According to their website, the makers of The Problem Solver India Pale Ale have established that “scientific studies suggest that at an alcohol level of 0.075% the average person produces the most creative thinking.” While anybody who has had a successful brainstorm session after a couple of beers can confirm that, it also opens up…

Sneaker fan or not, it’s hard to not appreciate the material and manufacturing developments that have come out of the shoe design and manufacturing space. Between developments in responsive midsole materials for various athletic applications to new upper materials that bring shoe weight down and structural support up, the research and development that goes into…

Earlier this year, MoMA’s PS1—a satellite extension of the Museum of Modern Art—was home to the Hy-Fi, a cutting-edge structure made out of mushroom material. The entirely compostable structure was made from brick-like blocks that were grown rather than manufactured and the natural materials helped in providing a pleasant microclimate for PS1 visitors. The futuristic…

Before the ‘How it Works’ Discovery Channel and YouTube explosion, Neil Ardley and David Macaulay’s The Way Things Work book was oftentimes the go-to source for satisfying the natural itch of wondering how things do what they do. The book, which was first released in 1988, provided (and still does) hours of brain-fertilizing goodness for…

Aiming to bring the best of yester-century into today’s modern work environments, Studio Renier Winkelaar, an independent design agency two hours outside of Amsterdam, has created a table that is both modern and built to last. The Craft 2.0 table, which uses only one material (oak) and omits any type of modern fasteners—including screws—was inspired…

When it comes to the hundreds of possible uses for a toolbox, playing one as an instrument doesn’t necessarily rank very high on the list…unless the sound of a hammer being tossed into a metal box is music to your ears. While the banging, clanging and all-around headache-inducing sounds of metal against metal would send…

Leading up to their 50th anniversary year in 2015, the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) has been busy revamping their organization to make it more useful for its community of 3,200+ industrial designers. The nonprofit, which is funded by its members, was founded in 1965 and is one of the oldest and largest membership…

If you’ve always wanted to take a piece of a 747 home with you but don’t have space in the backyard, Boeing has been listening to your concerns. Starting this holiday season, the aerospace manufacturer is selling a collection of discarded airplane parts—some upcycled into other products, some not—through their new online Custom Hangar store.…

Hot off the heels of another successful Autodesk University, Autodesk announced today that they are in the process of building a Pier 9-like workshop for fostering innovation in the Boston area. The planned facility’s location, which is slated to house around 27,000 square feet of design space and manufacturing equipment, is still yet to be…

Although 3D printer sales have grown exponentially in the past few years, the cost of purchasing a desktop 3D printer hasn’t changed drastically enough for a new generation of ‘non-prosumers’ to wholeheartedly adopt the technology yet. While on-demand services such as Shapeways promise the same results (or better), the lack of instant gratification leaves much…

Of all of the great skills that product designers and engineers are blessed with, graphic design isn’t necessarily known for being high up on that list. While talent and skill will obviously vary from person to person, there’s more than one reason why design studios have different departments for different disciplines for general day-to-day work.…

While putting 3D printers and other localized manufacturing platforms in gravity-bound homes has presented its own challenges, ongoing efforts to put a full-fledged fabrication lab on the International Space Station has come a lot sooner than most would probably expect. Most recently, the Zero-G 3D printer launched in late September of 2014 and it was…

Back in 1965, neo-futuristic designer, architect, philosopher and all-around badass Buckminster Fuller designed and patented an “autonomous dwelling machine” that he coined the Fly’s Eye Dome. The designer, whose fascination with material usage and energy efficiency in design and architecture led to a career highlighted with a variety of geodesic dome designs, sadly passed away…

Having been inspired by natural elements for their new collection of wooden toy designs, product design, graphic design and architecture studio Vrtíška Žák have reduced common and traditional wooden children’s toys into their most simple forms with the minimalist WOO toy collection. The collection, whose name is derived from both a play on the word…

Apparently not satisfied with riding motorcycles on water, blowing up cement trucks, or escaping a sinking car on their popular television show Mythbusters, engineer-nerd hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman have resorted to YouTube to continue their fascination with engineering, physics and the like (and we’re thankful for it). On their Tested YouTube channel, the…

While the potential uses for virtual reality as a form of three-dimensional content creation are still up in the air, recent advancements…including the ability to augment reality and work within the confines of a real-world space have been looking promising. Recently, Chrysler used virtual reality at the LA Auto Show to create an immersive experience…

It’s no secret that Luxion has been teaming up with everybody from software companies to material manufacturers left and right these days. Regardless of what program you use, chances are there’s some sort of a KeyShot plug-in, LiveLink, or Direct Import option for that. Now you can add one more to the pile. Yesterday, it…

