This White Marble Bookmark is by British designer Paul Cocksedge. It pushes the boundaries, to say the least; the thing is 30cm 22cm 90cm (11.8" 8.7" 35.4"), and not easy to move at 110 kg (242.5 lbs). "The Bookmark splits the room and I enjoy the fact that it elevates the book. It becomes a focal point. Books tend to be hidden on shelves where you can't really appreciate them. I added this curve at the bottom so it gently rocks and it's counter-intuitive to what a heavy piece of marvel should really do but it's quite playful." "The Marble Bookmark is everything a bookmark is not: heavy to lift, difficult to carry, and bigger than the book itself. The work alters the power balance between page keeper and book, tethering it to its place on lamp can create long or wide shapes, and be adapted to fit into various interior spaces."If you're into the concept but can't spare the floor space, Cocksedge also offers a tabletop model. This smaller version is "just" 22cm 10cm 24.5cm (8.7" 3.9" 9.6"), and weighs 13 kg (28.7 lbs).Unsurprisingly, these will not see mass production; Cocksedge is only making 20 of each.

SNRGY Studios, a Swedish product development firm of designers and engineers, looked into hobbyist soldering stations. Their research indicated that many peoples' soldering set-ups look like this: SNRGY founder Alexander Osika could relate. "As a maker for many years," he writes, "l've always been frustrated by how traditional soldering stations demand dedicated desk space and how you always waste time when the right tool is not in your hand. This limitation inspired me to create SOLDR, a solution that delivers professional-grade soldering capabilities in a compact, portable format that you can set up on any desk and easily take with you wherever you go." Osika and the design team itemized each item needed in the soldering process and integrated them into a cleaner design. Here's their design process: The frame unfolds to reveal the heat-resistant worksurface and a grid from which accessories can be hung. Though the two plates are made of powder-coated steel, they're only 1mm thick, which keeps the overall weight down to 1,500g (3.3 lbs). There's a carry handle, and with folded dimensions of 255mm x 205mm x 35mm (roughly 10" x 8" x 1.3"), it will also fit into a backpack. Silicone feet on the bottom provide a non-slip grip. A soldering iron holder unfolds and has space for the iron, a soldering sponge and brass wool. The holder will fit most USB-C-powered soldering irons, the company says. The holder can of course be placed on either side, to suit both left- and right-handed users. A powerful LED lighting unit provides 1,000 lumens, allowing you to see what you're doing with clarity. The lighting unit also contains a fan with a replaceable carbon filter to extract the fumes. The fan/lighting unit is USB-C rechargeable and has a 3-hour runtime.A quartet of helping hands are included. They have magnets on both their bases and backs, providing flexibility of placement. Their grips are heat-resistant silicone, providing a good hold, and they can be operated by one finger. A pair of tweezers are included, each with different tips, in a holder. The included wire stripper removes the jacketing in one motion, self-adjusts to different gauges and has adjustable end-stops, providing consistent lengths of exposed wire. A spool unit holds both the solder and the copper braid used to remove solder, with the ends of each emerging from a slot. The holder has been designed for the spools to be easy to pop out and reload. They've also designed a spool for the power cable. A spring-loaded flush cutter is mounted in a bracket. The refillable flux syringe contains a precision-dispensing tip and a leak-proof cap. Another nice detail is that the open-source design can be partially DIY'ed in order to save on cost. While the full kit is up on Kickstarter for $120 (and will retail for $170), if you're able to 3D print the frame and brackets yourself, the price drops down to $75 on Kickstarter (to retail for $110). SOLDR has been a smash hit on Kickstarter; it blew past its measly $6,500 target five minutes after launching, and has currently passed $500,000 in funding, with 8 days left to pledge at press time.

