Nov
7
Here’s a simple idea, well-executed. This book stand was designed by Danish design brand MOEBE for book publisher Penguin.
Made of stainless steel, it can either be used as a bookend, a book stand, or a page-holding stand.
They’re available in three colors or in their natural finish.
The Penguin x MOEBE Book Stand was created to commemorate Penguin’s 90th anniversary, and they run €57 (USD $65).
Nov
6
Whether you’re vacuum forming, casting polyurethane or doing a composite layup (i.e. a bent lamination or fiberglass layup), you need a mold. Creating the mold can be time-consuming and expensive, and of course you need a place to store the mold when it’s not in use. However, British company Fyous has up-ended this model with their PolyMorphic Mold.
Rather than static molds, the company has developed a reconfigurable pin-based system. You feed your 3D model into their machine, which takes about 20 minutes to set the pins up.
Each pin can handle 6 tons of pressure. You then place the mold into your forming machine of choice and mold away. When you’re done, the mold can simply be reset, ready to take a different shape.
Here’s their system being used to create a three-part mold for foam-injection orthopedic footwear lasts:
Freaking incredible. And the mold is, the company says, “infinitely reusable.”
Nov
6
British toy designer and engineer James Bruton had this vision, for a unique kind of motorbike:
He worked out, in CAD, how it could possibly operate:
Then he built the darn thing.
“I built an omni-directional ball-wheeled bike. This bike balances like a Segway sideways, and drives in all directions, which makes it the ultimate drift bike! I used five ODrive brushless motors driving omni-directional wheels, running on large plastic balls which are intended for circus acts to balance on. Active control keeps it upright and twist grips are used to drive and steer.”
Bruton’s work inspired Swedish 3D artist Johannes Matsson, who built a much smaller-scale version to see what it could do:
What I find fascinating about both of these designs, is that they use a commonly-available ball as the tires. It’s not difficult to imagine a future where companies sell droids that resemble the upper portions of the two designs above, and the user supplies a basketball or soccer ball as the riding platform.
Nov
6
Most clocks reveal time through simple rotation. The Moiré Clock, designed by Felix Cooper and Amber Li for their collective STATION Design, takes a more theatrical approach. It uses overlapping patterns to create a visual phenomenon where numbers appear to scale and shift as the clock face rotates through a stationary filter.
The moiré effect—that trippy interference pattern you get when overlapping grids or lines—isn’t often employed for functional purposes. But Cooper and Li saw potential in marrying the effect’s kinetic properties with clock movement. Hours materialize and fade as the rotating paper face passes through the filter, creating subtle animations every few minutes.
The project started as a custom glyph set testing moiré animations, then evolved into a clock body using a single strip of metal encasing the entire face. It’s an elegant solution that prioritizes material efficiency—a necessity when you’re manufacturing everything yourself.
And they do mean everything. STATION Design operates with serious commitment to vertical integration and local sourcing. The steel comes from offcuts at Metals Supermarket in Cranberry, Pennsylvania. The paper is milled by French Paper Company in Niles, Michigan. Even the quartz movements are from Takane, the sole American manufacturer. They also produced three stainless steel versions for durability.
Cooper, an industrial designer, and Li, a graphic designer and typographer, brought complementary skills—his mechanical expertise meeting her graphic sensibility. Both are recent Carnegie Mellon grads who founded STATION with two other designers from their program.
The collective’s first product drop sold out completely. Their approach mirrors streetwear’s limited release model, creating scarcity while keeping production manageable. The line includes wallets from scrap leather, train whistles from reclaimed shipping container lumber, and a RISO-printed calendar on Michigan-milled paper.
The first run was limited to 30 units, balancing high-quality materials with accessibility—no small feat when sourcing responsibly and manufacturing in-house.
Whether the moiré effect justifies itself over a standard clock face is debatable. But as proof that young designers can build vertically integrated brands straight out of school, it’s compelling work. STATION plans to restock soon, and the first drop’s sellout suggests there’s appetite for thoughtfully made, locally sourced design objects.
Nov
6
A common refrain is that these days people spend money on experiences. Well, for those craving the experience of being locked up in a Meiji-era prison, Japanese hotel chain Hoshinoya has a treat for you.
“The Hoshinoya Nara Prison will be the first luxury hotel in Japan to utilize a former prison, an Important Cultural Property.”
“The former Nara Prison was one of the five major prisons completed in 1908, planned by the Meiji government with the aim of internationally standardizing prisons.”
“The iconic red brick building is a modern building with high historical value and excellent design. We offer a luxurious stay in this famous Meiji-era building with a world-renowned historical and cultural background.”
If you’re wondering what’s up with the bars on the floors, this allowed guards to monitor both the level they were on and the level below.
I assume the rooms will be getting a facelift.
