As Stockholm Furniture Fair begins, Dezeen spoke to this year's guest of honour, British designer Faye Toogood, about how the rise of artificial intelligence has created a need for humanity in design.Toogood has a more unusual background than many of her contemporaries. She trained as an artist, studying fine art and working in sculpture, before moving into a role as editor and stylist at the monthly magazine World of Interiors.Those early years in her career have formed Toogood into the designer she is today."I left (World of Interiors) because I got quite frustrated with the two-dimensional page and wanted to do something more three-dimensional," she remembered. "Everything is sort of edging me towards that sculpture background.""I don't really like to apply the word 'designer' or 'artist'"Now working across several different fields, Toogood is reluctant to define whether she's an artist, a designer or a fashion designer."People want a term, but I find it really difficult to do that if you're creative, you move between design and art and a creative way of seeing things," Toogood explained."I don't really like to apply the word 'designer' or 'artist', because I feel I'm a bit of both. My art background, and maybe being a female designer, is giving me a different viewpoint on design, which seems to be connecting and resonating in some way."Toogood, whose work includes the easily recognisable Roly-Poly Chair, has become one of the most influential British designers working today.Toogood's Puffy Lounge Chair won a Dezeen Award in 2021Her Puffy Lounge Chair for Hem was awarded Seating Design of the Year at Dezeen Awards 2021, and she was recently named Designer of the Year 2025 by French trade fair Maison & Objet.Toogood's guest of honour exhibition at this year's Stockholm Furniture Fair will focus on the "hands of craft", the fair said. Called Manufracture, it will show pieces from her personal archives."'I'm bringing a lot of prototypes, things that didn't work or are half-made, showing the vulnerability of the designer and how sometimes the solutions are not always present how many years it takes to get something off the ground, how many failures before a success," Toogood said."Do we really need more chairs? The answer, probably, is no."The name Manufracture refers to two different things. First is Toogood's belief that the manufacturing industry is broken."At the moment, we are making things in different parts of the world from materials from another part of the world, and then we're shipping them around the world because of the way the economy is, because of the way Brexit is, because of the way that the world is and that is becoming prohibitively expensive," she said."It's the squeeze on the economy that's making everybody look at this problem, but it's a systemic problem that we need to deal with from a sustainability point of view. I don't think we all know what the answers are, but we have to look at it. The way we're designing and manufacturing is broken."Read: Faye Toogood's Squash collection brings "human element to furniture"Manufractured's second aspect is the fracturing in the role of the designer.Being a designer "used to be about solving problems or because we needed something", Toogood said. "That's not the case now, because aside from technology, we have everything we need. Do we really need more chairs? The answer, probably, is no."She believes this fracture is also underlined by the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) as a design tool."Surely AI will be able to design a better Faye Toogood chair than Faye Toogood," she said. "In theory, what can I bring? It's humanity and emotion those are things that I feel are important, and designers now need to be focusing more on that."Faye Toogood's Manufracture exhibition features numerous prototypesShe hopes that by highlighting the importance of the design process in the Manufracture exhibition, she will also help inform visitors about why higher prices are sometimes necessary."We all understand the difference between a 2.99 chicken and a 15 chicken. When it comes to food, we get what's involved how it's been made, how it's been reared, the process, what it's been fed," she said."But somehow we're unable to make that connection with furniture and objects. And I have to say, things like homeware collections on the high street are also making that more difficult because they can copy things quicker than we can get it out there."Landscape "completely different" for female designers todayHowever, Toogood is still hopeful about the future of design in the UK. "British design, I'm proud to say I feel like as ever is very strong, the young designers have more attitude," she said."It's hard for them, they're surrounded by a saturated world where there's probably more designers than there is work. But I feel the fight, and they're understanding that they have to be agile."For female designers, things have also improved since Toogood started out."In my early days, there were very few female designers to work as my mentors," she recalled. "I felt like I had to remove gender as part of the equation, so I wouldn't take any interviews on being a female in design."Read: Ten unmissable exhibitions and installations at Stockholm Design Week 2025"I purposely took on quite seemingly masculine materials, in terms of heavy steel," she added. "I was working a lot with welding, I didn't work in textiles or ceramics anything that could be considered decorative arts and I removed colour and pattern from the work."This was in a bid to be taken seriously at the time, she explains."But I'm pleased to say that now, 15-20 years on, it feels like a completely different landscape. There are a lot more though not enough [women] in high positions in the design world. We're getting there."I suddenly feel comfortable talking about being a woman designer."The photography is courtesy of Toogood. This article was originally written for the Dezeen Dispatch magazine at Stockholm Design Week 2025.Stockholm Design Week 2025 is taking place at various locations around the city from 3 to 9 February. To see what's on, visitDezeen Events Guide.The post "The way we're designing and manufacturing is broken" says Faye Toogood appeared first on Dezeen.