If you've got your smartphone in a protective case, chances are it's plastic. For those that prefer a more natural materialand are willing to leave your phone naked while in useleather goods company Hard Graft offers this $126 Masterpiece iPhone Case, which is about as minimalist as you can get. These are artisan-made in Italy, using full-grain vegetable-tanned leather sourced from Tuscany. The interior is soft and suede-like, and the edges are hand-painted. The case is attractive in a less-is-more kind of way, but I'm not sure how practical it would be over time; leather has a tendency to stretch, and a protective case is no good if your phone can slide out of it. The company says "To avoid stretching the leather, push the bottom of the case, while pulling on the top of your device." In other words, you have to adjust to the object, the object doesn't adjust to you. The things people do for luxury.

These days, even an economy car can reach 100 mph. Sports cars can double that. Despite having the power to do so, few drivers zoom around at such speeds, understanding that the potential consequencesa speeding ticket, license revocation or a deadly accidentcan be bad.However, people have demonstrated no such self-control with smartphones. Study after study cite the negative effects of too much screentime. Live concerts, school recitals and sporting events are filled with people who are there in person, yet fastidiously recording the moments rather than experiencing them directly. During idle moments at home, doomscrolling, social-media-driven envy and toxic comment wars persist.Is this a design problem, or a human nature problem? Designers Joe Hollier and Kaiwei Tang reckon it's a design problem. The duo, who met at a Google design incubator, were disturbed at how the incubator cited central design goals of apps to be "stickiness" and "retention.""One of the biggest markers of success was retention," Hollier said in an interview with Technical.ly. "Not your revenue, but how many hours a day your users were plugged into it. The idea being that if it was sticky enough you could develop a whole slew of business around it. We felt products were being built to get people addicted less than trying to solve some human need."The pair subsequently designed the Light Phone, a feature-limited phone with a Modernist, minimalist design. Their 2015 Kickstarter to launch it was successful; ten years later, the phone is on its third generation. Over the Light Phone's evolution, Hollier and Tang had to decideby using their own judgment and sifting through user feedback--which features to offer and which to ditch. Whereas the original Light Phone allowed little more than calling and texting, the Light Phone III now features a camera, navigation, music and podcast playback, alarms, notes, and an NFC chip. However, Hollier and Tang took a stand on other common features of smartphones. The Light Phone III notably has:- No social media access- No web browser- No third-party apps- No music streaming- No e-mail clients- No messaging apps beyond text messages- No calendar syncing- No task management apps- No document editing- No cloud-based storage access- No gamesIt seems a delicate line to tread, between useful and harmful features. Users might welcome the inability to access Instagram, yet rue the inability to call a Lyft. That aside, Hollier and Tang have marketed the phonesuccessfullyto those seeking a distraction-free lifestyle and an easier-to-maintain phone (the battery is user-replaceable). The Light Phone III isn't cheap; it's available for pre-order now for $600 and is expected to retail for $800. Which begs the question: Is it possible for a user to own a full-featured smartphone, and simply avoid using the features that bring negative consequences? Is self-control the responsibility of the user, or is it that app designers have immorally figured out how to hijack the brain in an unacceptable way? An Industrial Design professor of minea well-regarded and award-winning designer of the time--offloaded all responsibility to users. "If you design a car, someone will use it to rob a bank," was as far as his philosophy went. But that was over thirty years ago. Have the times changed and brought with them new responsibility for designers? What is your philosophy?

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We all know that military technology eventually trickles down to the consumer sector. GPS, microwaves, the internet, digital photography, and even duct tape all began with defense applications.One of these that's often overlooked is cargo pants. A British invention from 1938, they met World War II's need for British troops to carry maps, extra ammunition and medical supplies. American paratroopers adopted them shortly thereafter; because these soldiers jumped out of planes wearing anywhere from 70 to 160 pounds of kit, being able to distribute some of the load into leg pockets was a welcome innovation. Throughout the 1950s, '60s and '70s, cargo pants were something civilians could only find in an Army-Navy store. But in the 1980s they entered mainstream fashion, propelled by hikers, outdoorspeople and fashionistas seeking novelty. Here in 2025, we're now seeing the most extreme version of cargo pants yet. An Italian company called Minimal Organised Wear (MOW) acknowledges that "we've come to rely on expensive electronic devices that accompany us everywhere, yet we often lack the protection and organisation they demand," they write. The company's mission is to "embrace the challenges of water, weather, and unpredictability to design extreme waterproof solutions tailored to modern nomadism." MOW's solution is these Caligo All-Terrain Travel Adventure Pants. They feature no less than 18 freaking pockets, which can carry objects as large as camera lenses and 10-inch tablets. There's even an RFID-blocking pocket for carrying sensitive gear.The pants are lightweight and breathable, being made from ripstop nylon, and feature weatherproof YKK zippers. MOW says the pants are durable and can stand up to harsh weather conditions, and that they've both used recycled material to create the pants and that they are themselves fully recyclable. Here are some examples of the extreme stuff they can carry:Demand for these is startlingly high. They've been successfully Kickstarted with over $160,000 in pledges at press time, with 2 days left to pledge. Buy-in starts at 95 (USD $104) and they expect to ship in September.

