And now for your daily feel-good story. Colin Macduff, a Washington State Navy veteran who did two tours in Operation Desert Shield accidentally blew off his finger in a shotgun accident in 2010. At the time, Macduff was unemployed and according to his doctor, would be unable to receive a prosthetic. What resulted belongs in the league of champions….Macduff woke up in the middle of the night, turned over to his wife and said “I’m going to make my own prosthetic out of bike parts”.
Lasers vs. plastic extruders. We all know laser cutters are superior to 3D printers. Mostly, because you can’t put plastic extruders on sharks (or any other sea creature) to make them even more vicious. It also turns out that laser cutters are a tad faster at fabricating certain items…. as long as it’s flat and not overtly complicated. That is until some clever young students from the Hasso Plattner Institute decided to use a laser cutter to both cut and melt the plastic products they create. The result? LaserOragami, a project that cuts a whole new approach to product design.
When the Cintiq first came out, I vividly remember an illustrator friend of mine saying “It’s not a matter of if I’m going to buy one, it’s a matter of when I’m going to buy one.” Perhaps a lot of designers and illustrators have found themselves in the same boat and have waited for the price (and maybe even the form factor) to come down a bit without sacrificing quality. It’s hard to argue that the $999 Cintiq 13HD may just be the most accessible, versatile, and ergonomic Cintiq to date.
…And you should get in your imaginary Dymaxion Car right now and head over to Kickstarter to help make it a reality. Illustrator Cole Gerst of Portland, Oregon was blessed by the Buckmister Fuller estate to pursue the project, which features over 200 full-color, beautifully illustrated pages. Move your white Dieter Rams book over and make room on your coffee table for this color-explosion bad boy.
This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist brings an entirely new face-smack of great music to help propel you through those laborious, tedious design tasks for the next few days. This week’s playlist features all-new Phosphorescent (just released!), Son of Dave, Son Volt, Africa Hitech, Burial, and a slew of other buttery-slick tunes to jam to for the week.