Those of you who know us well know of our longstanding love for the iconic rOtring 800 Mechanical Pencil. But heck, it isn’t the only great mechanical pencil to have on your desktop. For those who are particular about sharp lead points — AT ALL TIMES — the brilliant engineering behind writing tool manufacturer Uni’s Kuru Toga mechanical pencil just might be the best thing for you since, well, sliced bread. Ideal for sketching, writing, engineering linework, or just about anything else that requires a nice bit of lead to the paper, the Kuru Toga features a mechanism that rotates the lead ever-so-slightly each time it’s lifted from the page—meaning, you’re always…

What you’re looking at right now isn’t a Bluetooth speaker. It isn’t even a pint-sized Roomba. What you see in the photos and videos here is actually Logitech’s newest MX Vertical mouse. While older users of computer peripherals are no strangers to mice the shape of actual rodents (some early computer mice were even bigger than many human hands), the MX Vertical is unique since it is set 57 degrees vertically from the surface it rests on. This makes it look like a miniature air humidifier, but the real purpose of the design choice is to alleviate the pressure on your hand and reduce muscle strain. To this end, the…

Get that stretch out of your system with this week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist. It’s fashioned up, ready to make you pull your shoulder blades back and knock out another week of meaningful work while you bob your head to the beat. Whether you’re in the shop milling aluminum, sketching the latest product prototypes or modeling up a 3D storm, consider these tracks as a tool for your process. This week on SolidSmack Radio we’ll get the groove going with “Wayfaring Stranger” from Dean Wareham before diving into irresistible NEW tracks from Morcheeba, Aphex Twin, Blonde Redhead, Wild Nothing, and others before wrapping up with “Black Car” from Beach House.…

Mondays might not be your favorite day of the week, but the good news is that we’re all in this together ladies and gentlemen. As purveyors of prime Grade A web content, the SolidSmack crew has done some of the heavy-lifting to make sure you get your Mondays started on the right track. Welcome to The Monday List. Every Monday, we link you up with some of the most insightful, informative, and socially-relevant stories to keep tabbed, bookmarked, reading listed, pocketed, or what have you to get your week started on the right foot. Be sure to check in each week for a new crop of freshly sprouted words curated straight…

Don’t get me wrong – today’s graphics cards are no slouch. While they deliver images which are almost on par with blockbuster movies, the biggest issue graphics cards have to deal with right now is light; more specifically, how it bounces, reflects, and refracts off objects similar to the real world. Nvidia Turing isn’t the name of the mega company’s newest graphics card, but rather, the tech powering Nvidia’s soon-to-be-released GeForce RTX 2080, 2080 Ti, and 2070 graphics cards. On top of the cards’ new RTX Quadro cards (which include 48GB of GDDR6 memory, 576 Tensor cores, and 4,608 CUDA cores), Turing adds real-time lighting effects by modeling the behavior…

When it comes to sketching and communicating your ideas well, nothing beats a good old-fashioned pencil and a keen sense of perspective. That said, adding depth to your form sketches with light and shadow is a natural next step in taking your sketches to the next level. When it comes time to cranking ideas out fast, our favorite go-to is a fistful of 2-3 Sketching Grays from Copic that give us great contrast. These ultra-blendable, low odor, alcohol-based inks deliver rich and smooth strokes that are ideal for quickly communicating product concepts. And unlike water-based inks, which tend to pill and oversoak paper while blending, Copics mix on the surface…