Customers in today's markets have high expectations in terms of functionality, performance and usability. Successful products and services must be innovative and connect with their audience to encourage adoption and embrace new ideas. That's where Psycho-Aesthetics (P/A) comes in, a human-centered innovation methodology that bridges the gap between psychology, design, and business strategy. Originally developed by Ravi Sawhney, founder and CEO Los Angeles-based design firm RKS Design, he and his team have been using P/A for more than 40 years across industries to create products, services, and experiences that deeply resonate with people.While many organizations are familiar with design thinking, which emphasizes empathy, ideation, and prototyping, Psycho-Aesthetics takes it a step further by integrating deep psychological insights into the innovation process. Unlike traditional design thinking, which often focuses on usability and problem-solving, P/A is rooted in human perception and emotional connection, ensuring that innovations are not only functional but also deeply resonant with users. By prioritizing the way people feel about an experiencerather than just how they interact with itP/A helps businesses craft solutions that inspire long-term engagement and loyalty.What is Psycho-Aesthetics?At its core, Psycho-Aesthetics is about understanding how design influences human perception and emotion. By applying psychological principles, it helps innovators develop solutions that not only attract users but also foster trust, engagement, and long-term adoption.Unlike traditional design-thinking approaches, P/A focuses on visual collaboration and emotional connection, making innovation accessible to entire organizationsnot just design teams.Sawhney created the P/A methodology after a stint working at the legendary Xerox PARC office developing the first touch screen interface. He saw first-hand how challenging it was to convince people to interact with hardware in a way that had never been done before. The lessons learned at that time led to a deeper understanding of what it takes to convert tentative users into life-long customers.The P/A process was first published in a Harvard Business School case study in 2006. At that time RKS had released a line of innovative electric guitars. The case study showcased how RKS used the P/A process to reinvent the electric guitar, blending emotional insight and human-centered design to create a more expressive, customizable instrument. The design also introduced an ecologically sustainable approach through modular construction and the use of environmentally conscious materials.The P/A process was later released in book form in 2019. The KOR water bottle case study in that first edition used to show design students how to design a product. The new P/A 2.0 edition expands the methodology beyond product design with more case studies, showing its application in various products, places, and services. Psycho-Aesthetics isn't just for designersit's a methodology for anyone involved in creating innovative solutions. Whether you're launching a new product, refining a brand, or improving a service, P/A provides a structured yet flexible framework to ensure your ideas truly connect with people.By focusing on the human experience, P/A doesn't just generate creative ideasit makes sure those ideas succeed in the real world.Psycho-Aesthetics 2.0 is available on Amazon (free for Kindle Reader) and you can learn more about the process on the RKS website.

