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The Best of Core77: Our Favorites from 2009

By Core Jr - December 30, 2009

in Featured Items

2009 has been too good to us here at Core77. While continuing to bring you exciting blog posts, event galleries, book reviews, feature articles by some of the brightest minds in the field, we also introduced our new Core-toons series by fueledbycoffee and lunchbreath; brought you a bigger and better Coroflot Salary Survey; hosted our first live 1 Hour Design Challenge at the Better World by Design conference at RISD; broadcast live from the Via Tortona in Milan; added a custom Core77 bike to our store; and assembled Hack2Work, an essential list of tips for the design professional. In the meantime, Coroflot passed the 150,000 portfolio mark while we produced four editions of our new Creative Employment Confab in Austin, New York City, Portland, and San Francisco. Finally, in addition to existing partners The Art Directors Club, BusinessWeek, Computerlove, Design Observer, HOW, I.D. Magazine, and Print, we're very proud to announce the addition of three new ones: The Die Line, Ad Forum and Creative Pro.

In light of all this, we'd like to take a moment and extend great thanks to our wonderful contributors, partners, board moderators, supporters, friends, family, and especially you, our valuable readers. We can't do enough to thank you all, but for a start, we've assembled some of our favorite moments of 2009 for you to reflect on below.

Here's to a bright 2010.

FTW, Core77

Core77's favorites from 2009:

The 4 Fields of Industrial Design: (No, not furniture, trans, consumer electronics, & toys), by Bruce M. Tharp and Stephanie M. Tharp

Ten seriously bizarre knock-off "brand names."

Advice for Designers: F*ck It!

A look at wood, part 1: Saw mill madness

Bruce Nussbaum: INNOVATION IS DEAD.

Flotspotting: Loren Kulesus grinds axes and skateboards

Joshua Allen Harris: More more more!

It's Official: Industrial Designer is the 9th best job in America

Core77 Photo Gallery: North American Int'l Auto Show 2009

LightLane concept creates bike lanes where there were none

Design Versus Innovation: The Cranbrook / IIT Debate

Obama action figure

US National Design Policy Summit Report available

Cologne Design Festival 2009: Video Drive-By: Stephan Landschuetz: Sporthocker

What would Jesus read by?

Frozeniture

Required Reading: Bruce Sterling's Seed article

Greener Gadgets TOP 50 Highlight: "Recompute"computer tower made out of cardboard!

Photo: Robert Patrick How (Not) to Write like a Designer: 5 Tricks You Didn't Learn in Studio

Bangle: Bye-bye BMW (and auto design)

"Day of the Dead" designed by delaojoser 1Hour Design Challenge Winners!!! Laser-cut Grip Tape Inlay for a Longboard!

fuseproject Mission is silent but deadly

Matchboxes from the Subcontinent

User-centered design alert: Hans Beck, designer of Playmobil figures, dies at 79.

OMG! OMA! - Babylon Burns, Today.

Some books that you can't put down (because you can't lift them in the first place)

Eye candy time: Norio Fujikawa

Continuum: Rethinking Green for Lean Times

Amazing pictures of production at The Big Picture

Compostmodern 09: Urgent Reflections and All Posts In One Place

Nike's new London space, with from-raw-to-finished photos by the designers

Nendo: Ghost Stories Exhibition Photos

Kinetic Design and the Animation of Products, by Ben Hopson

Greener Gadgets 2009: THE WINNERS!

A Periodic Table of Form: The secret language of surface and meaning in product design, by Gray Holland

This Just Inbox: Perspective table, The Power of Cute Thesis Project, and Pinball Publishing's Scoutbooks

Step into my cardboard office...

Flotspotting: Stephen Hauser's got it in the can

Book Review: Design Disasters, edited by Steven Heller

Jimmyjane's Sex Change Operation

The PeePoo Bag: 2.6 billion people just got their own toilet

Selling the Future: Design and the Financial Crisis

Okay seriously. First Tropicana and now THIS?

Core77 Film Review: Gary Hustwit's 'Objectified'

Home + Housewares Show 2009...in Cartoons!

Design is the Problem: An Interview with Nathan Shedroff

Shoot Your Inspiration Photo Competition Winners Announced!

Philips LEDs the way

Could be bathtubs, might be portals to a different dimension

1 Hour Design Challenge Highlight: 'Inside Job' Free iPhone Earbud Winder

Sketch Fu Hits 100 Pages!