The Better Bin, by industrial design firm Group Project, was the winning design in NYC's competition for a better garbage can. The design is said to be easier for sanitation workers to lift, and more difficult for rats to climb into. There's also a prominent bar bisecting the opening, to prevent businesses from loading the cans with commercial trash. Since 2023, the city has been rolling the new cans out. The goal is to replace all 23,000 of NYC's existing cans, and to date they've completed 5,000 swaps.If the tariff war is turned back on, however, the can swaps may end. The Better Bins are manufactured by Quebec-based Roy Metal Products. The 25% tariff, which was originally scheduled to go into effect today, would have increased the $1,000-per-can cost to $1,250. An NYC Department of Sanitation spokesperson said they're "watching the situation closely." I was shocked, by the way, to learn how much each can costs to manufacture. I'd love to see which design decisions affected which aspects of the cost.

The Core77 Design Awards Furniture & Lighting category features furniture and lighting products or systems for private, public, commercial or industrial use. Examples include home or public furniture and seating, office systems, lighting, workstations, etc.According to Michaele Simmering, every choice a designer makes presents an opportunity to support something or not. "We live in a made/designed world," says Michaele. "Design is everywhere around us." In her career, Michaele has chosen to create contemporary furniture that emphasizes sustainability and quality, helping shape the world in a positive way for the design community and beyond.As the co-founder and creative director of Los Angeles-based design studio Kalon, Michaele has spent the last 17 years turning a careful eye to craftsmanship, materiality, and ecological responsibility in her furniture collections. Her work has been recognized with the Good Green Design Award from the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athanaeum, inclusion in Sight Unseen's American Design Hot List, and with Wallpaper*'s 2024 Business Design Leader honor. Michaele was a Fulbright Award recipient and now explores perspectives in design by hosting Kalon's podcast: Objects in Conversation.If there is anything that concerns Michaele about the industry's future, it is the growing consolidation of consumers toward a handful of lower-price-point, volume-based brands. That trend affects independent designers and brands who produce higher quality products at higher price points by shifting the consumer market toward a small number of what Michaele considers "mostly lackluster" makers. "This has to be the worst thing for creativity and innovation and culture," she says.To designers entering their work in the Core77 Design Awards, Michaele advises approaching work with intention: "Strive for a net positive impact on the environment and your resources. Create work that supports local communities, upholds craft traditions, and reimagines how we all engage with material goods."The Haworth Cardigan Lounge won the Furniture & Lighting Category in 2025: a collaboration between Haworth Design Studio and Patricia Uriquiola. The 2024 winner in the Core77 Design Awards Furniture & Lighting category was Haworth Design Studio with Patricia Urquiola for the Haworth Cardigan Lounge. This knitwear-inspired lounge seating piece combines warmth with high style, comfort, and sustainability.Show the 2025 Core77 Design Awards jurors what your designs support by submitting an entry in furniture or lighting or one of our many other design categories. Enter the Core77 Design Awards today.