Wearable tech is now common, arguably thanks to the Apple Watch. That product struggled upon its 2015 launch, but the eventual additions of features people wantedhealth and fitness monitoring, ecosystem integrationpushed it into the mainstream within a few years.Competitiors have since popped up, and the wrist is now as viable a product battleground as the pocket or desktop. But one wearable tech location that no one's cracked yet is the finger. Many have tried. By our count at least six companies have attempted to launch a smart ring that would allow gesture control, dating as far back as 2009. The Loop Pointer, the Nod Ring, the Padrone Ring, the Tap Strap, the AirPoint Ring; have you heard of any of them? And the Mycestro ring from 2013 failed at spectacular cost, garnering $354,000 in pledges before struggling to deliver and eventually evaporating.But the tech world is filled with optimists, so here we go again. This time a startup called Ring Mouse is holding a Kickstarter for their eponymous product. "This one happens to control your entire digital universe," the company promises. Offered in stainless steel or titanium alloy, the Ring Mouse is offered in sizes 4 thru 15. It features a swipeable touchpad for scrolling, and two buttons for tapping, zooming, advancing, etc.The idea is that you can use it for interacting with apps or media while you're doing other things, like washing, cooking, exercising or strolling around a presentation stage.Here are some projected use cases:The included charging case provides 10 hours of battery life. The Ring Mouse has been succesfully Kickstarted, with 23 days left to pledge at press time. Buy-in starts at $90, and they expect to ship in June.

For manufactured objects, the cylinder is a powerful shape. They distribute pressure evenly, which is why airplane fuselages, soda cans, oxygen canisters and disposable batteries are cylindrical.The shape of a disposable battery has long dictated the shape of another object: Flashlights, which have traditionally been little more than a battery sleeve with a light source at the end. But now that battery technology has evolved, flashlight designers are free to imagine fresh forms that are better-shaped for certain user activities. Like this USB-rechargeable Slim+ model from Texas-based manufacturer Nebo. The rectangular form and perpendicular lens means you hold it differently than a cylindrical flashlight; this is less for illuminating dark paths, and more for examining engine bays and the like. The slim form fits easily in a pocket and doesn't roll when you set it down. Furthermore, it features both a magnetic base and a hanging hook for hands-free use. It's made of aluminum, is water- and dust-resistant, and puts out 700 lumens.A slightly larger Slim+ 1200 model puts out more lumens (you can guess the number). Both models above also feature laser pointers and can be used as powerbanks. Moving in the other direction, size-wise, the Slim Mini puts out just 250 lumens. It's way more compact but you lose the pointer and the power bank function. They also offer a Slim Mini UV, for those doing inspections. The Slim+ runs $45; the Slim+ 1200 is $60; and the Mini versions go for $20.

Here's what we looked at this week:The Columbus, Italdesign's wild 1990s minivan concept.Form follows bizarre: Maybe the strangest EDC object we've seen. Product Designer Vicki Tan's "Ask This Book a Question" is a book on improving the decision-making process.A fantastic piece of industrial design: The Kodak Smile Camera, by ID firm Branch Creative.Industrial Design student work: A measuring system for Festool. We have some constructive criticism.From Japan, the Bathtope is a space-saving bathtub that can be tucked away when not needed.1980s Postmodern furniture: Heinz Landes' Solid Chair, made of concrete and ten pieces of rebar.The Rorra, a designey stainless steel water filtration unit, looks better than the competition. Will the company stick around?With their Zyklop Speed ratchet wrenches, Wera improves upon a 160-year-old design.Engineering for its own sake: Hancept's Zero Mk2 is a pen that folds into a credit card.Concept Sketching for Industrial Design, an online course.Japan's "Swap Reefer" trucks with freestanding detachable cargo containers.Within the odd product category of remedial design, add-on drawers for desks evolve.This Multi Auto Spray, by Japanese industrial design consultancy Lont, is a designey water spray gun attachment for bottles.Form evolution: Nebo's Slim line of rectangular flashlights with perpendicular lenses.Industrial design case study: Fresco comes up with a better-looking brain-computer interface.