Core77 wins 'Best Design Website' on Treehugger's Inaugural Best of Green Awards!

Stunning tattoo gun

Core77 Case Study: Modo's IV Pole for Cardinal Health, by Goo Sung

>How they make bi-metallic coins

Milan Design Week 09: Video Drive-by: Via Tortona at night

MIT's wearable "Sixth Sense" device turns any surface into an interface

Brandon Davey's concepts for snowboarders

Blast from the past: Hi-tech workstation from 1995

More extreme videos: Human Skateboard!

Makita marketing idea is full of holes

Core77 Milan Coverage all in one place!

Google's grass and goats

Bklyn Designs 2009: TMRnyc's wired table

Ryan Welch's blimp is pretty pimp

Data, not design, is king in the age of Google

Core.Store: Exclusive Campana Brothers Interview

New Panasonic floor-cleaning 'bot: There ain't enough Roomba in this town for the both of us

NYC Creative Confab preview: 2 Questions for Khoi Vinh from NYTimes.com

Core77 Photo Gallery: New York Design Week 2009

Field Notes from NYC Design Week 2009 (AKA Booze Within Reach)

NY Design Week 09: Speakers: Front with Brooke Stoddard

In praise of Alice Rawsthorn

The Context of 'Low Product': How designers can help articulate a new social language, by Ann Thorpe

Atoms For Bits: Designing physical embodiments for virtual content

Book Review: Sketchbook: Conceptual Drawings from the World's Most Influential Designers, by Timothy O'Donnell

Mike Sheldrake's Cardboard Surfboards

Peek inside those gadgets: iFixit launches a user-driven teardown site

Business Cards from Maker Faire

Industrial design office workings in the Mad Men era

Awesome Autodesk Flame demo

The latest 21st century profession: the digital smuggler (currently very active in Iran)

Wave Sport Kayak Competition WINNER: Ben Nelesen!

Pontiac Stinger - The Car That Could Have Saved Detroit

Synesthesia video from Terry Timely

First U.S. Spaceport going up

Fantastic Norway's Cardboard Cloud

Thomas Thwaites' Toaster Project at the Royal College of Art

On loving the Walkman for what it was, and the iPod for what it is

Tools of Engagement: The New Practice of User-Centered Design, by Robert Fabricant

There, I Fixed It

Jake Dyson's motorized-aperture light fixtures

Rare footage of the Eameses surfaces

Core-Toons: Unsolicited Proposals to Detroit

The End of Driving: Mike and Maaike introduce the Autonomobile

Starting a Design Studio During a Downturn, by Jennifer Bove

Portland Confab video: How Nike, Intel, Ziba and Cinco hire designers

This Just Inbox: Nelly Ben Hayoun's Physics of the Impossible

Keyring in the shape of a Key - Duh!

Vadim Kibardin's killer clock concept

Core77 Introduces the Dutch Master limited edition bicycle.

This Just Inbox: A book-sensitive reading lamp

Brilliant (literally) anti-paparazzi device

U.S. town designs their own cash; website redesigns national money

The Onion's Hot New Consumer Products

The Dalston Mill

Rotational Moulding DIY

Pulse: a new urban bike concept from Teague

Nidecker Snowboard Design Competition Winners!

Nathan Shedroff's design courses...for free!

Design Club: Why young American designers are ganging up

Redesigning the Prosthetic Arm: SVA project site is up!

Holograms you can feel

Coroflot hits 150,000 portfolios!

NO MORE FEEDS PLEASE! How abundant information is making us fat.

The Nine Eyes of Google Street View

Book Review: Classic Cars: 100 Years of Automotive Ads, by Jim Heimann and Phil Patton

Mark Wentzel's Fat Eames Chairs

Inside Ziba Design's new headquarters

Giant rainbow made from Pantone color chips

Case Study: Freescale Netbook Design at SCAD, by Dave Malouf

Samsung's sneaky little two-faced camera

Book Review: A Fine Line: How Design Strategies are Shaping the Future of Business, by Hartmut Esslinger

iPhone bicycle ergonomics app would make an awesome human factors tool

New York International Gift Fair faves: Joseph Joseph's clever kitchenware

Matthew White's amazingly thorough police cruiser interior re-design

Core77 presents Hack2Work: Essential Tips for the Design Professional

INDEX: Award 2009 Winners Announced in Denmark

Senator Al Franken can draw the USA from memory

Tom Fereday's solutions: Lighting, furniture, alternative energy, and more

Ross Racine's Suburbs of the Imagination

Design Patriotism by Jeremy Zietz

Tai Chiem's gaming systems of the future

Core-toon: Introducing Cog + Rockstar

Nearness as an interactive technology

This Just Inbox: 6 new takes on the Swiss Army Knife

Core77 Photo Gallery: Eurobike 2009

Book Review: Change by Design, by Tim Brown

ATT's 1993 predictions were remarkably accurate

Happy Park(ing) Day!

