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 Caribou’s “Bees” before working our way through Gang of Four, Four Tet, La Luz, David Lynch, Daniel Johnston and others before wrapping up with “The Bold Arrow of Time” from Tame Impala. Have suggestions? As always, let us know what you listen to, what you want to…

Last year, Nike turned the Air MAG shoes, that Marty McFly sports in Back to the Future, into a reality. They were pricey, yes, but available in limited quantities and sold exclusively to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Disease research. Now the shoe company is bringing that totally futuristic technology to the masses.

After reading a 2009 article that declared ‘the speed of human cognition dictates that 18mph is a comfortable speed at which to travel through and perceive the world’, Rhys Newman – a former VP of Advanced Design at Nokia and bicycle racer – decided to further explore the human relationship between bicycles and the many connected devices that now adorn them. Along with fellow former Nokia employees Julian Bleecker and Michael Halbherr, the trio set out to create “a modern, advanced speedometer that makes a strong statement on the nature of product design, technology and innovation, as much as a statement on the essential character of cycling itself.” After months of…

Despite the growing excitement around some of the latest additive manufacturing technologies, producing multiple plastic parts is still best left to traditional manufacturing methods – particularly injection molding. That said, there’s no reason why the two can’t continue to live in harmony as different respective steps of the design and production process. To further explore the process of 3D printing while simultaneously gaining a better understanding of the injection molding process, freeform 3D modeler Luca Toson recently took on the challenge of modeling an entire 300-part injection molding machine with the sole intention of 3D printing the parts and assembling them into a semi-functional model that demonstrates the injection molding process.…

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…

After becoming increasingly concerned by the state of design around him in the early 1980s – or what he called “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colors and noises” – industrial designer Dieter Rams established for himself what is now known as the Ten Principles of Good Design. To date, these principles have provided the foundation for some of the most effective design solutions within the past few decades. More recently, Dutch industrial designer Patrick Schuur of form + function put these ten principles into context when he set out to redesign the classic men’s razor for a client who wanted to create a no-nonsense wet shaving system that merges rituals…