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When you think of technology that connects your brain to a computer, you probably picture something like this: A startup called Neurable had the technology, but wanted better design for their first product, called Enten. They turned to industrial design consultancy Fresco for help. Brain interface tech for the everydayNeurable, a Boston-based startup, teamed with Fresco to design and develop their first product for the consumer market the Enten headphones. These BCI headphones monitor your brain activity and provide useful information for your daily life, like patterns of when you are focused or distracted.the clientNeurable is a neurotechnology company that uses Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) technology to interpret human intent, measure emotion, and provide telekinetic control of the digital world.services deliveredDesign Strategy / Industrial Design / Models & Prototypes / Virtual Photography / Digital Design"Fresco's support on the Enten project was invaluable. Their creativity, efficiency, and dependability greatly contributed to the success of the challenging task of integrating BCI into a consumer product. Collaborating with them was easy and fun. We continue to partner with Fresco on new explorations and product development efforts, and can always rely on their consistent delivery of high-quality, high-impact work." --Jamie Alders, Vice President of Product, NeurableOUR PROCESSDesigning consumer appealWhen you think of BCI, do you picture intricate monitoring devices, headcaps, and wires? Neurable's vision aimed to overcome those associations. We designed the BCI headphones to look, appear, and behave like a premium product, tackling numerous design and engineering challenges to seamlessly integrate the technology into a desirable form factor.Research prototype Schematic architecture Early design Working prototype Appearance model Final design Design for personasFor this novel technology, we began by understanding its application and the anticipated user environments. From user personas, we tailored our design choices in size, shape, material, color, and visual segmentation, considering a dense market of visual trends.Weaving tech into consumer soft goodsWe embarked on an R&D journey to research, design, spec, source, and manufacture selectively conductive 3D knitted fabrics. By experimenting with weave patterns and emphasizing ear comfort, we optimized the design for EEG channel skin contact and internal board connection. The final knit product conformed to 3D ear cushions, ensuring aesthetics, comfort, acoustics, and sensor performance. Engineering prototypes for testingThrough several engineering prototype iterations, we fine-tuned the integration of BCI technology into the Enten headphones, ensuring manufacturability. Fresco produced both individual and small-batch prototypes for design validation, internal review, and user testing.Appearance models for funding & design excitementDuring the design phase, we built high-craft appearance models for early product photography, marketing campaigns, stakeholder alignment, investor pitches, and to refine color and material selections. Part design for manufacturingFresco provided Neurable with a fully executed and documented industrial design and mechanical engineering blueprint for scaled manufacturing. We assisted Neurable in collaborating with contract manufacturers, verifying their expertise, and evaluating the secondary suppliers involved in the product's production.You can see more of Fresco's work here.

This Multi Auto Spray product is by Japanese industrial design consultancy Lont. The product consists of just the gun. Because all Japanese 500mL bottles (roughly equivalent to our 16-oz bottles in the 'States) have standardized cap threading, the Multi Auto Spray can use any 500mL bottle as its vessel.The product is designed for gardening, cleaning and even dogwalking (for spraying dog mess off of the sidewalk). It comes with a carabiner that loops through the leather strap up top, so it can be hung from a belt. It's powered by an internal USB-rechargeable battery. You rotate the nozzle to either jet or mist, and you spray it by pressing the large button on the back. It can empty roughly 25 500mL bottles on a single charge. The Multi Auto Spray is in production by Japanese gadget company Belle Leaf and retails for 7,000 (USD $47).

Desk accessories manufacturer Practiko got their start in 2020, after making an observation: Modern desks are often drawer-free slabs. Yet people still have a need for drawers. Practiko thus released this Otis line of add-on drawers:The demand was there, and five years later the company continues to improve the design. After considering customer feedback, the Otis 3.0 versions have more substantial handles that are easier to grab, as opposed to the old cutouts; there are more perforations in the drawer sides to provide more positions for the dividers; the drawers themselves have been made both beefier and larger in capacity; the Otis Tower now has leveling feet for coping with uneven surfaces, and also offers a double-height drawer for larger objects.Otis HangerOtis Tower This category of remedial design products wouldn't exist, if desk manufacturers simply designed desks with useful features, rather than chasing aesthetic trends. Practiko saw a gap in the market and plugged it. Good for them.