As far as ‘Behind the Design’ and DIY videos go, whoever is operating behind the scenes at Inspire to Make has done an exceptional job of crafting and communicating the steps for unique projects without overestimating people’s short YouTube attention span these days. In fact, this recently-released video of Inspire to Make’s latest DIY project…

Whether it comes down to finally setting up the workspace of your dreams, refreshing your portfolio with side projects, or simply just committing to doing a given task on a daily basis, organizing and planning for success is among one of the more difficult challenges outside of the daily grind. While one could resort to…

Known for their forward-thinking approach to mass manufacturing with wood-based designs, Italy’s Slow Wood is also an innovative incubator for spearheading ideas and initiatives in wooden craft design…particularly in the realm of disrupting traditional manufacturing supply chains by employing a private network of Italian artisanal makers. Founded by wood expert, preservationist and entrepreneur Gianni Cantarutti,…

As 3D printing finds its way into solving a myriad of problems ranging from more traditional product development methods to more recent medical applications, there is one trait that leaves much to be desired: the ability to create multiple high-quality prints in a short amount of time. While the recently-announced Multi Jet Fusion Technology from…

While Maker, coding and general DIY culture has exploded in popularity over the past 10 years, there was once a time where the only regular industry updates and project builds didn’t come from a quick Google search…they came from your monthly Popular Electronics magazine. The popular hobbyist magazine, which was founded over 60 years ago…

It’s no secret that as we move deeper into digital experiences with our phones, tablets, watches and the like, the human need to connect with more mechanical and manual activities or objects becomes suddenly more apparent. While we don’t expect anybody to be churning butter at their desk or making candles during lunch hour, these…

One doesn’t normally associate magnets with plastic…unless of course that magnet is embedded somewhere behind the housing. But what if the plastic material itself was magnetic? As they begin unveiling a collection of new 3D printing materials they have been developing over the past few years, Oregon-based ProtoParadigm is launching a series of Kickstarter campaigns…

After years of humans figuring out ways of getting analog sketches into a digital platform, design engineer Ken Nakagaki is reversing that notion and wants us to put our digital sketches onto an analog ‘platform’ with his COMP*PASS design…which was recently shortlisted for a 2014 James Dyson Award. Armed with the goal of drawing a…

While virtual reality applications are a dime a dozen these days, we’re still yet to see any sort of a mainstream adoption of the virtual reality headsets themselves…at least at a consumer-friendly price point. When virtual reality headsets become ‘the next iPad’ however, we’re sure in for a change of pace when it comes to…

When it comes to tearing through the steps required to build a CAD model, everybody has their own proven method. While some might prefer a 3D mouse paired with a traditional mouse, others prefer to keep their hotkeys close and one hand on a Wacom tablet. Ultimately, there is no right or wrong way…but everybody…

Inspired by the stories behind existing artifacts rather than creating non-existing objects, artist and self-described ‘stuffmaker’ Mac Premo has molded himself into nothing short of an ultimate multimedia collage maker. Using everything from found items to photographs and video in his work, the Class of 1995 Rhode Island School of Design graduate has won seven…

Partwork publications, which consist of a larger story, guide or project that is broken into digestible magazine-like installments, have been among the best ways to deliver epic stories and more complicated projects for centuries now. Similar to how a boxed set for a television show is initially broken up into weekly episodes, partwork publications can…

For over 25 years, paper engineer Peter Dahmen has been creating every last type of pop-up book or 3D paper structure imaginable. From the more traditional pop-up greeting cards to large-scale set designs for automakers such as MINI, the German graphic designer’s story of how he got started in paper engineering is just as fascinating…

For decades now, the performance of working with digital tools has been contingent on one’s hardware setup and needless to say, you got what you paid for (and still do). Adobe has been working on obliterating the need for expensive hardware as more services start operating out of the Cloud with the development of their…

Since its big debut on the world stage at this year’s CES in Las Vegas, Chris Elsworthy’s Robox 3D printer and micro-manufacturing platform has been generating a lot of interest in an already-flooded 3D printer market. Yesterday, it was announced that the Kickstarter-backed micro-manufacturing platform is now available to the public for just under $1,550.…

Including the Ostrich Pillow and Convertible Napping Desk from Studio NL, workers today have never had it so good when it comes to escaping their pesky coworkers for a few minutes or to gently whisk themselves away to a brief happy place before attempting another complicated CAD maneuver. Now another kid on the block wants…

