Core77 why design now

A traditional factory would use screws and glue and plug the holes [but] the Amish factory would bend the wood to create an arch, and peg it. For the furniture company, this return to traditional methods was profound. For Ruth, it was also philosophical. I didn't invent a new process," she acknowledges.

Where have you seen a revisiting of craft methods in the design industry? Have you practiced it in your own work? What historical methods or approaches should we be integrating into contemporary design? Share your thoughts, suggestions, and stories in the comment section below. I chuckle when "looking back" is critiqued as inaccessible - sure, especially in the decorative arts, we cannot make those products affordable when its creators want to earn a decent living by today's standards, but so often their labor-intensity was precisely the point.

Common craft skills are things that almost anyone can make, with minimal capital investment. It's mostly not scalable in the sense that "I" can't make it at scale to sell to everyone else. Joiners featured "marks of good craftsmanship" that often featured guild secrets. Ironically, I think Nakashima is an excellent example of navigating the economies of making simple, beautiful, durable furniture: they use machine turned spindles, and departing from the aesthetic of large slabs, they generally use seats made from a panel made from several boards.

So much craft had to change in response to economics of machinery: ex. A designer closer to the build-process, rooted in place, is most certainly a scalable model just not in the sense that any one business entity could capture most of the value. I look to body shops as an analogy: you want your bodyman to be local not because you expect to visit them frequently, but they know local styles, practical considerations with climate and road conditions.

If you mention a car in the area you'd like to emulate, not only have they probably seen it, but they've already spent some time thinking about it. A builder-designer in a city may well consider the flooring, the size of doorways, height of ceilings, etc.. What you start with is so unpredictable, it's a small scale craft operation.

Thank God, furniture at least is made on such a low volume basis that you can't get a uniform product out of recycling it. In most cases, the resulting boards are so small there is not much future for them. The exceptions, panels from case goods, sideboards from bed frames, are then limited in volume while varied in species, cut, material, color. Whereas, wood, still the primary material for furnishings, is labor intensive, very flexible in use and extremely renewable.

Just a thought I wonder how sustainability certifications in timber or plastics e. If all materials were used with these disassemble-able, bio-reusable making methods, that could be really dramatic -- or if there were sort of reciprocal requirements for certification, e. A free, five-part webinar series condensing years of experience into an actionable roadmap for design entrepreneurs and inventors. Presented by. Most Popular. Popular Discussions. Join over , designers who stay up-to-date with the Core77 newsletter.

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Often, the cultural and technological narratives that underlie the design may be more interesting. In other cases, new, unseen relationships, interconnections, and systems may be where the real action is. Figuring out how to present such complex work is perhaps more difficult than answering "Why Design Now?

I look forward to the next iteration. Lisa is dedicated to promoting the American contemporary design scene. She also teaches foundation research studios at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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Learn more. Thoughts on the 4th National Design Triennial. Agreed that the exhibit delivers on the answers only a small percentage of the time and it would be great to see more detailed information on why these designs are considered to be a social- and environmental-force of good.

Indeed, it is a challenging exhibit to put together, and to even make the attempt, merits respect. Report as spam. In his latest report from Qingdao, Roland Boal gets over his culture shock to articulate Occidental insight into the Chinese obsession with pure spectacle. When the Corning Museum of Glass recently invited Tim Dubitsky to participate in their GlassLab, the Hawai'i-based designer and farmer took the opportunity to make a vessel for his homebrewed ginger beer.

An outbreak of invasive mountain pine beetles spreads from Colorado to British Columbia and Mexico: a four-part look at recovering the afflicted raw materials. The Tri-State Area was ravaged by a hundred-year storm in the final days of October We made it through relatively unscathed, but many of our friends and neighbors did not A team of researchers recently developed novel applications for 3D-printed objects, thanks in part to high-resolution stereolithography.

Kara Pecknold offers a closer look at GoldieBlox, a construction toy for girls. Developed by Debbie Sterling, the toy is intended to promote the education of girls and more specifically, their science and math skills.

This past summer, a Pratt undergrad took a road that is much less traveled, building and inhabiting his very own tiny house.

Going Public , Gestalten's latest publication, features the most innovative and exciting uses of public space from around the world, from dense city centers to forgotten freeway underpasses to distant forests and fjords.

Reviewed by Perrin Drumm. Jon Winebrenner talks about what certain designers and Ferraris have in common: "they run fast and hot Ideas for these designers come fast and furious Professor John Wood argues for a more nuanced approach to design, moving beyond the outdated legacy of myopic humanism towards a more conscientious approach to design, from a culture that celebrates consumption to one that takes context into account. Senior Interaction Designer Mo Duffy shares her experience on crafting the invisible, hitting the ground running at her first job, graphic design as an icebreaker and more.

