According to Australia-based Knog, bike bells generally look and sound a bit ugly – but what if they were streamlined to fit the existing profile of a handlebar and sounded like an angel playing a glockenspiel? That’s a big “what if” – but if their recent success on Kickstarter is any indication, thousands of bell-ringing cyclists also agree wholeheartedly to the tune of over $500K. The company’s “Oi” bike bell – which resembles more of a ring than a bell – is the result of marrying form and function into a streamlined solution for the handlebars of modern day cyclists. To arrive at their final design, the company exhaustively prototyped different widths, depths,…

With so many cool things coming out each week, it can be hard to wade through all the rock-awesomeness. With ‘Cool Tools’, we’ve done the hard work for you. This week we saw a sleek wood handlebar that rivals any midcentury furniture piece, an incredible self-sustainable planter, a handy new 3D sketching app for iPad, how to make a hot glue gun with found materials, a montage of the best VFX in the history of cinema and more… Ready? Let’s go! This week we look at: DESIGN LENKR Type-B Handlebar “A perfect unit made of two exclusive materials: Each wooden handlebar is milled from a solid piece of walnut, supported…

Although we’re just as excited as anybody else about the future of manufacturing – particularly AR applications, Cloud-based CAD and improvements to digital fabrication workflows – our appreciation for traditional craftsmanship techniques is still shining as bright as ever. Among others who have taken manufacturing goods to the complete opposite end of the spectrum is the appropriately named YouTuber Primitive Technology. Previously, the skilled tool maker has shown us how to make everything from a cord drill to a celt stone axe using only found materials in the forest. Needless to say, those who study his techniques will have a better chance of survival if they ever find themselves literally…

In Part I we went through the steps of creating a silicone mold. Now we are ready to cast the actual part. Are your ready for this?

Presented by Once upon a time we shoved pounds of paper into binders and carted them off to the conference rooms for design reviews, sifting through them under bad lighting and a hazy caffeine buzz from coffee that was clearly past the expiration date.

For some, the sight of a school lunch tray might bring memories of rubbery fish sticks, generic ketchup and grape juice with strong notes of cardboard – but for artist and furniture maker Kim Markel, the sight of a school lunch tray means one thing only: tasteful opportunity. The late-blooming furniture designer, who left a career in environmental and public policy to work at the lauded Polich Tallix fine arts foundry in New York’s Hudson Valley, taught herself the craft of mold making and furniture design through assisting in the fabrication of works from artists ranging from Jeff Koons to Matthew Barney. With a background in environmental policy, it only…