When it comes to design sketching, one of the most difficult –– but oftentimes absolutely necessary –– components to lay down are various components of the human figure. Among other reasons, understanding the scale and ergonomics of early design ideas can make or break a project early in the process. Which is why the How to Draw:…

If the Kickstarter video for the successfully funded Fidget Cube is any indication, fidgeting is a serious problem –– but it just may also be the key to increased focus, too. While some may resort to aggressively folding gum wrappers or twirling a pen between their fingers, Fidget Cube creators Matthew and Mark McLachlan have…

You would have to be a tad bit nutty to attempt to memorize all the various measurements that go into standard human factors design considerations –– otherwise known as anthropometry. While keeping a reference guide handy –– such as the indispensable The Measure of Man and Woman –– for nailing those dimensions right the first…

With four finished degrees from MIT (BS: Physics, Math, MS: Mech. Engineering, Media Arts and Sciences), scientist and engineer Jeff Lieberman knows a thing or two about –– well, a lot of things. As the host of the TV show ‘Time Warp’ on the Discovery Channel, his interest in the human consciousness took him down…

Think you need to be a 3D modeling pro to use a 3D printer? Think again. Consumers and the hobbyists among us can buy the equipment and start pumping out piles of plastic within the hour. We can even take local classes or find an online course, many free. Ah, what a time to be…

Ahhh, coffee. That rich, aromatic mixture of art and science. Stray a little on bean roast or brew temp and you’re in the repugnant realm of sippin’ a day-old cup of joe from 7-11. NOT GOOD. Brew your beans at home? Well, look at you, you connoisseur of fine caffeinated beverages, you. But do your…

According to designers Piergiorgio Robino and Andrea Sanna of Italy-based Studio Nucleo, the best way to learn about an object is to construct it yourself. Frankly, we couldn’t agree more. But what about growing an object yourself? Robino and Sanna’s TERRA! Growing Furniture collection might be a good place to start. Having originally appeared at…

Think of the basic parts to a pen. A tub and some ink. We use to use feather quills and an ink bottle. Now it’s highly engineered mechanisms with an endless choice of ink cartridges. Where’s the happy medium? Looking for a minimal, yet well-design led me to take a look at the Ensso Uno,…

With many fighting furiously against the end of the world coming to us via plastic bottle waste, more have been looking for that environmentally-friendly bottle to hold their beverages. While bottles are convenient, come in a variety of style and materials, they’re limited in the types of beverages they hold. Coffee? Here you go. Protein…

As if Kickstarter hasn’t already made getting side projects launched easier than ever, Amazon is now extending their support to project creators with, well, everything that Amazon offers as the largest global marketplace. Launching this week, the new Kickstarter Collection is now available on the company’s Amazon Launchpad digital storefront for hardware startups and crowdfunded…

We’re on a cutting kick, with the Ergo Kiwi knife and now a new take on the good ol’ pair o’ shears. Every home has at least one pair of them. They’re a necessary tool, especially if you work in an office full of kids and construction paper. But they aren’t the most hand-friendly tools…

Having raised nearly $275,000 over the past month, filmmaker Gary Hustwit has already shot past his $200,000 crowdfunding goal to make RAMS, the first feature documentary about Dieter Rams. For those who want a digital download when the film is released or any number of limited edition Dieter Rams-related backer rewards, today is the last…

Having born a toy company out of his living room with the desire to revive the “glamorous ’60s American modernist vibe and carve it into awesome contemporary wood toy designs” for his two young daughters, Brooklyn-based architect and designer Vlad Dragusin has since expanded Candylab Toys into a team of four after successfully launching his…

Since raising over $350K for their desktop 5-axis CNC mill on Kickstarter last year, the husband and wife engineering team at hardware startup Pocket NC has shown no signs of slowing down their hustle to bring fabrication tools to desktops. Announced last week, The Machine Shield is the latest desktop fabrication machine from the Bozeman,…

Pirate radio, HAM radio and streaming/music player projects involving the Raspberry Pi can be found ALL over the interwebs, in the hobby shops and between the couch cushions, but while most are opensource, none give us the tinglies like Audiophonics’ Rasptouch Audio Player. The Bordeaux-based company designed their platform for audiophiles with Hi-Fi in mind,…