The joint is scheduled to open next year, and rooms will start at ¥17,820 (USD $116) per night.
Nov
5
“These revolutionary drill bits have changed the game forever,” writes creator Nick Sharpes.
You just know that someone is going to think these are real.
The specialty “drill bits” are part of Sharpes’ schtick; under the moniker The 3Dwizard, he creates “Useful and not so useful 3D prints.”
He’s also got a couple designs that go around corners:
If Sharpes was going for engagement, he got it. Over 15,000 people have “liked” this.
Nov
5
Earlier we looked at a replica McLaren F1 seat that you can buy for your gaming rig. It’s sold by Logitech.
Hungarian industrial design firm Flying Objects is taking it further. They figure that for racing sims, players will want to be fully enclosed:
“The body parts are made of lightweight carbon fiber and fiberglass,” the firm writes, “while the frame and rails are made of folded sheet metal for durability.”
There’s also a variant that isn’t fully enclosed, but that just looks, you know, silly.
The firm says the design is going into production, by a Hungarian company called Kelako Engineering, for a 2026 launch.
Nov
4
Most tools are made out of ferrous metals. Mechanical engineer and inventor Joshua Hartung exploited this truth to design the MagMaster, a better design for a tool holder.
Tradespeople who carry a lot of tools often wear toolbelts and/or suspender rigs. These are typically kitted out with tool-specific leather holsters, hammer loops, fastener pouches, et cetera. Hartung took a different approach, drawing on his own experiences working in construction. His chief observation was that not every task requires the same set of tools—for instance, if transitioning from rough framing to finer trim work, sheetrocking or painting—and that a universal tool holder would be better than dedicated object-specific ones.
Thus the MagMaster. It’s a super-strong magnet that clips to a belt, and can be used to hold virtually any tool. This makes it easy to swap tasks without having to reconfigure one’s tool belt.
The MagMaster is in production by Hartung’s company, Holstery. And it has stablemates. Hartung has re-thought tool belts entirely, developing a modular tool carry system based on a series of simple, clever and lightweight belt designs:
The MagMaster and Holstery’s gear draws rave reviews from tradespeople.
Nov
4
Did you know that you could actually go skiing/snowboarding in Australia? I didn’t. The country/continent actually has an established ski industry in their southeast, where the Australian Alps are located. (I also didn’t know they had Alps.)
Their season is short and peaks in July and August. It relies heavily on manmade snow. But now an Australian startup called Snowtunnel is launching a plan to let Australians enjoy wintersports year-round.
What these maniacs are working on is a massive rotating cylinder that’s 12m/41′ in diameter (about four stories tall) and 16m/52.5′ long. Manmade snow is blown into it, and they’ve worked out a proprietary way for the snow to stick to the cylinder, so it doesn’t all just stay piled up at the bottom as the cylinder rotates.
A skier or snowboarder can then carve their way from side to side along the tunnel; it’s something like a wave pool for surfers. The company reckons the 52.5′ length is about the width of an alpine run. The rotation speed can be modulated, maxing out at 31 mph for seasoned skiers and snowboarders.
The company is planning to build multiple Snowtunnels around the country, and says they’ll have their first opening in 2027.
Nov
4
China has spent decades shedding their design piracy image, and there’s still work to be done. But with that much industrial might, it’s just a matter of time before their original homegrown products start to outclass what the U.S. is producing. They’ve already stolen the march on EVs and solar panels. Now exoskeletons are next.
This elegant X Ultra leg exoskeleton was designed by Chinese ID firm Suosi Design, and it’s in production by Shanghai-based Hypershell, a Shanghai-based exoskeleton company. And unlike American competitors in the outdoor exoskeleton space, like Skip and Ekso Bionics, Hypershell has had their product third-party validated by SGS, in order to prove the product lives up to its claims. (SGS is the global testing, verifying and certifying organization used by Apple, BMW, Nike, Sony, etc.)
As for what it can do: The X Ultra provides “a significant 39% reduction in physical exertion when cycling and 20% less physical exertion when walking,” the company says. “Hypershell X Ultra features long-lasting batteries, providing 42,000 steps per battery. With two batteries included, the walking range extends to an impressive 60 km, a substantial leap from the previous generation’s 17.5 km.”
The frame is made of titanium alloy. The unit weighs 3.9 lbs and the batteries 1.6 lbs each, for a total weight of 5.5 lbs. That’s light, with competing products weighing in closer to 10 lbs. And the design is both visually elegant and substantially different from competing products: Rather than distributing weight across the legs, it places the motor and drivetrain at the lower back, which reduces hip strain, improves stability and allows for natural movement, particularly when ascending and descending slopes.
The company says their single-frame design works well with a wide variety of body and clothing types, and is easy to don and doff.
Most damningly for the competitors, this thing is in production and already shipping, globally. And the company only got started four years ago!