Digital cartography gets hyperlocal in Parsons grad Jonathan Baldwin's Tide Pools, a community-generated and -targeted map that can only be accessed via mesh network. In the second chapter of his series on Product Licensing, Bruce Tharp of materious provides detailed advice on how to actually turn a profit by licensing your designs.

Attorney Stacy Wu breaks down what designers need to know about the shift beyond '. Earlier this year, our longtime contributor Don Lehman undertook a comprehensive how-to guide for would-be 'Crowdfunding Revolutionaries. A perennial highlight of the Tri-state event calendar, the family-friendly Faire is a two-day celebration of how the focused creativity of play can be an exploratory process that eventually benefits society as work.

Drawing on the experiences of a suggestively-termed group of "extreme users," designer Ben Pawle hopes to bring innovation to prophylactic packaging. The twofold characterization of Sebastian Errazuriz as a designer and an artist has bedeviled his endeavors for over a decade now. This much is apparent in the dialectical introductory texts to his first monograph—to say nothing of the work itself, which resists characterization as it hovers in the narrow space between understatement and overstatement.

One of our biggest single photo galleries, plus all of our London coverage from September in one place. IxD veteran Dave Malouf writes: "We are about to reach the climax of a war among multi-national technology companies. The chess pieces of this war will be intellectual property IP.

In all war, there is collateral damage and in the IP battles that damage is two-fold effecting consumers and smaller technology companies Attorney Michael Hages explores the ins and outs of patent law in this four-part primer on intellectual property. We've rounded up several informational videos in this handy survey of various methods of 3D-printing metal. India's Tata Motors are working with the engineering experts at MDI on a diminutive urban vehicle that runs on compressed air.

Esteemed English engineer and invetor Alex Moulton passed away just a few months after this short film was released. We took a look at the history of his eponymous bicycle company on the occasion of their 50th Anniversary, for which "Moulton Bicycle Company - Made in England" was produced.

James Self presents an interest thesis regarding the underlying premise of design, namely that "design is to engage with an exploration of ideas towards the yet to be. Filmmaker Gary Hustwit has teamed up with photographer Jon Pack for his latest project, a visual document of former Olympic sites in varying states of ruin or renewal.

NYC's Storefront for Art and Architecture hosted an exhibition of selected images of the work-in-progress during the London games. A mysterious entry for the James Dyson Award raises questions about the boundaries of conceptual design for which innovation comes at the expense of practicality and safety. The mononymous musician partners with indie publisher McSweeney's for his unconventional 12th 'studio album,' a dossier of sheet music that is intended to be a crowdsourced affair.

Sam Dunne visited the group exhibition, which explores the extraordinary ways people have attempted to improve, adapt and enhance their body's performance throughout history. Thanks to all those who participated in this year's program and a special thank you to our jury teams who had the tremendous job of reviewing this year's submissions—we couldn't have done it without you! We've been fans of Outlier since they first launched, and as designers, cyclists and 21st-Century urbanites, we're duly impressed with Abe and Tyler's continued commitment to innovation in apparel and accessories.

The Brooklyn-based brand has built an ever-growing cult following over the years, and we're pleased to present an inside look at their rigorous design process. The Noun Project collects, organizes and adds to the lexicon of highly recognizable symbols that form the world's visual language so they can be shared in a fun and meaningful way.

The symbols are free, simple and high-quality—not to mention truly delightful. Founders Edward Boatman and Sofya Polyakov share how a shared visual language can be the connective tissue across disciplines and geographies, and why you don't need to be a designer to be an effective communicator and change-maker. The inimitable Don Norman dismantles some basic conventions of user interface design The series of live glassmaking demonstrations affirm that the trek was well worth the effort: the Corning team offers an experience that is at once informative and spectacular—that they're masters of the craft is a given.

Now that Cape Town has officially accepted the title of World Design Capital —a first for Africa and a first for the Global South—the city's mayor has appointed an industrial designer, Richard Perez, to help the municipality to internalize design thinking. We spoke to the designer, who holds Masters degrees from both the RCA and the University of Cape Town, about his new role and how to elevate the WDC program beyond a year-long festival.

In the second essay on the future of transporation, our own Ray Hu examines how two seemingly disparate solutions actually represent fundamentally diverging approaches to a widely-recognized problem in urban planning. Designer Roland Boal "decided to give up a cozy life in West London and move to Qingdao, China, to head up the first overseas office for one of the world's leading industrial design consultancies, Priestmangoode.