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…

If you haven’t heard of Minecraft, some may consider you lucky. Others may be shocked. It’s a block-based, build-it-yourself video game that has become popular over the years with gamers of all ages, especially younger ones. It allows people to create virtually anything in their blocky worlds, encouraging users to pump their creative juices. One…

As the creator of design documentaries Helvetica, Objectified, and Urbanized, filmmaker Gary Hustwit has made a name for himself by opening up the worlds of graphic, industrial and urban design to the general population with compelling interviews that to this day are among the best of their kind. For his latest––and most ambitious––project, Hustwit is…

Although a well-designed and balanced pen can be a dream to write with, few writing instruments could ever replace the humble wood pencil. Now, artists, designers, engineers, woodworkers and anybody else who grinds their pencils down to a nub will soon be able to get a lot more mileage out of that lead. Soon to…

For independent designers and engineers wanting to tap into wearables, the headache of both incorporating and managing sensor data can stop an otherwise brilliant idea dead in its tracks. But what if figuring out how to track and measure data through health and motion sensors were, in fact, the last things worth worrying about? More…

Cycling. It’s the ragingly popular/eco-friendly/healthy/cheap way to get around town. I like to ride my bicycle – we all do. But it can be a pain deciding where to store the bike, especially if you live in… yeah, just about any apartment. (I have to pay $60 a year to store mine.) Solutions?

It’s small–a little bigger than a box of matches–has a 120 degree wide-angle, 2-megapixel lens and can be placed anywhere you need another set of eyes. That’s the short list of features that describes Armstart’s WiCAM, which is currently in the pre-order phase after recently completing a successful Kickstarter campaign back in April of this…

Having already set the record for the most funded Kickstarter campaign twice before, it should come as little surprise that smartwatch manufacturer Pebble is set to beat their own record yet again for two new smartwatch designs and two versions of a hackable wearable. The new Pebble lineup – properly titled the Pebble 2, Pebble Time…

As the main transportation method of the early logging industry in Northern European countries, uitto – or log driving – was the process of moving logs from a forest to sawmills downstream using the current of a river. It is also the inspiration for a group of Finnish skateboarders who want to bring sustainable skateboard…

The ability to quickly observe a form and deconstruct it into primitive shapes that can be sketched or modeled is one of the most valuable skills that a designer or engineer can have. Unfortunately, learning how to think this way doesn’t necessarily come naturally for most – particularly if it involves a sketchbook and a…

When it comes to starting a side project (or a “project” project), ironing out early ideas and evaluating them ahead of time – rather than just jumping in – can mean the difference between a hugely successful venture or a massive major headache further down the road. Unfortunately, moving productively through this brainstorming process and staying…

While their parents may have invested in furniture sets that are designed to last decades, many of today’s young urban dwellers are turning down purchasing heirloom-quality goods that require moving trucks and in favor of functional and cheap solutions that can be packed easily for a somewhat nomadic and unpredictable lifestyle. For recent Falmouth University…

Never cared much for having a globe at home… until now. Oscar Lhermitte and the design tag team Kudu are ready to manufacture the first batch of MOON lunar globes for commercial sale. MOON is the ‘most accurate lunar globe’ in existence, and is based on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter topographic data collected by the…

Whether you prefer to cook your steaks over an outdoor fire or in the kitchen, few materials offer excellent heat retention properties and a better experience than cast iron cookware. With its near-perfect design, the age-old cast iron skillet has changed very little over the past two-thousand years and continues to be handed down through…

Going back to the introduction of desktop publishing tools that allowed everyday Joes and Josephines to “design” and print documents with relative ease, the perceived value of professional design services has continued to decline as skills and processes that previously required years of training continue to be simplified and automated for nonprofessional users. Perhaps no…

From arcade tables and streaming weather stations to a DIY Amazon Echo and even cat exercise wheels, the amount of possibilities one can cook up with the Raspberry Pi is near-limitless. For audiophiles looking to jam out to their Pink Floyd discography on the $25 computer, there’s now a solution for that, too. Designed by…

Responsible for churning out everything from construction helmets to hot tubs, vacuum forming is easily one of the most fascinating forms of manufacturing for the non-technical crowd due to its relatively simple process: heat plastic and pull it around a shape to create multiples of that shape. Aiming to package this vacuum forming experience with…

