I hope you weren’t planning on trying to impress everyone with YOUR 3D printed musculoskeletal mask because, as you would expect, Björk just totally schooled everyone with one of her own. Stratasys, who helped print the mask using their full-color, multi-material tech, called it “yet another fashion-forward step.” We prefer to call it “so damn creepy, it’s cool.”

Though most people do 100% their writing on a computer or smartphone, there are still a few old people and those with the digit dexterity of a quilt sewer who prefer to write with a pen. Whether you like the feeling of pen meeting paper or just find it easier than nub-punching a keyboard, there’s likely to always be writing instrument availables. The chirography community is ravenous for new writing tools, and they sometime pay far more than they should for the privilege. But, a pen that keeps you writing and kills the cramps can be hard to come by. Your standard Bic makes a better spit-wad shooter than scribble…

An experiment by researchers at the University of Copenhagen attempted to persuade an A.I. to create a 3D model from scratch. It did. It’s a peculiar approach that was used in this experiment, and is very similar to “genetic algorithms” in A.I. research. Here’s how it worked: The A.I. creates a random shape Images of the shape are presented to Google’s deep neural network to see how well it “registers” against existing images and “scores” it Multiple variations of the shape are generated and scored in the same way Poorly scoring variations are discarded; higher scoring variations are then slightly mutated Over a huge number of iterations, the “random” shape…

Known for being almost impossible to carry around without a gig van, the last thing that any drummer would expect to be able to carry on their back is a drumset – particularly for impromptu acoustic jam sessions. But heck, what if they could? The cardboard DRUMKIT from OBILAB music just might be the best thing since sliced bread for spontaneous drummers on-the-go. Having already found success with an initial short run manufacturing experience last year, the OBILAB designers have spent the past 8 months refining the design of what is quite possibly one of the most interesting uses for cardboard in recent memory – including a functioning durable kick pedal: Made…

Vehicles concepts fall into a category all of their own. They are different than other products in the sense that they are, in general, 95% styling and about 1% design, with 4% common sense/luck, in my opinion. Toy vehicles are usually some sort of a generalization of what a designer thinks a vehicle is and what the manufacturing process will allow them to produce. The concept vehicles for the these episodes are unique in the sense that they are atypical of kids free-play exploring adventure toys. Episode 6-­9 concepts are based on an existing toy system and the last episode is a general kids fantasy spaceship meant to be plastic…

In case you weren’t keeping track, yesterday was World Industrial Design Day (which is different from the relatively new US-based National Industrial Design Day on March 5th) and what better way to celebrate industrial designers than to make fun of their quirks? Whether the video was intended as a vehicle for promoting their portfolios or as a program introduction for this year’s freshmen class (either way, good on them), a group of graduating seniors from the Industrial Design program at Arizona State University effectively hit the nail on the head when it comes to explaining who they are and what they do both to other students and strangers alike. Says…