While Kickstarter has lowered the cost of entry for young upstarts and industry veterans alike, there's something to be said for working hard and saving up so you have some 'liquid assets' in the ol' rainy day fund when inspiration strikes.

That's what Aaron Panone and Joshua Resnikoff did to realize their wildly successful Cuppow, which has since proven its usefulness by facilitating the production of this very publication, via daily doses of caffeine We asked and you delivered!

Earlier this summer we asked you to help us redesign the Designed in USA brand certification logomark. Core77's LinYee Yuan and Lance Hussey of RKS evaluated a strong pool of submissions, and after much deliberation, we're pleased to announce the winners.

A dubious folding sewing machine concept is the rendering that launches a thousand comments concerning the question of fantasy vs feasibility. Book Editor Rob Blinn breaks down this comprehensive guide to contemporary manufacturing processes, a handy reference for practicing designers of all stripes. This year's Royal College of Art annual summer show included work by the greatest number of graduating students in the college's year history.

Nearly art and design postgraduate students from more than 40 countries exhibited the results of their creative undertakings during the past two years in what is considered to be one of London's most prestigious creative hubs.

Now that he's completed his degree, our own Dave Seliger is ready to hightail it out of Hanover and discover America—specifically, the current 'state' of American design. Bruce Tharp kicks off his column on product licensing in an age open innovation. He contends that product designers—with the volume of innovative ideas they can generate, their understanding of the product development process, and with their ability to visually communicate—are uniquely suited to become the darlings of the product licensing world.

The last weekend in June saw the perennial celebration of cycling and its various subcultures as Brendt Barbur's inimitable Bicycle Film Festival entered its second decade. Even as the popularity of pedal-powered transportation continues to grow, this year sees a more laid-back schedule, hearkening to the festival's grassroots origins.

Tad Toulis tackles the current state of the design profession, specifically how practitioners and their employers alike must embrace the tech-inflected atmosphere of entrepreneurship in order to evolve. The leader in athletic apparel and footwear has some new tricks up or rather, on its sleeve for our fastest, fittest athletes as they step up to the world stage. Plus, streetwise sportswear for Olympians as they earn their places on the podiums throughout London. We couldn't pass up an opportunity to see what's new and what's next in Japanese housewares at the annual InteriorLifestyle Tokyo show.

The 10th year of Berlin's annual design festival featured everything from the official "Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland" design award to a handful of satellite shows. A thought-provoking essay on the upside of bad ideas during the ideation or if you prefer, brainstorming process, and why 'bad' doesn't necessarily mean 'not good.

Our friends at Kikkerland celebrated their 20th Anniversary at the ICFF this year, taking the opportunity to reflect on how they've grown over the past two decades. Interdisciplinary designer Dawn Danby shares invaluable insights into a more focused, nuanced approach to sustainable design. Our own An Xiao Mina spoke to gamemaster Tessa Finlev of Catalysts for Change on the occasion of their recent hour brainstorming marathon, built on the Foresight Engine online gaming platform.

All of our coverage from the Salone and its ever-expanding universe of annual satellite events: from the canals of Zona Tortona to the warehouses of Ventura Lambrate, we tracked down the best of Milan We gladly made rounds at the Skylight Soho for the second year of New York's premier bike expo.

We've got a full event recap, as well as a more in-depth framebuilder highlight and plenty of photos from the weekend event. For NY Design Week , we called on our fellow Gothamites to show us the current state of design in the five boroughs including Staten Island , and they did not disappoint. It's not rocket science though engineering training helps : "Nobody needs electric motorcycles," says Marc, "but we found a way to make everyone want electric: by making them go faster.

Rachel Lehrer examines the somatic side of user experience design in an important yet often overlooked setting. The MFA candidate presents her findings and insight into hospital hygiene in a two-part case study. Carly Ayres reports live from three days at the Savannah College of Art and Design, thoroughly illustrating how the second annual Design Ethos event is not just a conference, it's a 'do-ference.

Jan Chipchase of frog design offers his expertise on 'Design Imperialism,' drawing on his extensive experience in ethnographic research. Marking the end of auto exhibition season, this year's show was decidedly mainstream with an abundance of plug-in electric options on parade; see our favs in our gallery.

Inspired by recent stories on European cycling culture and autonomous cars—by Streetsblog and Wired 's Tom Vanderbilt, respectively—our own Ray Hu explores the future of transportation: maybe computer-guided automobiles are the perfect complement to pedal-powered vehicles.