Core-Toons: The Trapper-Kindle

Daylight's presentation board Ikea-hack

Gizmodo Gallery '09 Walk Through

'The 4th-Bin' Design Competition winners!

London Design Festival 09: Video Drive-By: Home Office by Valentin Vodev

London Design Festival 2008: All posts in one place

Core77 Photo Gallery: London Design Festival 2009

Sketching in Hardware is Changing Your Life, by Fabricio Dore

Stefan Sagmeister @ TED: The Power of Time Off

Design Revolution: An Interview with Emily Pilloton

Core77 Live 1 Hour Design Challenge at 'A Better World by Design'

New Dyson invention intended to blow your hair back

Four things we love about Honda's Skydeck hybrid concept car

Core77 Photo Gallery: Gizmodo Gallery 2009

Hedgehog: a concert pavilion made from traffic cones

Never mind ringtones--how about vroom tones?

U.S. Submarines designs underwater luxury with Ashlar's Graphite

Anamorphic packaging and chameleonic furniture

This Just Inbox: Burning Cities Firescreens

Herman Miller's Setu Chair review

London 2012 Olympic pictograms unveiled

A table saw that doesn't need power

An optical illusion the size of a town

Mindless, unfeeling automaton can walk. Soon it will be able to run, and shortly thereafter it will be able to chase you

Coroflot 2009 Designer Salary Survey: The results are in!

jruiter + studio's super-minimal city bike

Announcing the Winners! 1 Hour Design Challenge: The Future of Digital Reading

We Were Factory Workers: 11 Young Designers Reflect on their Experience in Guyana

Screw panic rooms. Get a Bordeaux room

Social Software: The Other 'Design for Social Impact,' by Gentry Underwood

Book Review: Deconstructing Product Design, by William Lidwell and Gerry Manacsa

Stairway to Heaven? Nah--Elevator to Space

What If: Future Form, Future Function

Shenkar students' Gallery o' Kettles

Build your own lil' CNC

A Portuguese success story: could "i" be the future of newspapers?

"Ultimate Factories" excerpt: Inside Ikea

A Report From the Aspen Design Summit, by Doug Powell

RAW COLOR - Vegetable Design Research

Core77 Photo Gallery: Dutch Design Week 2009

Core77's Ultimate Gift Guide is LIVE! 77 RIGHTEOUS Gifts Under $77 From Core77

The Experience Imperative: A Manifesto for Industrial Designers, by Ken Fry

Sugru is like consumer-ready modeling clay for physical hacks

Husmus: A charming recycling system for beneath your kitchen sink

Nicolas Roope on Poke London and Hulger

Reflections: The Designers Accord Global Summit on Sustainability & Education

Start your day with this, for sure. Lady Gaga parody on Neutra Typeface

Helsinki to be heated by computers!

Stunning video installation by Tokujin Yoshioka for Hermes

Gingerbread houses go modernist

Autodesk University coverage from the floor, Part 4: Zebra Imaging's mind-blowing holographic sheets

Joshua Scott's Lola Series: Best perfume product shots ever

Mag+: The magazine's digital future

Core-Toon: Graphic Design Favors

Scenes From a Climate Floor Fight

Yves-Behar-designed $75 One Laptop Per Child tablet: Too good to be true?

Core77 Photo Gallery: Bad Taste Exhibition 2009

Core77 Review: Design may not make for good TV, but Starck does

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Rob

14 years ago

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Very nice comp, we especially like the halo light and the minimal street bike. Good work!
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judy Wert

15 years ago

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Nice summary Core77!
Happy New Year from Wert & Company...
cheers.
JUDY
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OPEN STUDIO

15 years ago

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Thank you for making such an amazing list. 2009 was a good year for design.
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Rim

15 years ago

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Love that the PeePoo Bag photo is followed directly by the Salad Shooter. Was this intentional or just hilariously ironic?
!Report as spam
James

15 years ago

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Looks like I am the first person to scroll all the way to the bottom of this page. I need a nap.
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