While there (should) still be enough room in everybody’s toolkit or backpack for reliable analog tools, the fact of the matter is that no matter where you start, those analog sketches are likely going to end up in your computer in some way or another. While it has taken forever for the iPad–and other digital…

The reality of sending your digital memories into a drilled hole on the moon might sound a little far-fetched for the common man, but in an age where blender-cooler hybrids are bringing in eight figures in crowdfunding dollars on Kickstarter, this sci-fi concept might not be too far of a reach in 2014. If the…

Every so often, a ‘making of’ video comes along that stands out amongst the pack with wit and charm. In most cases, the videographer went beyond the slow-motion “sparks-flying, sweat-dripping” scenes of workshop fabrication to bring some more narrative into the context. Or, they bring in a a puppet to make things more interesting. The…

Dating all the way back to the earliest sci-fi books, television and films, humans have been both fascinated and scared of what the future might hold. Whether it is imagination—or fear—that is driving technology and design forward, it’s safe to say that a lot of these concepts were in some way or another born out…

When it comes to adopting new technologies, master homemaker Martha Stewart is up there among the best and most comfortable in not only using the new technologies, but also finding unique ways of using them. Among other methods of adoption, the iconic media personality and lifestyle icon has used a drone to plot out her…

Back in October, SolidSmack announced that Autodesk had unveiled a more-robust option for their Fusion 360 CAD package with the announcement of Fusion 360 Ultimate. The announcement included feature upgrades including highly-requested 2D drawings, 3D exploded views and added CAM support. Autodesk Fusion 360 Product Manager Kevin Schneider followed-up on the announcement last week with…

After a successful Kickstarter campaign in February of 2014 that saw them raise over $250,000 (with an original goal of $18,000) The Floyd Leg creators have been busy expanding their product line that was born out of the successful Kickstarter campaign. This time around, they want to enable you to create an entire workshop or…

Before the YouTube explosion of self-produced design sketching tutorials, a large amount of the industrial design, concept art and design engineer community learned how to ‘draw through’ and hone their visual communication skills with concept designer Scott Robertson’s sketching DVDs from the Gnomon Workshop. The Art Center-trained concept designer—whose keen ability to bounce in and…

Known as the Habitability Design Center, NASA’s “conceptual, human-centered design studio” is nothing short of a playground for playing with some of humanity’s most futuristic design concepts. While it might be easy to jump to the conclusion that the design team gets to ‘draw spaceships all day’…the amount of human factors research that goes into…

Having designed everything from jetpacks to furniture and clothing to restaurant interiors prior to joining Apple’s industrial design team, industrial designer Marc Newson had one more product to get off his chest before signing up for the Cupertino all-star team: a modern 21st century shotgun for Beretta. Revealed at an event in London last night…

Last time we checked-in with crazy YouTube sensation/mad-scientist inventor Colin Furze, he was letting a group of friends shoot fireworks at him whilst wearing a metal suit that he made using his pressure washer to demonstrate the hydroforming method of manufacturing. Frankly, we’re just glad to know that he’s still alive. More recently, the plumber,…

While HP’s recent announcement of their Multi Jet Fusion technology sent shockwaves through the industry, it is still over a year away from seeing any sort of a release and even when it does release, there are no announcements for a desktop fabrication system. With MakerBot leading the way in bringing 3D printers to consumers,…

Since opening in the fall of 2013, Autodesk’s Pier 9 has been nothing short of a dream factory where designers and engineers have access to literally every tool possible for cranking out the next great product design or innovation. Located on Pier 9 overlooking the San Francisco Bay, the facility is available to lucky Autodesk…

Next time you’re at a big-box store such as Target, take a moment to walk down their toothbrush and toothpaste aisle. Pretend that you’re being hired to do some qualitative research into redefining the oral care experience. Now back out. The oral care industry is a confusing one–one where they are trying to meet the…

Back in May of this year, the MoMA Design Store in New York City announced that they would be selling a curated collection of successfully-funded Kickstarter projects as a part of the NYCxDesign festivities that occurred over the month. Needless to say, the experiment was a success and proved to be a fine example of…

While original Apple 1 computers have been fetching over a half-million USD at auction over the past few years, even Apple 1 replicas have been going for more than a current-day Macbook Air…to the tune of around $1,200 on eBay. The Steve Wozniak-designed machine that started it all has a storied history that even Woz…

Aiming to be a creative lab focusing on nurturing young talent, Milan-based Incipit (“the beginning” in Latin) manufacturers and distributes a collection of home accessory products through collaborating with up-and-coming designers. Founded in 2013 by Roberto Hoz and Marta Bernstein, the company helps support young designers by sharing skills and best business practices through a…