomes the raw material

This is hilarious, and totally seems like something an ID student would do while procrastinating at the studio. Here the folks at the WEAREX YouTube channel show you how to make a functional wallet using nothing more than a soda can and a hot glue gun: What's a leather

By Rain Noe - Jan 17

Core77 Reader's Wife Designs the Perfect Beer Can Opening

...in ".02 seconds"

After seeing our post on The Design Evolution of Beer Can Openings, reader Devin Sidell's wife may have designed the perfect beer can aperture. To get you up to speed, we were discussing how a single opening in a can leads to "glugging," i.e. turbulence while drinking since there's no

By Core Jr - Jan 17

How to Diversify Your Sketching Style

Designer Sophie Horton Jones learns some valuable sketch tips via the Core77 discussion boards

The Core77 discussion board is a great place not only to share your bright and shiny final products, but also your ever-evolving process and progress. Given there are a number of people who utilize the boards in some ways we envisioned it and in many ways far beyond, we love

By Rain Noe - Jan 17

The Nifty Design Features of the German Mess Kit

This here is a brilliant piece of industrial design: It's functional, durable, makes intelligent and economical use of materials and can easily be mass produced. So successful was the design that it was copied by most major competitors. Most importantly, it's long-lived; the original design was created over 100 years

By Kat Bauman - Jan 17

4 Minimal Grow Lights That Make Me Wish I Were Green

And 3 more I want to love

Dark apartments and flourishing indoor greenery aren't mutually exclusive, but they aren't really friends. For winter times or studios with nowhere-facing windows, real plants can take more technology than a green thumb. Much like my recent gripe about SAD lights, I've been surprised at the lack of attractive small scale

By Kat Bauman - Jan 16

Power Up Your Salads, Mario Style

A tool to make tangy oldschool Nintendo snacks

Just in time for Nintendo's anxiously awaited (and slightly confusing) new Switch presentation, product designer Avichai Tadmor is here to serve us some refreshing OG Mario style. His product, the Ravanello, spins sharp and tangy radishes into cool power-up mushrooms with a few quick twists. The tool shaves the

By Rain Noe - Jan 16

Tool Hacks: This Inexpensive Modification Prevents Your Vacuum Hose from Snagging

How to easily make that ribbed hose smooth

A constant irritation I experience in the shop is having the vacuum hose snag on something. Even suspended from a ceiling-mounted bungie, it will sometimes catch the end of the saw track (usually in mid-cut) or the edge of the table if I'm sanding and have given the hose too

By Kat Bauman - Jan 16

Meet Heng, A Charmingly Inverted Desk Light

Creative UI puts the switch in the middle

At first look Heng is a simple lamp, with a funny cord in the middle. The light, designed by Zanwen Li, really is simple but also more fun than it appears. The bentwood shapes and LED band are everything you'd expect, but to turn the lamp on and off you

By Rain Noe - Jan 16

A Brilliant One-Handed Shoelace Tying System

Knots not required

Inventor David Knez has devised a simple way to loosen and tighten your shoes using only one hand. This is a very clever use of materials: In addition to being convenient for the able-bodied, Knez's QuickShoeLace should be a boon for single amputees or those born with only

By Rain Noe - Jan 16

The Design Evolution of Beer Can Openings

Designing for drinking

The greatest technological challenge of the 20th Century was not the moon landing; it was how to get fresh, delicious beer from a brewery into a customer's belly. Prior to the 1930s if you wanted beer, you and a guy named Amos rolled a barrel from the brewery back to

By Kat Bauman - Jan 16

Hyundai's Teased Electric Scooter Is A Cool Final Mile Concept

More car part than kid's toy

Compared with last year's CES and Detroit Auto Show, this year has seen a lot less odd concept vehicles and last mile design. One neat 2017 standout has been the mysterious but fun Ioniq scooter teased by Hyundai at CES. The company's line of Ioniq electric vehicles is plugging along

By Rain Noe - Jan 14

Top 10 Most Useful Tools, a Mid-Century Modern Credenza, a DIY Camera Gantry Crane & More

Part 2 of this week's Makers Roundup

By Rain Noe - Jan 13

A Leather Bag with Auto-Illuminating Interior, a Discount Tool Purchasing Program, Reviewing a Battery-Operated Table Saw & More

Part 1 of this week's Makers Roundup

By Core Jr - Jan 13

Why Stepping on a Lego Hurts So Much, Japan's Train Fanatics and How to Come Up with 20 Ideas a Day

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.