If you hear the term "Reefer Truck," you might think it has something to do with weed. But that's the colloquial term used in Japan for refrigerated ("reefer") cargo trucks.Vehicle manufacturer Nippon Trex Co. learned of a problem faced by their clients in the cold-chain cargo business: Not enough drivers, not enough trucks. They thus designed this Swap Reefer truck, which features a long cargo-carrying chassis and has a special trailer that can be detached and stands on its own legs. This has several advantages. Typically, a reefer truck driver shows up to the loading point. The cold cargo, which might be perishables or pharmaceuticals, is loaded as the driver waits. During the loading process, the temperature of the refrigerated cargo cabin naturally drops. Once everything's loaded and the container is sealed again, the driver must wait for the cargo cabin to work its way back down to temperature before they can leave.Once they get to the destination, the driver must of course wait for the truck to be unloaded.The Swap Reefer is a far better system. The cargo container is loaded and set to temperature beforehand, so all the driver does is show up, then attach it. At the destination, they detach the trailer and don't need to wait for the unloading; instead they can take off to do another job. Furthermore, if it's a long haul, the cargo container can be carried there by multiple short-haul drivers, relay-style.I've cued up the video below so you can see how the trailers are detached. It looks pretty straightforward:I'm glad they solved the problem using a physical solution and human drivers, rather than focusing on autonomous trucks.

While newfangled EDC "tools" seem to emerge every day, there are still manufacturers improving upon the designs of long-established tools. The ratchet wrench has been around since at least 1863, but Germany's Wera reckons there's still room for improvement. "We just could not believe that it was not possible to make a ratchet work more quickly," the company writes. "Moreover, we did not like the way users had to apply many different types of ratchet to get a job done. We therefore questioned everything that was conventional about ratchets."The new design Wera developed is called the Zyklop Speed. A flywheel design makes the ratchet turn quicker. For getting into tricky spaces, the head tilts, with predefined locking at 0, 15 and 90. Locked in the 0 position, it can be used as a ratcheting screwdriver. The ratcheting mechanism contains 72 teeth, allowing a return angle as small as 5. Because the head can rotate, the conventional locking lever was not viable. Wera's designers devised a thumbwheel instead that can be engaged from any position. The shape of the metal bracket that holds the head offers, Wera says, "an ergonomic design with finger recesses that offer a perfect contact surface for the hand or fingers to turn the head." The company also offers an engraving option for the popular tools, reducing their chances of walking off of the jobsite. The Zyklop Speed comes in ", 3/8" and " variants, and draws rave reviews from users.

For ID-curious readers who want to dip their toe in the pool, here's an online course on Concept Sketching for Industrial Design. It's taught by Adam Miklosi, a freelance industrial designer based in Budapest. (Miklosi's no veteran, but he's been in the ID game for a decade and clearly has skills.) "You'll explore the art of sketching, covering essential techniques and industrial product design, using both analog and digital tools to enhance your productivity and outcomes." "Immerse yourself in a process that spans from initial research to the development of standalone design concepts. Learn to seamlessly integrate human and natural design elements, showcasing how functionality and form can coexist in perfect harmony." The course consists of 16 video lessons that you do on your own time. The lessons build towards "The final project [which] involves developing two design concepts based on a specific brief," Miklosi writes. "You will use the techniques learned to research, sketch, and ultimately present your ideas, demonstrating your ability to integrate functionality and aesthetics into innovative designs." The course runs $50.

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In some sense this object is the opposite of good industrial design, where you're trying to do more with less. This Zero Mk2, seemingly created by engineers for the sake of engineering, is a pen that folds into a credit card form factor. Whatever world this creates convenience in, is not a world I want to live in. The object is admittedly nifty, though obscene from a manufacturing standpoint; it consists of no less than 54 precision-made parts. The startup behind it, Hancept, announces this number as if it's an accomplishment in its own right. I can't picture the situation where carrying a conventional pen is impossible and this thing saves the day. But we're living in a time where people are running out of things to spend money on, and this $170 object will apparently fill some void. At press time this had been successfully Kickstarted with over $80,000 in pledges and 39 days left in the campaign.

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This Solid Chair is by Heinz H. Landes, a German Postmodern artist active in the 1980s. It's made of ten pieces of rebar and a block of concrete: Chicago-based vintage design reseller Carefully Picked has a pair of the chairs for sale. Their video is below. Sitters may be surprised to feel that the rebar has some give:These chairs would make an unpleasing gift for a construction worker who spends their days working these materials, but in 1986 it was suitably titillating for the gallery-going crowd.

