By Rain Noe - Jun 20

Disillusioned Industrial Designer Turns Her Disassembly Hobby Into Animations

"We rarely see what's inside each product and thus treat it as one whole part"

Dina Amin is an industrial designer who has encountered the paradox many of us face: "I realized that I am not very fond of a huge part of Industrial Design," she writes, "the part where we consume insane amount of resources and energy to design things that eventually people throw

By Rain Noe - Jun 20

Super Easy DIY Minimalist Monitor-Mount Headphone Hook

Why have I not done this yet

A few bucks on Amazon will get you a plastic headphone hook that sticks to your monitor. But I am liking this quick, less-obtrusive solution far better: A three-pack of Sugru strips goes for under ten bucks, and you get the satisfaction of shaping it yourself.

By Emily Engle - Jun 13

Sponsored Post: Avi Ben Shoshan's Ceramic Utensils Elegantly Question Our Natural Eating Habits

Put your forks down and listen up...

Forks, spoons, knives and chopsticks are designed to move food into our pie holes as efficiently as possible. For the most part, we all know how to use them–sometimes to the point where we don't even consider their existence as we shovel a plate of pasta down our throats. But

By Mikhail Mansion - Jun 12

Musical Instruments, Transformed

Exploring the current musical instrument renaissance, from sonic objects to expanded systems of musical expression

Musical instruments are undergoing a renaissance. Waves of techno-cultural innovation are melding arts and sciences, and steadily raising the tide on traditional crafts, turning them on their heads. The transformation of the musical instrument—through networks, sensors, data and computation—is not only a story about the craft of making musical tools,

By Rain Noe - Jun 08

Zenfish's Refillable Leather Sketchbooks

This entrepreneurial art teacher has sold 3,000 to date

For every Silicon-Valley-VC-backed product design startup, I wish there were 100 people like Lynn Fisher. "I am a painter and Art teacher in New Jersey," Fisher writes, "and about fifteen years ago I came up with an idea to use old pieces of leather to make journals and sketchbooks for

By Rain Noe - Jun 06

Using Tools to Build Absurdly Complicated Objects Out of Chocolate

Amaury Guichon is a master craftsman (whose work can melt)

Swiss-born Amaury Guichon was just 14 years old when he moved to France to pursue culinary training. Six years later he had five apprentices of his own at Cannes' high-end Lenotre restaurant, and the following year he became Executive Chef of Paris' Hugo & Victor patisseries. Now 'Stateside, Guichon teaches

By Rain Noe - Jun 06

What Would U.S. Money Look Like, Given the Proper Attention of an Industrial Designer?

Bills so pretty you'd never spend them

Industrial designer Andrey Avgust hails from Belarus, a country whose currency I admit I've never seen. But he's seen our yankee dollars and recognizes that their design kind of stinks. For fun Avgust gave U.S. bills a redesign, starting with the material: Polymer. Then he took the design iconography of

By Rain Noe - May 31

Dystopian Concept Designs by "Peter Who Draws"

Tech-y gadgets, or social commentary?

At first glance, the designs by concept artist "E wo kaku Peter" ("Peter who draws") appear to be merely fanciful, like these: Formula One tow car Ancient Egyptian hard drive Dracula extermination kit The first hint that Peter's got some underlying thoughts about a consumerist society appears

By Emily Engle - May 30

Our Favorite Skateboard Designs from frog's DECKxDESIGN Challenge

NYC-based design studios were tasked with rethinking the traditional skateboard

For this year's NYCxDesign, frog partnered with Art Start for the second year in a row to help bring creativity to NYC's homeless and at-risk youth through their DECKxDESIGN challenge. Following a successful inaugural year focused on dart boards, this year pivoted focus towards a different type of board—the skateboard.

By Rain Noe - May 30

Batch Production Shots of Small, Useful Objects, and a Very Unusual Japanese Door Lock

After graduating from the Hokkaido Institute of Design, Norio Tanno pursued his chosen field of furniture design. But he quit after just four years, feeling that his work wasn't original. Instead he turned to creating tiny boxes. That was around 40 years ago. He now runs Tanno Studio in Hokkaido,

By Rain Noe - May 30

Early P.O.P. Designs: Thread Spool Store Displays

Form followed whatever they felt like

Here's an object you've likely never seen before. But by looking at the photos, you should be able to deduce what it's for and how it's operated. The first one of you to tell us in the comments wins…nothing! This ain't a game show, folks. The images here are

By Rain Noe - May 29

Coleman's Handsome 360° Sound and Light Lantern

Old form, new features

I'm digging how Coleman's industrial design team creates new products that pay homage to old form factors. Last year we looked at their 4-in-1 LED Lantern, and this year their 360° Sound and Light Lantern has caught our eye, again for copping the form of an old gas lantern but

By Rain Noe - May 21

BMW's Minimalist People Mover

Form follows funktion

This is sort of like the corporate version of looking inside someone's workshop to see what kind of nifty little jigs they've built for themselves to simplify production. Upon learning that some of their factory and logistics employees walk up to 12 kilometers a day inside their facilities, BMW's Group

By Rain Noe - May 21

Anti-Squirrel Bird Feeder Designs

Here's what works, and what doesn't

Designing an object that will accommodate one animal, but not another animal of similar size, is a tricky endeavor. A bird feeder is a good example: How do you allow your avian friends to access the seed, without greedy neighboring squirrels helping themselves? One solution might be to cover the

By Rain Noe - May 21

How Do You Capture and Move a Shark Using Plastic Boards?

