By Rain Noe - Apr 26 New

Spray Paint Finishing Process: How to Get a Fantastic Surface On Your Models and Prototypes

Eric Strebel's getting into some serious ID modelmaking secret sauce here. Painting a model or prototype is where things can go to hell pretty quickly, unless you've got a good system down. So check out Strebel's blend of herbs and spices, covering surface prep, fixing errors, a clever trick for

By Rain Noe - Apr 26 New

Chinese Scientists Develop Wood Composite Made with the Help of Crabs and Shrimp

Are you chitin me

I know this is a weird one, so bear with me. Facts: Populous China has a high demand for wood-based materials. The demand far exceeds China's forestry resources. China has a ready supply of wood waste (sawdust, chips, offcuts) from its factories. So it would be ideal if they could

By Rain Noe - Apr 26 New

Is That Airplane Oxygen Mask Photo an Example of Stupidity, or Bad Design?

When that Southwest Airlines flight depressurized last week between New York and Dallas, killing that poor woman, the plane began descending rapidly and the overhead oxygen masks deployed. I'll never understand this compulsion, but one of the chaps in the photo below pulled out his phone to capture this selfie:

By Core Jr - Apr 25

Sponsored Post: Announcing the A' Design Awards & Competition Winners

From personal sauna devices to modular sandcastle building sets

Each year, the A' Design Award & Competition calls upon designers worldwide to enter their best projects that focus on innovation, technology, design and creativity for consideration. This year's awards cycle has officially come to a close, and we're excited to announce all of the winners and to also give

By Rain Noe - Apr 25

Urban Design Observations: Bollard Problems

"I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a bollard"

These protective bollards have done their job of protecting the building. Two of them have taken direct hits. The height of the dent suggests a large truck. The two "arms" welded to the plate that's then bolted into the wall, look brutish. The plate was presumably placed at that height

By Joel Moskowitz - Apr 25

Tools & Craft #93: The Argument for a Traditional Tail Vise

I built this workbench in the late 1980's. It serves me well and I have very few complaints. The design is basically the Frank Klausz bench that is detailed in Scott Landis' landmark The Workbench Book. The major changes I made were making it left-handed, and using a quick release

By Steven Johnson - Apr 25

Steven M. Johnson's Bizarre Invention #82: The Truncate Taxi

Steven M. Johnson's "Patent Depending" series of inventions range from social commentary to plain ol' bizarre, and they always give us a laugh. So we've contracted him to let us publish one every week.

By Rain Noe - Apr 25

A Demonstration of Pulley Systems for Easier Lifting

American Towman is billed as "Towing's premier magazine," and they've covered the industry for decades, primarily focusing on emergency road service. Here their Field Editor Terry Abejuela provides a simple, easy-to-grasp demonstration of different configurations, how they work and what they do: If any of you are interested in pulleys,

By Rain Noe - Apr 25

Behind the Scenes with the Set Designers of "Isle of Dogs"

Here's how they created the environments and effects, all physically and practically

If you like seeing behind-the-scenes footage of environments and atmospheres being fabricated, here we have a real treat. For the stop-motion animated "Isle of Dogs," director Wes Anderson's fairly insane demand that all sets (and even effects like smoke, fire, water) be created practically provided the production designers with

By Rain Noe - Apr 24

Urban Design Observations: What's Up With This Bike Lock?

Why hack it this way?

On Elizabeth Street I passed these two bicycles and one moped shackled to a bike rack. The silver bike has had its seat stolen. The rust on the chain suggests the owner subsequently declined to retrieve his or her bike. The bike lock drew my eye. Why would someone do

By Rain Noe - Apr 24

Harry Gesner's Cantilevered House Designs from the 1950s

Not for the acrophobic

On a recent trip to L.A. I stayed in the Hollywood Hills. My host drove me past this series of structures, which at first glance appeared to be a row of carports. However, when I later passed these on foot, I noticed something interesting: As you can see, these "carports"

By Rain Noe - Apr 24

Advanced Bondo Tips for Designers and Modelmakers

How to make extrusions, flexible parts and do the Bondo "squeeze"

Now that you've watched Part 1 and Part 2 of the Bondo tips series, here's Part 3, which industrial designer Eric Strebel has saved some seriously cool tricks for. Strebel shows you how to extrude it, how to make it both flexible and sandable, and how to use it to

By Emily Engle - Apr 23

Why Diners? David Rockwell Reflects on Theme of His Milan Design Week Installation 

"Diners fill that role of a handshake, a hug and a welcome, and I think design can do that too."

David Rockwell and Surface Magazine's The Diner installation was a crowd favorite at this year's Milan Design Week. Housed in the empty warehouses of Ventura Centrale, The Rockwell Group in collaboration with design studio 2x4 were one of the few exhibitors to completely transform the blank, concrete canvas they were

By Carla Zimmermann & Megan Dinius - Apr 23

Co-Creating Towards a Better Future: A Journey Through the 2018 Lexus Design Awards

During the madness that is Milan Design Week, Lexus gave the public a space to meditate and refocus their thoughts. Set this year in the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia's Cavallerizze buildings, the sixth edition of the Lexus Design Awards focused around the prefix "Co-". With an impressive

By Rain Noe - Apr 23

Urban Design Observations: What is This Thing For?

In front of store on Spring Street in lower Manhattan, we see this object. A hole has been bored into the side of it to admit a chain. The chain is attached to the bracket holding the on/off lock for the roll-down gate. The top of this object has been

By Rain Noe - Apr 23

FinalStraw: This Folding Metal Straw is Killing It on Kickstarter!

