Welcome to a new series called ‘Shop Talk’, where Dan Slaski interviews people in the thick of product development business, who make the magic happen and turn their ideas into reality. Have an interview suggestion? Send it in. Watching over the Washington DC area is a dynamic duo of hardware entrepreneurship known as the Red Blue…
Glassblowing is a fascinating artform. For those of us in the product development world it’s akin to blow-molding. Yet, the process of blowing glass holds more intrigue and an element of danger. Also as a medium, it more eloquently showcases the human touch. Instead of yielding myriads of homogeneous end products, hand-blown glass enables artisans…
Long before Apple’s aluminum unibody hardware designs –– along with Jony Ive’s unmistakeable “aluminium” pronunciation –– aluminum had already changed the world of mass manufacturing. Having dropped in price by over 1200% over a 50-year stretch, what was once one of the most difficult metals to refine became one of the cheapest thanks to mass manufacturing…
With hundreds of officially licensed figures ranging from the Alien franchise to Mars Attacks!, Hong Kong-based Hot Toys Limited has been the go-to production house for ultra-detailed media property figures that fetch hundreds to thousands of dollars from loyal toy collectors. Established in 2000, the company began by producing high-detailed 1:6 scale U.S. military special…
When it comes to watching videos of wood products come to life, leave it up to artisanal wood craftsman Frank Howarth and his creative camera work to be among the most entertaining. The YouTube artisanal craft star picked up an obsession with both woodworking and filmmaking soon after retiring from architecture in the heavily-forested portion…
