This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist knocks you in the pop sockets with head-boppin’ groove tuneage to help propel you through the work week in style. Whether you find yourself inking markers until they’re dry, grinding material through a bandsaw, or working that 3D geometry all day, consider these fresh tracks as a tool for your process. This week we’ll start things off with “Golden Days” from Whitney and work our way through tracks from Dannika, Craft Spells, Minden, OJR, and others before wrapping up with “Cape Coast” from Del Sur. Have suggestions? As always, let us know what you listen to, what you want to hear and what tunes…

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. Each Monday, we’ll 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. Be sure to check in each Monday morning for a new crop of freshly sprouted words curated straight from the source of your favorite homegrown ‘Smack.…

There is something zen-like about products that require no hardware to assemble (we’re looking at you, IKEA). It’s as if those materials and parts were created for the sole purpose of existing as the components of a seamless assembly. The Lo1 lamp from Chilean industrial designer Emmanuel Gonzalez is one of those products. With a brief to create a wooden lamp with as little material as possible and without screws or glue, he first looked at the designs of the Bauhaus movement for functional form inspiration. But in an interesting twist, he looked towards the design of Japanese woodworkers for hardware-free joinery that would ultimately hold the design together. “I…

With more digital sketching apps than ever before, picking one that fits your workflow isn’t necessarily easy. Oftentimes, half that battle is just learning how to use it effectively. Featuring both Corel Painter 2017 itself as well as AfterShot 3, ParticleShop, and over 10 Hours of Corel-approved training, the Corel Painter 2017 Bundle is an ideal place to start. Starting with the Corel Painter Digital Art Fundamentals course, students master the fundamental theory behind design and move on to other courses designed to teach you how to get the most out of your digital sketching toolkit. For a limited time, the bundle—which includes Corel Painter 2017—is 67% off the retail…

When it comes to testing out new toy inventions, nobody can beat the opinion of an honest kid. Better yet, a panel of kid judges. In a new spin on the Shark Tank show format, where inventors and budding entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to investors including Mark Cuban and Barbara Corcoran for advice and hopefully, an investment, ABC has teamed up with toy manufacturer Mattel to give toy inventors a stage for pitching their concepts. Unlike on Shark Tank, however, these inventors aren’t pitching to billionaires; they’re pitching to kids. https://youtu.be/ik2DsG6pUhw The show, which is hosted by ABC Modern Family star Eric Stonestreet, will slowly weed its way through various…

I read an interesting announcement from Aleph Objects and colorFabb that begs a question about the latter’s strategy. Aleph Objects is, of course, the producers of the very popular line of LulzBot desktop 3D printers. These are very well regarded machines that have proceeded well through a number of increasingly powerful iterations, leading up to today’s flagship model, the TAX 6. colorFabb is a manufacturer of high-quality 3D printer filament in a wide variety of materials. The company has historically been one of the leaders in exploring new types of materials. They often experiment with something new, tune it up and transform it into a popular product. colorFabb is actually…