You’re eating at a restaurant, and you pay with a credit card. The server takes your card into the back, does something, and brings you back a paper receipt that you sign. Those days are …
Peter Donder’s Mysterious and Beautiful Robotic Chicken Feet
Peter Donders, the Belgian designer who routinely harnesses industrial processes to create objects that might have been sculpted by elves, is working on a mysterious new project. Apparently it’s for some sort of contraption that …
Mavimatt’s Quirky Furniture Piece with a Hidden Table Surface
I think the difference between fun Italian product designs from the ’90s vs. now, is that in the ’90s it was mass-market; now it’s aimed at the luxury sector. Alessi made quirky bottle openers that …
Far Cheaper, Pellet-Based Industrial 3D Printing
3D printing on an industrial scale brings two costs: The five-figure price tag of the printer, and the ongoing costs of the feedstock. For the latter, you’ve got FDM filaments like PLA or ABS, or …
Japanese Specialty Woodworking Tools: A Knot Remover Kit
When crafting objects or structures out of real wood, knots are part of the aesthetic. But particularly demanding clients might find them objectionable. Enter this Knot Remover kit, from Japanese tool manufacturer Star-M. First you …
Architect Turned Product Designer Develops Countertop Air-to-Water Device That Also Makes Coffee
Cody Soodeen started out as an architect, but after studying biomimicry, became a product designer instead. Soodeen, who originally hails from Pennsylvania, learned about a bug called the Namibian Desert beetle. Evolved to survive in …
Engineer Fixes and Re-Installs Old Payphones, Provides Free Calls to the Public
Payphones “were the only things that were built to last for decades and be out in the elements,” says electrical engineer Patrick Schlott. He should know; as a hobby, he buys secondhand payphones, rewires them, …
Smart Design Feature Makes Transparent Stargazing Tents Practical
For much of their existence, camping tents have been opaque. That began to change in the 1980s, as manufacturers started adding small mesh windows. By the 2010s, stargazing tents made primarily of transparent mesh hit …
A Chair Inspired by Bike Racks
The term “street furniture” obviously refers to objects on streets. But NYC-based industrial designer Nik Bentel was inspired by a ubiquitous piece of street furniture, the bike rack, to design something similar for inside the …
A Convoluted Towel Radiator Made From a Single Steel Tube
Most towel-drying wall radiators consist of multiple pieces of tubing joined together. In contrast this Archibald radiator, by industrial designer Leo Salzedo, is sinuously formed from a single curved steel tube. The units are available …