We pass business cards around as a way to help people remember us when they need to contact us, but most business cards are really just pieces of board paper with information printed on them. Theyre not big enough to list all your noteworthy achievements, let alone showcase your talents. In other words, many of them are forgettable, unless you yourself left quite an impression when you left your card with people.Some people do craft stylish and elaborate business cards, but their novelty fades easily, and so do the memories. Its quite a design challenge to make such a small object represent you in the best way possible, which is what makes this rather creative solution even more impressive by showing off electrical engineering prowess with a tiny keyboard the size of a business card.Designer: Ricardo Daniel de PaulaWeve all seen tiny keyboards for smartphones and other devices, but those are still big enough to accommodate an average thumb size. This Keyboard Business Card, in contrast, is literally the size of a business card, so theres not much in the way of comfortable typing. Of course, thats not the point of this design anyway, which is to present the designers skills and the use of certain technologies.Since theres pretty much nothing like this in the market or previous DIY projects, it had to be designed from scratch with very little in the way of reference. At first glance, it looks simply like an elaborate business card that just happens to have a PCB (printed circuit board) and geeky theme, except for the text that clearly states that its a fully functional keyboard. Well, a fully functional 40% keyboard, at least.The card springs to life thanks to a USB-C connector in the upper right corner of the card. It doesnt go into detail, but it will likely plug into a USB-C cable thats connected to a device like a computer. It would probably be more convenient if you could plug the card directly into something like a Phones USB-C port, but the design of the plug doesnt exactly allow for that.Will it be a useful keyboard that you can take with you and use anywhere? Hardly, but it does get the message across. It will definitely leave a bigger impact, even if just for its design. At the very least, it also serves as a very short 8.5cm ruler, so still serves a purpose even if you will never use it for typing.The post Ingenious business card is a circuit board that is also a working keyboard first appeared on Yanko Design.

Almost all of us keep tabs on the weather, one way or another. The most invested among us would have an app or service they subscribe to that shows the forecast for today or maybe even the next few days. While the information is indeed useful, monitoring the weather sometimes also makes us more acutely aware that the forces of nature are beyond our control. On a gloomy day, it might even lead to a bout of sadness.Since theres not much we can do about the weather, other than preparing and mitigating, we might as well accept the fact and try to smile about it. It would definitely be easier if that weather news was delivered in a more human-friendly manner, like through some form of humor that only humans can understand. And who better to deliver that than this AI-powered robot with a penchant for making robot jokes about the weather?Designer: MakestremeThose who have been around the mobile app scene for a while now might be familiar with Carrot Weather, a service that is notorious for being sarcastic about the weather information it conveys. Its still around, of course, but its only accessible on smartphones, so you cant really enjoy that experience on your desk unless you reach for your device and potentially get distracted. Plus, you have very little creative freedom on how you want the news to be given to you.Inspired by a blocky robot from the film Interstellar, this miniature TARS project tries to inject some form of humor into a device that can sit on your desk, bedside table, shelf, or anywhere you can plug its USB power cable. In addition to its unusual form, at least to anyone unfamiliar with the movie, this TARS tries to convey what the weather is like in a way that would probably make sense more to fellow robots.Since theres no service available that already does that, part of this DIY endeavor involves hooking up weather data from OpenWeatherMap into Google Gemini and crafting the perfect prompt to make it spit out its report in text not more than 60 characters. Why the limit? Because the screen being used for this tiny robot can only fit that much.Another interesting aspect of this TARS weather reporter is that it uses the bare minimum to build the design. While its certainly more elegant to have it 3D printed, this particular iteration only uses poster paper with the patterns printed on it. The paper is cut and carefully folded to form the rectangular boxes that make up the robots body. Small magnets are glued inside to keep the parts together, offering very little stability but plenty of flexibility. Its definitely a poor mans DIY project that proves you dont have to go overboard to produce a design thats functional, interesting, and fun.The post Witty AI weather reporter tries to bring a smile even on a cloudy day first appeared on Yanko Design.

Flash Forward 2025 will showcase new Flash games and interactive movies.

With hand-drawn cel animation, this game looks superb.

President Trump's threat of 25 percent tariffs on EU car imports could spark an automotive trade warone that will result in higher prices for all and never end in European consumers buying more American autos.

Shes seen enough. Shes had enough. She cant book a one-way ticket to the stars (yet), but these gifts will help her transcend this world.

