It wasn’t too long ago when having maybe 3 or so colors in a single mechanical spring-loaded pen was a big deal – but what if you could carry nearly every shade (approximately 16 million colors) in your pocket wherever you go. That’s just crazy. As the latest high-tech art tool, the Cronzy pen is a device that allows users to manually select one of (a purported) 16 million colors from an accompanying app for marking up their latest writing assignment or coloring their Lisa Frank-inspired rainbow unicorn drawing. Even more impressive, the pen also includes a built-in “color scanner” for users to scan the world around them and create color-accurate…

For some, it seems to come almost too easily before even having started grade school. For others, it can take a lifetime (if it ever happens) to master. Regardless, throwing a perfect football spiral is necessary for accuracy, and for the first time ever, beginner and expert players will now be able to measure those spirals with surprisingly honest feedback thanks to Wilson’s new smart football. Featuring a small embedded chip with accelerometers, a gyroscope, and Bluetooth connectivity for capturing and relaying football throwing data via an accompanying app, the Wilson X Connected Football is the most advanced football to ever enter the game. Heck, not even the pros have…

While most people might approach freshly cut firewood as a way of fueling their bonfires or keeping their house warm on cold nights, designer Paul Foeckler has a different idea of harnessing light. Using carefully selected pieces of firewood sourced from California forests, the LA-based woodworker forgoes setting a match to the wood and instead slices the firewood into precise slices, which then become the basis for his minimalist light designs that make up the Split Grain Collection. Interestingly enough, the idea for the project came when Foeckler noticed that the exterior texture and shape of a piece of ordinary firewood looked “too beautiful” to burn. After experimenting with wood…

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 tracks as a tool for your process. This week we’ll start things off with “Southern Skies” from Yuck and work our way through tracks from Mr. Gnome, Tortoise, Axel Boman, Hundred Waters and others before wrapping up with “I’m Gone” from Tamaryn. Have suggestions? As always, let us know what you listen to, what you want to hear and what tunes…

My last post was ostensibly about my new SpaceMouse, but within half an hour I had not less than five different people ask about my stylus. What the what? Stylus? For CAD? In short: yes, I use a stylus for CAD. And everything else, actually. I don’t even own a decent mouse anymore.

With a seemingly endless supply of content and social media updates getting hurled at us 24/7, it’s become increasingly difficult to break the time-sucking and vicious cycle of distraction. If you’re a freelancer or one of the few digital nomads who work from home without the pressure of an afternoon presentation deadline, this problem can easily be magnified tenfold at the blink of an eye. So how do we overcome procrastination – be it at work, at home or even on personal projects we actually go out of our way to make time for? While there is no “one size fits all” solution for putting an end to the agonizing internal…