Britas and other popular water filtration systems are often made of plastic. For those who prefer metal, there are stainless steel offerings from Berkey and Boroux, shown below. Well-considered industrial design is about the transitions. The equatorial seam on both the Berkey and Boroux units is probably cost-effective, but lends these units an institutional look. In contrast, a startup called Rorra produces a more designey stainless steel offering: Rorra's more flowing form gives you the impression the designer(s) sweated the details. To me it's a lot easier on the eyes. There are a couple of caveats with the Rorra. One is that it requires four AAA batteries. These do not power the filtrationthe unit is gravity-fed, as are the competitors'but provide the juice for the filter replacement notification light. Which leads us to the second caveat. All water filtration systems require the user to periodically replace the filter. And the filters for these three manufacturers are proprietary, meaning if they go out of business, you've now got a worthless stainless steel artifact. Berkey has been around for over 30 years, providing some peace of mind as to their longevity. Boroux is a bit newer, having launched around 2016. Rorra, the newcomer, came on the market in 2020. With any luck their offering's better looks will lead to market longevity, but anytime you buy something from a new company that requires replacement parts, you are taking a gamble.

This project is by Ziyan Huang, an Industrial Design Masters candidate at Germany's Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences. Huang's Cursor Measurement Tool is a proposal for project sponsor Festool. The tool is intended to make it easier for tradespeople to transfer dimensions from blueprints onto the real-world spaces they're building or installing within. Sadly there is no descriptive copy accompanying the project, beyond what we've stated above. But we can see that the system consists of two units. Aside from the fact that they're connected by a tether, the forms signal their pairing; the shorter unit has a crescent-shaped chunk carved out of it that mirrors the convex form of the taller unit. An internal mechanism is presumably calibrated to determine the distance between the smaller unit and the corner-like cursor on the taller unit. Furthermore, the taller unit has an angled screen atop it. The device is nifty, but I do have two pieces of constructive criticism about the design. The first is that the screen is angled, in my opinion, in the wrong direction. If a tradesperson is supposed to set a measurement using the devices, then make a mark at the corner cursor, why isn't the screen angled towards the cursor? It doesn't make sense to me that the operator should have to move from their marking position in order to confirm the dimension. My second criticism is that the Modernist forms, don't match Festool's established design language, which eschews pure geometric shapes for more functional, ergonomics-based forms. Simply applying the brand's colors and logos does not close this gap for me. This project was executed under professor Jan Bse and with the cooperation of Festool.

Here's a fascinating--and market-specific--solution for dealing with small spaces. Japanese manufacturer Lixil makes this Bathtope, a fabric bathtub that can be tucked away when not needed. The idea is that you can deploy it as desired within a shower, provided it's large enough. This shower space could conceivably be used, the manufacturer suggests, as a place to store and water plants, which can then be removed for showering or bathing. (This amount of effort may sound far-fetched to Americans, but in Japan, workarounds for living in small spaces is common.) Because the bath is fabric, it conforms to the user's body, and requires less water per bath26% less, the company says--than a conventional tub. The Bathtope is a Japanese-market-only product.

We used to see a lot of pure form exploration in ID student work. These days school projects are growing more research- and digital-based, with less of an emphasis on form. So when it comes to seeing strange, experimental new shapes, it is the EDC microeconomy that's leading the charge.A case in point is this bizarre Tactitool, by an independent fabricator called Full Carbon Alchemist. It's essentially a knurled aluminum sleeve that chunkifies a AAA flashlight, and adds three weaponizing protrusions that I can only call carbon fiber knuckles.To some extent, form does follow function here. The carbon fiber protrusions are umbrella-shaped, providing hooks on either side for, get this, carrying grocery bag handles. There's also a pair of glassbreakers on the bottom, as being trapped inside something seems to be a common EDC market worry. For all of the fabrication that went into this object, I'm surprised to see it retails for $42.

