Blog TSK

Escape Trailer’s 13-foot fiberglass egg trailer: fun adventures in a small package

There is a little of everything in an Escape Trailer. It’s compact yet spacious and lightweight yet robust. The Chilliwack, Canada-based trailer manufacturer has been through five fiberglass “egg trailers” and now for the sixth edition, it has launched the Escape 13’, which according to the company is ‘it’s lightest and most compact trailer yet.’

With decades of experience behind their conviction and handling of fiberglass, Escape Trailer has stayed true to its signature construction style allowing it to trim the weight. For the interested, the E13 is built with 100 percent molded fiberglass creating a true one-piece shell. To the tiny camping trailer, it means a lightweight and incredibly durable body, which is fuel-efficient to tow and easy to maintain over the decades.

Designer: Escape Trailer

In the past few days (if we doubted it in any little) a couple of new compact trailers, Escape 13 included, have proven that great adventures can pack well in small packages. A little space can be tailored to feel spacious enough to live without a compromise in convenience and safety. This was substantiated recently by the Scamp X off-road trailer. The first molded fiberglass egg trailer from Scamp Trailers, a popular Minnesota–based RV manufacturer of the ‘70s.

Purpose-built to tread off-the-paved-roads, Scamp X transforms the beloved egg camper into a serious off-roader, which the Escape 13 doesn’t really match up, but the latter’s interior makes up for it. On the outside, the two trailers are molded fiberglass shells but, on the inside, the E13 is created to maximize space and ensures small-scale camping is done right. If you love the vibe, the new trailer comes in 13 different exterior colors to choose from.

At 13 feet, the aerodynamic Escape 13 measuring 13’8” L x 6’7” W x 6’1” H is built on a single 3,500 lb. axle to make towing it easier even with smaller vehicles. With its dry weight of just 1,850 lbs and a GVWR of 2,500 lbs. the camper should be towable easily by small SUVs and even crossovers.

When you hop in through a side entry you witness a small, but surprisingly spacious interior that is planned to sleep three people comfortably. For this, the trailer is equipped with a double bed, a convertible dinette, and a well-equipped kitchen area. The compact galley kitchen has a dual burner stainless steel cooktop, a sink, and a 3 cu.ft. refrigerator.

A 12,000 BTU furnace keeps the residence in a cozy temperature, while Escape Trailer provides the E13 with porta potty that hides away from sight in one of the wooden cabinets. The maple wood cabinetry and overhead compartments span almost the entire part of the interior, sufficing the users’ storage requirements. The trailer features a screen door, while the acrylic windows allow natural light to make the interior feel slightly more expansive. All of this, Escape Trailers is making available starting at CA$33,600 ($24,000).

The post Escape Trailer’s 13-foot fiberglass egg trailer: fun adventures in a small package first appeared on Yanko Design.

Pantone’s 2026 Color of the Year Finally Admits We’re All Exhausted

Pantone has officially called it: the prevailing mood for 2026 is exhaustion. This marks a sharp departure from recent years, when the annual announcement felt like a conversation happening in a different room. The world was navigating a pandemic hangover and digital burnout, while Pantone was prescribing electric purples for creativity and defiant magentas for bravery. Each choice, while commercially friendly, felt like a wellness influencer telling a tired person to simply manifest more energy.

This year, however, their choice of Cloud Dancer, a soft, billowy white, functions less like a statement and more like a surrender. It is the color of a blank page, an empty inbox, a quiet sky, a white flag, if you will. By choosing a hue defined by its peaceful lack of saturation, Pantone is finally acknowledging the dominant cultural mood – burnout. They are admitting that the most aspirational feeling right now is not vigor or joy, but rest.

Designer: Pantone

To understand why this feels so significant, you have to look at the recent track record. The disconnect between Pantone’s narrative and the world’s reality has been the core of the critique, which I made back in 2022, calling Pantone’s Very Peri an exercise in blind futility. The argument was that Pantone was no longer reading culture but trying to write it, pushing a top-down color prophecy that served its own marketing ecosystem more than it reflected any genuine grassroots sentiment. This critique felt especially potent with the last two selections, Peach Fuzz and Mocha Mousse.

Peach Fuzz, the choice for 2024, was sold with a story of tenderness, community, and tactile comfort. It was a lovely, gentle shade, but it landed in a year defined by rising inflation, geopolitical instability, and a pervasive anxiety about the acceleration of artificial intelligence. The narrative felt like a beautifully packaged lie of omission. Then came Mocha Mousse for 2025, a comforting brown meant to evoke groundedness and stability. It was a safe, aesthetically pleasing choice that aligned perfectly with coffee-shop interior trends, but it felt more like an algorithmic pick from a Pinterest board labeled “cozy” than a meaningful cultural statement. It was a color for a lifestyle, not for a life.

Which brings us to Cloud Dancer. On the surface, choosing white seems like the ultimate cop-out. It is the absence, the default, the non-choice. But Pantone’s justification is, for the first time in a long while, deeply resonant. Leatrice Eiseman, the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, describes it as a “conscious statement of simplification” meant to provide “release from the distraction of external influences.” Laurie Pressman, the vice president, is even more direct, stating, “We’re looking for respite, looking for relief… we just want to step back.”

This is not the language of aspirational marketing; it is the language of burnout. Pantone is explicitly naming the problem: overstimulation, digital noise, and the overwhelming “cacophony that surrounds us.” Cloud Dancer is positioned as the visual antidote, a quiet space in a world that refuses to shut up. It is a breath of fresh air, a lofty vantage point above the chaos. By framing the color as a tool for focus and a symbol of a much-needed pause, Pantone has shifted from prescribing an emotion to validating one. It feels less like they are telling us how to feel and more like they are saying, “We hear you. You’re tired.”

