Having a place to jot down your ideas when inspiration strikes is a must for any designer or engineer. Yet, finding the ideal (durable!) scratchpad to keep in your pocket (or close by) at all times isn’t always easy. Which is why we love the Rollbahn pocket memo from Rollbahn. Featuring a gold metal cover (yep—really!) and tearaway gridded pages, this edition of the iconic Japanese notebook is the perfect fusion of simplicity and function. Rollbahn Gold Metal Cover Pocket Memo Book (Gridded Pages) — $10.66 Features: Made in Japan 112×138mm Durable Metal Cover Elastic Enclosure Perforated Tearaway Pages PURCHASE VIA AMAZON Affiliate purchases help support SolidSmack through a small…

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 the all-new “Petals” from TOPS before diving into irresistible tracks from Wild Nothing, Hoops, Toro y Moi, Crumb, and others before wrapping up with “Island Music” from Tennis. Ready? Let’s…

While there used to be a painful shortage of inspirational design sketching books out there, these days, design students and those looking to refresh their skill set may, in fact, have too many to choose from. The good news is, there’s something different to learn from each—so go ahead and build out that library. Among other design sketching book favorites, we love the broad variety of sketching styles presented in Sketching. While the book is ideal for any design student or classroom, many professionals and design studios will also likely learn a thing or two from the wide variety of sketching styles and form examples presented within the book’s 256…

We’ve seen some pretty neat wood carvings recently. From a mind-boggling dowel puzzle to hefty river table, woodworkers all over the world have shown there’s just as much creativity within dead trees as there are in hunks of metal. This time around, woodworker Andy Phillip is taking wooden art for a fantastical spin. Taking the ugliest wooden burl I have ever seen to his workshop, he cuts and carves away until all that remains is a fine-looking dragon egg fit to grace any Harry Potter film. Most of the carving takes place on a wood lathe, where Andy chips away at the hard bark with his tools. It may look…

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…

A blue moss wall, iced with frost spider webs, grappled its way past roots and branches of the Shornfort realm. The forms would glisten and melt, recrystallized with a shrill scream as you pass holding your finds, cold shadows waiting to be within reach of these links. Nick Gindraux – Ancient dragon riders, old Russian mechs, space desert buggies, and crashed ships are just some of the scenescreated by this LA-based Concept Artist. Right There – Beautifully odd ceramic sculptures that oddly illustrate the artist’s feelings in an odd and magnificent sort of way. Aerial Facades – Instagram follow of the week. Camilo Monzón Navas has turned top-down facade shots…