With a background in behavioral science, over a decade ago Vicki Tan became a product designer. (The UX kind, not the industrial design kind.) Over the years she's plied her trade at Google, Lyft, Spotify and is now the design lead at Pinterest. She's also corralled her design thinking skills and grasp of why people make the decisions they do into a book, called "Ask This Book a Question." She describes it as "An exploration into better decision making, grounded in the science of cognitive bias and the wisdom of storytelling."Ask This Book A Question arrives like a trusted friend, one who knows that decision making is less about unlocking secrets and more about understanding the quiet ways we navigate uncertainty. Through a series of visual prompts, the book maps the invisible geography of our minds from our perception of time to our tendency to remember the bizarre over the familiar to the shortcuts we take when avoiding difficult truths.This book is a companion for anyone who has ever felt stuck under the weight of too many choices, offering a thoughtful way to sit with uncertainty and navigate life's most pressing questions. Why did a designer write a book about decision-making?Because no matter who we are, we all struggle to make choices that truly align with who we want to be. I've redesigned how we think about cognitive biases not as flaws to fix, but as powerful tools for making more intentional, self-aware decisions.How can making decisions feel more playful?The book is made up of three parts: questions, stories, and biases. You move through these sections following what piques your interest, all the while helping you add texture to your understanding and learn about the patterns in how you think.Here is how Tan envisions the book being used:The book is available for pre-order now and will be released on April 8th.

When Kodak wanted to produce an instant digital camera, they turned to industrial design firm Branch Creative. With their design for the Kodak Smile, Branch came up with a great way to differentiate between "on" and "off:" To activate the camera, you pull the two halves open, revealing the lens on one side and the controls on the other.The 10MP camera can spit out instant prints using the company's "zero ink" technology (there's no need for ink cartridges) or can save the images to an SD card. An LCD screen lets you preview before you print, and the rechargeable battery is good for 40 photos per charge. See Also:Fellow Products Channels Dieter Rams' Design Approach

Back in 1992, Chris Columbus was either the guy who directed "Home Alone" or the guy who "discovered" America. And that year, Giorgetto Giugiaro's Italdesign released a wild concept vehicle called The Columbus (in memory of the latter CC). The "ultra-high level status vehicle" was meant to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' voyage to America (before that came to be seen as problematic). The minivan's swoopy, nautical style lines say Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria more than they do Dodge Caravan."Mini" van might be the wrong term, though that's what Italdesign called it. The vehicle was actually 6 meters (19.7') long and seated up to nine people. The driving position is elevated for better visibility, and the enginea 5-liter BMW V-12was beneath the driver's position. Startlingly for the time, the driver's seat was in the center of the vehicle. (The McLaren F1, which also adopted this arrangement, wasn't released until the following year.) Unsurprisingly, the vehicle never saw production.

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Here's what we looked at this week:Resketch notepads: Reclaimed paper from architectural blueprints and misprints. This Cubo lighting, by Articolo Studios, is made by pouring molten glass into hand-gouged wooden molds.Longbow Motors' British EVs blur the line between footwear and automotive design.A projector that borrows from the Rubik's Cube. Is this really the best way to provide angle adjustability?Japanese overdesign: Bookends that don't let the books fall over when one is removed.The Stacked chandelier, by furniture designer Richard Haining, is made from decommissioned NYC water towers.Industrial Design student work: The ThinBike, by Antonius Glufke, is an easy-to-store urban bike.Small space design: Camper Schmiede's Marylin Onroad is a camper van with the bathroom in the center.Strange interface: This WP200Pro 5G is a ruggedized smartphone with a removable screen that fits in your ear.Smart design improvement: MOFT's Dynamic Folio adds angles to a tablet folio for improved ergonomics.A new form factor for drones: Ascent's Helius goes vertical and coaxial.GOB's Core Pack: Sustainable, mycelium-based earplugs.ResMed's N30i is a minimalist and well-designed C-PAP mask (for a change).Transformer Table's "The Savouring" is a dual workstation that transforms into a dining table. There's a couple of caveats with this design.Industrial design case study: Speck Design tackles a smart frying pan.