MacworldAt a glanceExpert's RatingProsMore than 50 tools and utilitiesAvailable for Mac and WindowsSlick, easy-to-use interfaceConsRequires annual subscriptionFew users will need all toolsWould like to see a backup utility includedOur Verdict Among the collection of 50+ tools there are some real gems, like the Clipboard History and video download tools. Theres also a lot of tools you probably dont need, but someone somewhere does. Its a shame that a Toolbox now requires an annual subscription (unless you get it as part of Parallels Desktop) but you can take advantage of the 7-day trial to see how useful Toolbox will be for you.Price When ReviewedThis value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefinedBest Pricing TodayFor several years throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, there was the sheer joy of buying a new computer magazine from the rack or getting the new issue in the mail and seeing that a free CD-ROM had come with it. The CD-ROM generally contained various demos, updates, and free utilities to try out, and as you loaded it onto your Mac and copied everything over to try out later, your geeky heart thrilled to the idea of being able to play with some cool new applications and utilities you otherwise might not have come across. Parallels, makers of the Parallels desktop virtualization software, has kept this alive with Parallels Toolbox, which stands at version 7.0.0 as of this writing (version 7 launched in September 2024). Whats present in Parallels Toolbox is a giant grab bag of small, cool apps that function somewhat as system widgets, but are still unique in their own right. Parallels Toolbox is included in our review of the best cleaner apps for Macs, and for good reason, as it includes a number of tools and features that can help you to fully uninstall apps, and clear out old or duplicate files that are taking up unnecessary disk space. However, theres a lot more to Toolbox than that simple handful of features.Parallels Toolbox applications number more than 50 tools available in the Files, Audio, Images, Photography, Internet, Screen Capture, System, Time, Utilities, and Video categories. The applications arrive as small downloads and are easy to dive into, with pre-loaded utilities like Uninstall, Download Video, Free Memory, and Clean Drive clamoring for your attention while the Library hints at other nifty apps that can be downloaded and explored. Each tool works like a kind of mini-app that performs one specific task such as the Free Memory tool, which shows how much memory your Mac currently has free, and which apps that youre running are using the most memory.Since it first launched as a small collection of utilities that wereand still areincluded free of charge along with Parallels Desktop. The app has continued to grow and is now available as a standalone product for both Mac and Windows, with an annual subscription fee of $24.99/20.99 a year. Theres also a 7-day free trial available so that you can try it out before deciding if you want to buy the full version.Parallels Toolbox toolsYou can set Parallels Toolbox to run automatically when you start your Mac, and the Toolbox icon will then be displayed on the Macs main Menu baralongside Time, Volume and other standard Mac controls. This allows you to open a pull-down menu that has two tabs for displaying tools. The Dashboard tab shows some of the most popular tools to help you get started, as well as the tools that youve used most recently.Theres also a Library tab that displays the entire list of tools that are available, with additional sub-tabs that sort tools into related groups, such as Video Tools or System Tools. You can tag your favourite tools so that they are added to the Dashboard view for quick access, but many tools can also be placed with their own icons in the Menu bar as well, and theres also an option to create your own keyboard shortcuts to launch individual tools as well.Find the tool you need for the job in Parallels Toolbox.FoundryA collection of more than 50 tools means that theres a lot to take in when first getting started but, as mentioned, Toolbox can sort tools into groups to help you find the tools you need. If youre looking for cleaner tools that can help you to reclaim disk space or fine-tune your Macs performance then the Clean Drive tool can locate unnecessary files that are taking up space on your Mac, and also find duplicate files that you may no longer need. Another tool can fully uninstall Mac apps, along with any related files that may be scattered around your Macs drive. It can also highlight large files that are taking up a lot of space, such as games that you may not need anymore.Other groups of tools include Video Tools, with options such as Download Video, which can help you to download videos from YouTube and other websites, while Convert Video can convert your video files into different formats for use on an iPhone or iPad, or even into the AVI or WMV formats for Windows devices. The video tools also include options for creating screen recordings and animated GIFs, and theres a useful Download Audio tool, which lets you just grab the audio track from video files that you find online.Heres an overview of some of the most useful tools we found:The Uninstall app works as well as can be expected, and while this definitely isnt completely original on the Mac in this day and age, it allows you to go through a list of installed applications on your Mac, pick and choose what to remove, and reliably strip out both the app and its support files, which comes in handy.Where Download Video is concerned, this actually functions more as a web browser extension than a standalone app, but its simple, to the point, and allows you to easily save Internet-based video as well as offers an option for whether or not to save a videos subtitles. Yes, 4K Video Download offers more options, such