Tech NewsDesign

The World’s Most Beautiful Scrabble Game Is Now Even More Drool-Worthy

Do you hear that? That’s the sound of your Christmas shopping getting ever so slightly easier this year thanks to Andrew Capener. The creator of the original stunning Scrabble Typography Edition is back with an improved second edition that will have your friends or family happy to give up their Words With Friends addictions should … Continued

Tech NewsDesign

Furniception: These New Products Are Cut From Existing Ikea Furniture

There are lots of factors that come to mind when weighing the environmental and social responsibility of a product, like where it’s made, what it’s made of, and the conditions of those who made it. Designers are starting to pay closer attention to the manufacturing methods, too, to ensure the least possible waste at the … Continued

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The Planet’s Most Elegant Street Furniture Was Designed 60 Years Ago

One of Britain’s greatest industrial designers, David Mellor is probably best known for his sculptural cutlery, which was the first stainless steel flatware to be mass-produced in the UK. But even those who’ve added his spoons to their wedding registry might not know about the system of street furniture he designed, which became iconic on … Continued

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Adorn Your Walls With the Weapons of Summer Fun

The actual summer months might be drawing to a close, but thanks to LA-based DKNG Studios, you can preserve some of that warm weather fun with these awesome prints featuring comprehensive illustrations of the Nerf and Super Soaker product lines. At one time or another we’ve all owned at least one of these weapons of … Continued

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Designers Turn an Abandoned Victoria’s Secret Into a Temporary Workshop

This spring, when City Council voted to demolish the mall at South Street Seaport, they announced that current tenants would be allowed to stay until the summer’s end. But many anchor stores chose to move out earlier—and two designers from Brooklyn were determined to take advantage of the abandoned store space. Demolition on the mall … Continued

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8 Horrible Data Visualizations That Make No Sense

Data visualization can be a great way to drive numbers home and give them a visual weight mere statistics don’t have. At least, that’s what happens when they make sense. Sometimes visualizations are downright dumb and just make things worse. Like these, for instance. WTF Visualizations has been curating a lovely collection of infographic excerpts … Continued

Tech NewsDesign

A Lamp That Looks Like It’s Made From Meccano

The Construction Lamp by Joost van Bleiswijk is a tribute to industrial structures—and as a result it looks rather like its made from the Meccano you played with as a child. Designed by van Bleiswijk for Moooi, the four-sided structures tapers with height, making it look rather like a telegraph pylon. Each joint of the … Continued

Tech NewsDesign

Most Beautiful Items: August 24 – 30, 2013

Sadly, Labor Day weekend marks the spiritual end of summer. But don’t fall into the dumps yet, friends. What lies between you and the colder months are both a day off and a some of the best things we found from the realms of art, architecture, and design this week. A Creepy Tour of Russia’s … Continued

Tech NewsDesign

Would You Trust a Helium-Filled Floating Venue On Your Wedding Day?

If you like the idea of an outdoor wedding, but not the idea of setting up a tent which can be a hassle, you might want to reach out to design studio Qastic. As part of the Connecticut-based firm’s research into the feasibility of using floating structures in its architecture, it created this inflatable helium-filled … Continued

Tech NewsDesign

This Munich Museum Moved Into a Building Made Entirely of Scaffolding

Renovations are tricky for museums: You have to protect your permanent collection while keeping ticket sales up, which explains why so many museums close completely or move to new locations rather than repair an existing building. Not so at Munich’s largest art museum, where workers simply built a gigantic scaffolding reconstruction next door. Pinakotek is … Continued

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The Obstacle Course Where DARPA Will Test a New Breed of Robot Heroes

As the Chernobyl and Daiichi Fukushima nuclear disasters illustrated in unnerving clarity, mankind commands technology capable wreaking destruction we can’t clean up without putting people’s lives at risk. That’s why DARPA is hosting the DARPA Robotics Challenge, in hopes of jump starting development of tomorrow’s mechanical first responders. But in order to win the ultimate … Continued

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A Better Boarding Pass: Rethinking One of the Worst Design Offenders

Airports are not enjoyable places to be. Long distance travel is not a tonne of fun. Badly designed boarding passes are annoying. Seriously annoying. The boarding pass is essential for air travel but when badly designed, must be one of the most counter-productive items an airline could issue. I think they cause headaches for airline … Continued

Tech NewsDesign

The 17 Worst College Football Uniform Designs, Ranked

We’re on the brink of a new college football season, and a new chance for schools to trot out flashy new uniforms—and make tons of cash in the process. As the season kicks off this weekend, who’ll be wearing the most stomach-churning jerseys? Uniform culture is a lot like fashion culture in general. You’ve got … Continued

Tech NewsDesign

Nike Lebron 11: Shoes That Look Like Space Rock Diamonds

Here are the jewels that’ll adorn the feet of the world’s greatest basketball player LeBron James for the upcoming basketball season. They look like they’re brilliantly cut like a diamond. They look like something Iron Man might wear in his future. They also look like something an outer space alien version of The Thing would … Continued

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Can Bugs, Toilets, and Mushrooms Change the World?

When Buckminster Fuller died, he was buried under a gravestone with a very peculiar inscription: CALL ME TRIMTAB. Fuller had uttered those words to a Playboy reporter in 1972 (this kind of thing happened a lot in the 70s) to describe the kind of effect he wanted to have on the world. But what did … Continued

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New Delhi’s Super-Park Will Completely Dwarf Central Park

In 1857, Central Park was carved out of the still-wild landscape of Manhattan. In 2013, a new park in the middle of super-dense New Delhi is poised to dwarf Central Park by almost 50 percent. But how will they build a 1,200-square-foot park smack dab in the center of the fourth biggest city in the … Continued

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You’d Be Crazy Not to Buy This Straitjacketed Wine

Picking out the right bottle of wine to take to a dinner party is too often a tough task, so many people go with the pick-the-pretty-label approach. And of course, you want to send the right message. With Vino Loco, that message is loud and clear: You crazy. This Spanish-designed bottle of wine comes wrapped … Continued

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A Hybrid Braille Font Lets Visually Impaired Kids Read Any Book

To make kids living with visual impairments able to share the same experiences as their friends and peers, a new series of children’s books was created. The Storybook For All Eyes each feature a custom-designed font that incorporates both braille and english letters into a single typeface so they can be shared and enjoyed by … Continued

Tech NewsDesign

The Smithsonian Just Added a Chunk of Code to Its Permanent Collection

The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt design museum in New York just acquired the source code to an iPad app called Planetary from its now-defunct developer. Code is officially art now. Planetary, as you can see in the video above, is basically a fancy music visualizer. The app’s source code was donated to the Cooper-Hewitt, which promptly open-sourced … Continued

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9 Classic Posters From the London Tube’s 150 Year History

The London Underground secured a place in the pantheon of good graphic design with engineer Harry Beck’s topologic Tube Map from 1933. In addition to that icon, however, the transit system has a pretty substantial history of bringing top-notch visuals to the subterranean masses; posters promoting everything from the Underground’s pleasant temperature control—cooler on hot … Continued