As both a toy designer and educator in Brooklyn, Assaf Eshet has witnessed a unique perspective of how today’s kids are building their own toys and using modern tools to add new levels of interactivity to them. It was from this unique perspective – and over a decade working for major toy manufacturers – that…

As a UX designer, Tobias Eichenwald believes we’re on the cusp of a shift that will move us away from generic Graphical User Interfaces to a new generation of Natural User Interfaces that engage multiple human senses including gesture, speech, haptic, visual interfaces and more. He is also the co-founder of Senic, a new hardware…

Ask any avid hiker or outdoorsman and they will say, weight is an issue that can make or break you. Or, only take the gear you’re going to use, not what you think you need. Or, the less gear you carry, the faster you can run from bears. (Psst, don’t run from bears.)

There was a time when 3D printing and building robots seemed out of reach of regular civilians, reserved for experts in the technology field. Now top-end technical tools are readily available at the hobby level. BoxBotix is yet another open source software aimed at hobbyist in the field, AND WE LOVE IT.

As anybody who has worked freelance knows, getting actual client work done is only half the battle; the other half is spent doing boring but necessary office administration tasks including account management, expenses and of course, time tracking. Thankfully, a number of Cloud-based solutions have helped streamline these tasks to put more actual work time…

Despite the growing number of options for connected note taking and options for sharing analog documents in the Cloud, most team interactions still rely heavily on the mother of all note taking surfaces: the whiteboard. Although modern smartphone apps are capable of digitizing a meeting’s whiteboard notes in a single snap and uploading them to…

While Ready-to-Assemble or “flat pack” product designs have been in existence for over a half-century, the majority of these designs – more often than not from IKEA – have existed in some form or another as a piece of simplified furniture. With the more recent introduction of low-cost DIY electronics and methods of digital fabrication,…

Back in December of 2015, Alex Bolderoff and Joe Mosfet of Arcadian 3D came together to bring the ARC-one 3D printer to the world through crowd-funding website Kickstarter.

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…

According to industrial designer Oscar Diaz, despite the performance and display capabilities of today’s tablets, many are underused when sitting idle on the desktop. Frankly, we couldn’t agree more. The London-based designer, who set up his own practice shortly after graduating from the Royal College of Art in London in 2006, set out to create…

With an estimated 1 trillion plastic bags being consumed worldwide each year, it’s unfortunate to know that less than 5% of those bags ever end up being recycled. This effectively leaves roughly 95,000,000,000 opportunities for toxic chemicals to end up where they shouldn’t be. While thought leaders, lawmakers and grocers continue to find alternative solutions…

If you’re an audiophile who cringes at the site of sound coming from a mobile device, your day might just get a few decibels better. You want quality and stunning audio even if that means paying top dollar. Hult, a manufacturer based in Los Angeles, has a new high performance wireless speaker called the Pavilion and…

Remember getting a Spirograph for Christmas? Yeah, baby! That was the BEST. That wee creative toy had an infinite number of intricate geometric designs within those simple plastic gears. Well Joe Freedman’s LEAFpdx has taken that idea to the next level.

As the world of IoT continues to reveal new ways of doing the same things better, certain applications have clearly been better than others. The BRIXO blocks from “lifelong restless tinkerer” and Quantum Physicist Boaz Almog is one of those few applications. Almog, who also gave a 2012 TED talk about quantum levitation, has been…

$199 can get you a lot these days–smartphones, single-board computers, robots, a latte. Getting a 3D printer for that price usually entails assembling it yourself and is, more often than not, limited in the area of print quality. Kodama wants to change those limitations with the Trinus 3D printer, set to hit Kickstarter March 30th…

Why does modern furniture have to either be expensive or low-quality? Such is the pressing question that a team of 9 designers from California-based online home goods brand SWENYO recently asked themselves. Aiming to bring premium products that embrace a balance of form and function to today’s average consumer, the design team turned their attention…

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…

I have no earthly idea how we walked down dark halways prior to having smartphones. Anyone remember? Surely it was too dark to even venture out or, my goodness, GO DOWN STAIRS?! Smartphones have changed things. Soon, we may be asking, “How did we 3D print things before smartphones?!” If the OLO 3D printer is…