Few items can be found in a clothes closet that really do last forever–and the items that do last forever regularly end up being some of the most prized possessions in an individual’s closet–whether it’s a pair of boots that get resoled every year or a first business suit straight out of college. Barbour jackets…

In a world where mass-manufactured Nike Air Jordans, Teva Sandals, and Croc Clogs dominate the sidewalks, it’s easy to overlook the time and patience that goes into designing and making shoes by hand. Sure there’s value in appreciating how the latest sneaker design came to fruition, but the amount of disconnect is surely larger than…

For those who watched Apple’s Developer Conference back in June, you might have remembered Apple CEO Tim Cook inviting out a CEO of a new toy car company that utilized Apple’s iOS devices as a ‘steering wheel’ of sorts to drive physical cars. For those who might not have seen the keynote presentation, these aren’t…

There are three things I throw away on a daily basis; Scraps of wood, lint from the pocket of a woolen yak coat, and business cards. I dare you to throw this business card away. It may look like your standard 2.5″ x 3.0″ infocard of someone you met at that one conference, but it…

If you’re like most people, you can easily spot the difference between a cheap product and a quality product — the price typically matches, too. A lot of time and attention goes into the design and craftsmanship of quality products, which is why they cost more. However, some companies go above and beyond the normal…

I bet, next to those dusty engineering and design textbooks on the shelf, you have a few picture books that have led to endless inspiration since you were a child. No? A comic book? Dilbert? *cringe* Nothing? Well, perhaps you had a favorite as a child, There Are Rocks in My Socks! or Where the…

If you’ve ever sold a company for a billion point five dollars, there’s a strong liklihood you’ll use that money to buy a 20,000 sq ft Bel Air estate, pursue your childhood interest or both. There’s also a liklihood you’re Elon Musk. Wired’s Chris Anderson beat us to an interview with Elon Musk, where he…

The challenge of staving off sickness from sleep deprivation suddenly has a direct correlation with chair design. A class of fourth-year Architecture students at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts may be use to sleepless nights by now and even more ready to prove they have the chops to join the design elite. Each…

Luxury mobile phones are most often super-glam on the outside, and filled with outdated crap tech on the inside, but Swiss watchmaker Tag Heuer has a new class of high-end, Andriod mobile phone and it’s sure to squeeze your eyes right out of their sockets. We take a look at the new Tag Heuer “Racer”…

We can slap some text into Photoshop, apply layer styles and churn out some quick LetterPress lookin’ crap, but the process that goes into creating the real thing is much, MUCH more time consuming. RISD students Phil Cao and Kebei Li show the intricate process behind the typesetting task of making one section of one…

Turns out good, energy efficient engineering is a lot more than removing a few extra ribs on a design and slapping a low power motor in it. James Dyson has something to say about that. This story at Fast Co.Exist gets the vacuum innovator’s take on lazy engineering.

You’ve got loads of ideas from portable candy launchers to cheese grating iPhone cases, but steps in the process (and your evil arch-nemesis Tim “criticizes everything” Jerksteen) has got your design mojo, motionless. Never fear! Another idea funding, “slam that design process in the face,” product site is here and it’s absolutely delicious… in fact,…

Ah, the project scope. The crucial document many of us follow as a guideline while we’re designing or engineering the next greatest thing. Its entire existence is to keep the focus by describing in detail the new product’s soon to be features, costs, and milestone dates. Love them or hate them, many of us couldn’t…

This is a guest post by Bruce Buck, avid photographer, videographer and workstation geek at MySolidBox.com. There’s one constant in product design – the development of new products. Shocking and unexpected I know, but when that development gets down to all the individual component parts of a larger product, the process gets a whole lot…

Your Guitar Hero party is about to get 1000 times cooler and 1000 times more flammable. What’s the one thing that can distract people from awful video game playing skills while at the same time scaring away rats, badminton players and night harpies that could gnaw your face off? FIRE, but you probably knew that.…

I know.You were probably hoping to see my improvisational flute playing skills in this post. We’ll do that later when you have quick access to a bucket and some earplugs. Today, we’re looking at something that will go down as a turning point in 3D printing history, but not only 3D printing history… all those…

Click-click-click-click. You feel the cold steel against the back of your head. You’ll never forget that sound again… you know, if you survive. Back in the days of frontier life, hard winter nights and cattle drives the very distinct sound of a certain gun loading a bullet into the chamber encapsulated all the risks, restraint…

We all know it. There are at least six programs that go into design process. That is, when there are more than five programs used. And with that, there’s a workflow that needs to be beat into submission. You’re about to see one that has been dealt with thusly. You remember the design arsenal poll…