as isolating audio and video for download, but this offers something simple and handy and worth trying out.FoundryClean Drive: Once again, this feels a bit typical/in line with similar utilities being developed by other companies these days, but it offers easy notifications and access as to whats eating drive space (i.e., log files, cache files, trash, browser data, mail cache, mobile apps, iTunes temp files, iOS device backups, and old updates) and offers a nice level of control as to clearing them out. Clean Drive also offers quick access to the macOS Storage pane, which tends to be overlooked, and allows you to adjust your storage preferences on the fly.Free Memory: Similar to other memory cleaners on the market, this notifies you as to where your Macs RAM/Unified Memory is going, which applications are munching up the majority of it, and allows you to mark the amount of free memory in macOS Menu Bar, which can be useful.Parallels Toolbox will free up memory on your Mac.FoundryRecord Screen: This turned out to be both cool and handy, and after assigning it permission in the Screen & System Audio pane, it allows you to record whats on screen as a QuickTime movie file and save it to the desktop. Youll need to tinker with its options to get it exactly how you want it, but its impressive nonetheless.Break Time: The Break Time tool tracks time reminds you to get away from your computer every now and then. It is fairly customizable to boot. Its easy to add your work calendar, customize notification sounds, and tell it to block your screen during breaks, thereby forcing you to actually relax and yank yourself away from a device for once in your life, and thats appreciated. Yes, it could be a bit more customizable and offer an option to enter more specific numerical times for work and break cycles, but this is off to a good start and succeeds in reminding you to pull yourself away from your Mac throughout the day.Unit Converter: Just a nifty widget that can take just about any numerical unit and convert it into distances, monetary units, or about anything you can imagine on the fly. Yes, other widgets do this as well, but this is easy to pull up and work with and fun to boot.Transform Text: This got me truly into Parallels Toolbox and made me a fan, offering a quick and easy set of text settings that can be readily copied over to other apps and pasted in as desired. Yes, being able to create backwards and upside-down text to send along to friends may seem a bit silly, but this is a fun tool that makes you want to see what else you can come up with.ScreenshotFoundryEncrypt: The cool on-the-fly encryption application Hollywood promised but no one ever actually delivered. This allows you to drag and drop files and folders in, and quickly encrypts everything to the .pboxz format, which can be locked to the password of your choice. Its quick, its speedy in both its encryption and decryption functions, and you can designate where the file is saved to as well as save your passwords to the macOS keychain for easy retrieval.Eject Volumes: This ejects all the external volumes mounted on your Mac at once, which can be incredibly convenient, or at least easier than telling a friend or family member to remember to drag a volume to the trash or tell them to click an icon and use Command-E to eject it, which is a conversation Ive had dozens of times over the years that never got less frustrating.Clipboard History: One of the biggest groups of tools is time-saving Productivity Tools. My personal favouritewhich has earned its own spot on my iMacs Menu baris Clipboard History, which can store multiple text and graphics items that you have copied into the clipboard, going back as far as the last 30 days. This is really useful for me when writing and editing articles as it allows me to quickly look back and retrieve text or graphics that I may need to use again.FoundryFocus On: I also like the ability to quickly launch an entire group of apps or files with one clicksuch as Pages and Photoshop Elements when Im working on screenshots for reviewsand the Focus On Window tool that reduces distractions by dimming the entire screen apart from the window or app that Im currently using.FoundryTheres also a useful set of time-management tools, including a countdown timer, and a calendar countdown that counts the days until a specific date. A stop-watch, and the ability to create multiple alarms (which I find much simpler than Apples own Reminders app).Not all of these tools will seem essential. The tools for reading and creating barcodes will probably only appeal to a rather niche audience, while the tools for creating screenshots and screen recordings largely seem to reproduce the features that are already built into the macOS itself. In spite of a few things that could be added to the apps in order to improve them, I see this as a playground of interesting utilities thats easy to play with, enjoy, and dive into. Yes, you can find Apple widgets within macOS and Web-based applications across the Internet that perform similar functions, but this is a well-consolidated library, and its fun to watch this grow and evolve over time.VerdictIts a shame that a relatively modest piece of software such as Toolbox now requires an annual subscription, as that will probably deter quite a few potential users. I do find Toolbox usefulbut I get it included with my copy of Parallels Desktop, so I dont need to pay an additional subscription fee for it. And, incidentally, Parallels Desktop still provides an option to buy that as a one-time purchase without an annual subscription, so its disappointing that Toolbox itself is now subscription-only. And, of course, there are many utilities available from other developers that provide similar features. But at least you can download the free trial and see how useful Toolbox is for your own personal work set-up before buying.