It's not silly. It's better for the environment

I understand that you don't want your smoothie messing up your moustache, but plastic drinking straws are stupid. They're not recyclable, and it's absurd to use something once that then gets thrown away. Drinking straws are easily carried off of garbage piles by the wind, so it's no surprise that

By Rain Noe - Apr 23

An Interview with Jonathan Ward, Founder of Icon (Part 2)

How to build excellent things that last

Jonathan Ward is talking about old-school custom car styling shops. "If you were a baller in the 1920s, '30s or '40s," he explains, "you didn't go buy a Cadillac. You bought a Cadillac, and you sent it to one of the boys, and they built a custom vehicle just for

By Rain Noe - Apr 23

Prototyping an Inexpensive Set of Folding Table Legs Out of Construction Lumber

2x4s, unfancy hinges, screws and little else

In order to maximize free space, the photo studio I run on the side contains almost no furniture. Different crews fill the space with different things, from racks of clothing for a catalog shoot to tons of lighting equipment for a documentary interview. And sometimes they build small sets in

By Rain Noe - Apr 20

This Brilliant Japanese Labor-Saving Device Makes Farming WAY Easier

The Paperpot Transplanter turns an hour of work into minutes

This is the best of what good industrial design has to offer. The Paperpot Transplanter, a Japanese invention for farmers, lets one person do in minutes what ordinarily takes an hour: Transplanting with the Paperpot Transplanter from Permaculture Voices on Vimeo.As cool as that tool is, what's even more

By Rain Noe - Apr 20

Bondo Basics for Designers and Modelmakers, Part 2

How to use polyester body filler to make complicated 3D shapes by hand

Here in Part 2 of his series on Bondo basics, industrial designer Eric Strebel shows you how you can use polyester body filler to go straight from sketching to hands-on, to create complex 3D forms for prototyping. If you don't have access to a 3D printer, or prefer the

By Core Jr - Apr 19

Sponsored Post: Taking Your Business Seriously Without Taking Yourself Too Seriously 

Punk Rock Creative Director Steph Hoff explains what it's like to successfully do your own thing with both personal and corporate projects

From corporate to freelance to side hustle to small, energetic company, Steph Hoff has experienced just about every type of workplace culture through her career. Her innate sense of style and a savvy awareness of street culture give her a unique lens that she uses to filter and focus corporate

By Rain Noe - Apr 19

Second Company Develops Sustainable Mushroom-Grown Leather, Will Debut it This Saturday

Mylo is tough, supple, eco-friendly, looks and feels like leather, and requires no animals

Remember MycoWorks, the company that developed leather that can be grown from mushroom roots? Now another company, Bolt Threads, has also cracked that biomaterials mystery and is bringing out its own version. Called Mylo, the offering from Bolt--a company that got its start by developing synthetic spider silk--appears to be

By Rain Noe - Apr 19

Watch Joseph Herscher's Latest Rube Goldberg Machine, Which Took Three Months to Design

"The cake server" is the most complicated one he's done so far

Joseph Herscher never ceases to amaze with his Rube Goldberg contraptions, and this is without a doubt the most inventive one he's done so far. It involves danger, babies, fluids, open flame, butter…ah, you get the idea, just watch it: How does he come up with this stuff?

By Rain Noe - Apr 19

An Introduction to Bondo for Designers and Modelmakers

The many applications for polyester resin and body filler

When it comes to making models, few materials are as diverse (and yes, smell as bad) as Bondo. It sets up quickly, can easily be machined and shaped and sticks to just about anything. Here industrial designer Eric Strebel kicks off his series on Bondo's basics, demonstrating how he mixes,

By Steven Johnson - Apr 18

Steven M. Johnson's Bizarre Invention #96: The Tunnel Bus

Steven M. Johnson's "Patent Depending" series of inventions range from social commentary to plain ol' bizarre, and they always give us a laugh. So we've contracted him to let us publish one every week.

By Joel Moskowitz - Apr 18

Tools & Craft #92: How to Choose the Best Dovetail Saw for Yourself

Today I had the opportunity to chat with a customer about dovetail saws, and he asked me the same question that I get all the time: what makes one saw better than another? Of course, since TFWW makes the Gramercy Dovetail saw, I have a pony in this race. We're

By Rain Noe - Apr 18

An Interview with Jonathan Ward, Founder of Icon (Part 1)

Design perfectionism on four wheels

Every designer's dream is to create the exact object they envision, unhindered by accountants, marketers and planned obsolescence. Industrial designers among you, think of every project you've worked on where the best engineering and materials were prohibitively expensive; the style needed to be compromised to appeal to a market you

By Emily Engle - Apr 18

Milan Design Week Recap: Days 1 and 2

A few of our favorite discoveries from our first two days on site in Milan

We're two days into Milan Design week, and although we haven't hit the big shows yet, we've discovered plenty of smaller wonders within or near La Brera and Ventura Centrale, ranging from wooden marionettes made from chairs to electric vehicle sketches:

By Rain Noe - Apr 18

Here's Our Idea for How an Omnidirectional Treadmill Would Work

I don't want to say that we're brilliant. So you say it

One of the hurdles that virtual reality designers face, in trying to bring their Ready Player One immersive worlds to fruition, isn't virtual; it's physical. It's to do with the fact that VR headsets currently require a physical tether, and that the wearer cannot stray far from that tether. Even

By Rain Noe - Apr 18

Freak Accident or Design Flaw? Diagram Explains Student's Accidental Death Inside His Parked Minivan

This is an awful story that automotive designers should take note of. Last week, in the parking lot of his Ohio high school, 16-year-old student Kyle Plush went to his minivan to retrieve some tennis gear. He never returned. Around 9pm that night his father, looking for him, located