The design process is something we absolutely CRAVE here at SolidSmack. You can throw up pretty pictures all day, but going behind the scenes and getting an idea of the work and thought that goes into a design… simply wonderful. This is a perfect example. Jonathan Bergqvist wanted to have a shoulder mount for his…

So, you’re sitting in a design review with a concept model of the product and the topic quickly changes to schedule. “You can just use that model for the engineering, right,” your boss asks confidently in front of the customer. Now, before your sweat glands burst and your eyes glaze over, rewind a few days.…

Look at the guy outside your window swatting a swarm of wasps away from his exposed skin areas. Now look at the guy in the cubicle next to you using Leonar3do 3D. Both look similar except one is screaming and swelling up while the other is smiling and creating 3D object… in 3D space. You…

Many of us are plugged directly into the monitor, starting and ending the design process within the confines of a virtual 3-dimensional prototype. Rubbish. What if that was only a small part in the middle of the entire process? The Futures Channel slaps the spectacles off the idea of 3D CAD and rapid prototyping with…

If you’re like me, you’ve been a bit uneasy and perhaps bitter that you didn’t get the foam projectile device you wanted so badly for Christmas. Wipe those tears, because it’s a new year and there’s something even cooler you’ll want to get your hands on. Phil Sluder of Triaxial Design has all the boys…

If there’s anything that cramps your daring sense of style, and your flaring lower back muscles it’s an inadequate office chair with absolutely hideous lines and a crushing lack of support. To counter those effects, Herman Miller has launched another stylish chair. The Setu. If you recall the Embody chair, you’ll know a lot went…

If you could shake yourself into a dazzling display of idea-producing power, you would still have just that, an idea. Some get lucky and have a prototype, but mostly we just sit on our ideas. C. Sven Johnson is going one step further with the 100K Stray Toasthed Pull Toy project. He has taken an…

How many times do you see a product design and think, “How could this possibly be manufactured at a reasonable cost?” The ‘YellowClip’ Clothesline Clip designed by Paul Sandip is just one of those designs that brings up such questions. It’s curvy, it doesn’t rust, it’s available in a variety of colors and it looks…

That’s it. For the last time you’ve tossed your bicycle over the bridge. The traffic is maddening, the weather is ruining your stylish hair, and you’ve had just about all you can take of your leg being eaten by gear teeth as you round that one curve. If only there were a human-powered, weatherproof container…

Not that you’re a handmaiden, or could be. All I need to say is one word, Buuuuutter. A layer of it should cover everything, including your modeling processes, and your bacon. What does butter have to do with 3D CAD? Absolutely everything my cow-slapping friends. You need ways to get things done finger-lickin’ fast. We’re…

I hope you all are ready for a fun and enlightening experience. I know we’ve pushed this iPhone modeling in SolidWorks clear around the table, but this is the model that everyone is and will be looking at for the foreseeable future. Nelson Au was kind enough to share his model and his process for…

You are lookin’ sporty. Really, you are stylin’ the design and engineering process like no other and everyone wants to know just how you do it… or at least, we do. Is it possible that you use more than one process or program to design and engineer products? We may not even realized it if…

Raise your eyebrow in a menacing way if you’ve ever received a really crumby .pdf, concept print or model data to create a production model from? If only there was a little more info or a way that the data could be transformed into usable 3D parametric data huh? Adobe has just release a interesting…

What could be more exciting than a thermos filled with your favorite soup flying across the room and hitting you in the neck? A heated, self-illuminating thermos filled with your favorite soup, that’s what. Nicolas Bernal, from Montreal, Quebec, has been busy finding ways to keep his mama’s best recipes warm on a long hike…

Once again you’re trapped in a firefight between hundreds of mechanized sentient beings, with no route of escape that wouldn’t leave you riddled with the dawning of human extinction. That is, until you see a little beast of a vehicle creep into view from around a corner. Your first thoughts are DOOM, but you soon…

This bicycle concept has been on the web… A LOT. You may have seen it, but you may not know that it was designed using 3D. Yes, I know, it’s almost obvious. The design is also being refined in SolidWorks and that’s where you come in. Brad Waugh has a cool idea. A hubless bike.…

So, how many times are you sitting admiring the sunrise, contemplating the various ways to mirror an assembly in SolidWorks when you suddenly realize that’s not a bagel you stuck in the toaster, but your right thumb. With files sizes on the mind, you may have a tendancy to avoid mirroring SolidWorks assemblies as much…

Oh the craziness of climbing on a stationary bike and pretending you’re escaping a beating with poorly designed bike locks. What can you do? How about designing a bike that calms your fears, enhances your environment and well-being? That’s exactly what Mark Hagen did with his new take on a exercise device often seen crumpling…