Here, sharky sharky sharky

On June 30th the New York Aquarium will open "Ocean Wonders: Sharks!" This is a 57,500-square-foot, $146 million exhibit that has taken over a decade to create, as the newly-built aquarium was badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy. Now coming into the home stretch, the aquarium employees need to get the

By Rain Noe - May 11

Beyond Object's Align Pen: Fix the Form to Deploy the Tip

Make it right to make it write

These are three of the pens roaming around my desk that I'll grab when I need to sketch something. I don't love any of them but I got them all for free. They're all ballpoints that deploy the tip when a portion of the pen is rotated. That's a nifty

By Rain Noe - May 10

Breaking Down the Design of a Mystery Object

­ Of great frustration is that I cannot discover who designed/built the object in this image that I found floating around the internet. If you know whose work this is, please sound off, as I am desperate to examine the rest of this person's portfolio. This object's design is all

By Rain Noe - May 10

Magical German-Designed Micro Vacuum Attachment

Is there any worse sound than when you're vacuuming, and suddenly hear the whining interrupted by that "FWUPP" noise that means you just sucked up a small object? What the eff was that? My wedding ring? A piece of crucial medication? That special screw I dropped and have been looking

By Rain Noe - May 08

What If Lids Could Do More Than Just Seal a Container?

Nendo re-thinks closures for vessels with their "Air Lids"

A fluoroelastomer is a variant of synthetic rubber. Chemical- and stain-resistant, it's used to make seals in air conditioners and automobiles. Nendo, however, imagined more domestic applications for the stuff, and partnered with air conditioner manufacturer Daikin, a company well-versed in fluoroelastomers, to make a new series of kitchen objects.

By Rain Noe - May 08

Tiny, Ambivalent Storage Drawers from Japan

There's a craftsman in Japan going by the handle Conocoto (I looked it up, it's a town in Peru) who makes these tiny, ambivalent storage drawers. They're designed to hold "nothing particularly," he writes on his Japanese-language blog. "Please store your favorite things like toothpicks and stamps." Although the jewelry

By Rain Noe - May 07

Design Discussion: How Would You Design a Modern-Day Grandfather Clock?

Also: What does Herman Miller's son have to do with this?

Question: If you're re-designing an object that has a long history, do you feel compelled to somehow integrate that history into the design? Or do you feel progress is only made by throwing out the past and reaching for fresh forms? I'll try to clarify that question using an

By Rain Noe - May 07

Desktop Valets/Organizers, Yea or Nay?

How do you organize the things you carry, when not carrying them?

Whether you refer to it as an "Everyday Carry" or not, most of us have things we consistently keep on our person as we leave the house. For some, if not for your correspondent, it makes sense to marshal all of these things onto a dedicated object at the end

By Rain Noe - May 01

An Object to Prevent Rust Rings Left From Cans, Yea or Nay?

The constant struggle for product designers is (or should be): Am I creating something of true utility, or just bringing more stuff into the world? I do get annoyed at how bottles/cans in bathrooms/kitchens get wet, collect water at the bottom and leave a ring on surfaces. But I cannot

By Rain Noe - May 01

The Success of the Forktula Should Inspire You to Design Something and Kickstart It

It's a spatula for your fork, a squeegee for your plate

Like the Bath Buddy from yesterday, I'll put this in the silly-but-useful category. The Forktula is simply a small piece of silicone with two holes on it, and it goes over two fork tines like a sleeve. That allows you to do this: As someone who hates to

By Rain Noe - Apr 30

Simple, Clever Object That Makes Washing Dogs Easy

It's called Bath Buddy and I feel like an idiot for not thinking of this

The sequence of my thought process when seeing this object: 1. This seems silly 2. Oh wait a sec, this would be very useful 3. WHY DID I NOT THINK OF THIS

By Rain Noe - Apr 26

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 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 17

BadAbout: A Website Where You Can Complain About Product Designs

No positivity allowed, that's not the point here

BadAbout is the name of a website billing itself as "an online encyclopedia of criticism:" "We allow users to quickly share and discover the drawbacks about something, usually a product or service. We are not a general review site. We collect the bad points to achieve a positive purpose."That's right,

By Rain Noe - Apr 16

This "Easy Way to Thread a Needle" Hack Looks Great, But I Can't Get It to Work With Machine Needles

Is it me, or is the trick fugazi?

If you regularly use a sewing machine and have declining eyesight, you know that threading that damn needle is the most frustrating part of the process. There are times when I've continued sewing with the wrong-sized needle just because I subconsciously didn't want to insert and thread a new one.

By Rain Noe - Apr 13

Design Criticism: Spanish Jewelry Box

Shall we turn this into a regular event, called Nitpick Fridays?

This is one of those objects that I find beautiful in one configuration, yet ugly in another. While beauty is a subjective thing, I wanted to go over the object with you and see if we can come to some agreement about universal aesthetics (if such a thing exists).

By Rain Noe - Apr 13

What Was the Purpose of Saloon Doors?

Let's analyze the design features

The function of a doorway is to allow people to pass through a wall. The function of a door is to seal that aperture, providing visual privacy, protection from the elements and denying access to people who are not supposed to pass through that wall. Given those truths saloon

By Rain Noe - Apr 12

Unusual Transportation Concept: Flying Trains

"It's crazy--but it's so crazy that it just, might, work"

The always-imaginative Russian concept designer Semenov Dahir Kurmanbievich is at it again. This time he's conceived of a mass transit system that combines aspects of an airplane and a train: Obviously the craft is meant to draw power from the monorail. A monorail system, and the idea of getting the