Of course, we should not mistake this newfound self-awareness for a complete abandonment of the marketing machine. The Color of the Year is, and always will be, a commercial enterprise. But the choice of Cloud Dancer is a savvier, more sophisticated move. Choosing white cleverly sidesteps the pressure to project forced optimism. It aligns perfectly with existing design trends like soft minimalism and quiet luxury, making it an easy sell to brands. Most importantly, it allows Pantone to craft a story about retreat and renewal, a narrative that feels both authentic and highly marketable in a wellness-obsessed culture.

So, is the ‘marketing fluff’ gone? Not entirely. But it has been supplemented with something much more compelling. Instead of a tone-deaf declaration, we have a confession that feels a little more aware of a global sentiment. Cloud Dancer works because it is an admission of defeat. It is a white flag, a symbol of surrender to the relentless pace of modern life. In a world saturated with color, demanding our attention at every turn, the most radical and desired hue might just be the one that asks for nothing. Pantone did not just pick a color for 2026; it picked a feeling, and for the first time in a long time, it feels like our own.

The post Pantone’s 2026 Color of the Year Finally Admits We’re All Exhausted first appeared on Yanko Design.

5 Best Winter Gifts For People Who Think Candles Are Too Basic

Candles have had their moment. The same pillar wax, the predictable flicker, the scent that lingers just a bit too long. Winter gift giving deserves better than another vanilla-scented cylinder wrapped in recycled paper. The people on your list who care about how things look, who curate their spaces with intention, who grimace at generic seasonal decor, need gifts that match their standards. They want ambiance without the cliché, warmth without the waxy residue, ritual without the routine.

This collection of five winter gifts speaks directly to that sensibility. Each piece brings light, warmth, or comfort into cold-weather living spaces without relying on the tired tropes of holiday shopping. From buildable nostalgia to precision-engineered flames, these designs prove that seasonal gifting can be thoughtful, functional, and genuinely exciting. These are the gifts that get displayed year-round, not shoved into storage boxes come January.

1. LEGO Snow Globes

Winter nostalgia gets a modular makeover with these buildable snow globes that let brick enthusiasts create their own holiday scenes. Designed as a My Own Creation by builder ItzEthqn, this trio of festive displays captures seasonal charm through 385 carefully selected pieces. The set includes three distinct globes: a petite snowman complete with carrot nose and branch arms, a fuller Christmas tree topped with a star and surrounded by wrapped gifts, and a scene featuring Santa on his loaded sleigh ready for his annual delivery run.

The genius lies in the construction itself. Each globe uses transparent LEGO pieces to create the illusion of a glass encasement, while the bases mirror the gold, green, and red bands found on vintage novelty shop displays. The larger two globes feature two-part orb designs with snowflake bricks embedded into their bases for extra seasonal detail. The modular nature means anyone with a decent LEGO collection can swap out the interior scenes entirely, transforming these from Christmas-specific decorations into year-round display pieces that reflect personal interests, inside jokes, or seasonal rotations beyond December.

What we like

The completely customizable interior scenes mean these globes evolve with your interests.
The nostalgic factor hits perfectly for anyone who grew up building with bricks.
Display-worthy finished product that bridges childhood play and adult design sensibility.

What we dislike

At 385 pieces total across three globes, the build might feel quick for serious LEGO fans.
The transparent pieces showing seams rather than smooth glass may bother purists.

2. Ceramic Cup

Coffee and tea drinkers who treat their daily ritual as meditation rather than caffeine delivery will recognize themselves in this Japanese-inspired ceramic mug. The design mimics the textured appearance of cast iron teaware, bringing that same grounded, tactile quality to a modern drinking vessel. The exterior surface carries visual weight and an almost rustic presence, while the interior remains smooth, glazed ceramic that won’t interfere with the taste of whatever fills it. A wooden handle provides warmth against cold hands without conducting heat from the cup itself.

The 350ml capacity hits the sweet spot between delicate tea ceremony portions and American coffee mug excess. This size encourages slower drinking, multiple pours from a pot, and refills that keep you present rather than caffeinated into oblivion. The design philosophy clearly draws from wabi-sabi aesthetics, where imperfection and earthiness create beauty. The faux cast iron finish gives each mug subtle variations in tone and texture. Hand washing requirements and the prohibition against microwaving signal that this piece demands a bit more care than your standard dishwasher-safe corporate logo mug, which somehow makes the daily use feel more intentional.

Click Here to Buy Now: $60.00

What we like

The visual weight and texture create a grounding sensory experience with every sip.
Japanese ceramic construction ensures quality that improves with age and use.
The wooden handle stays cool while the cup retains heat beautifully.

What we dislike

Hand-wash only requirement adds extra steps to morning routines.
The cast iron aesthetic might feel heavy for minimalist spaces that favor lighter palettes.

3. Harmony Flame Fireplace

Real fire indoors stops being a fantasy with this brass lamp that burns bioethanol fuel for genuine flames without smoke, odor, or ventilation requirements. Crafted using the same techniques employed by brass instrument makers, this piece brings music-quality precision to functional fire. The reflective brass surface catches and multiplies the flame’s movement, creating shifting patterns of light and shadow across nearby walls and surfaces. The result feels less like lighting a candle and more like introducing a living element into your space that breathes and dances.

Bioethanol burns clean, producing only water vapor and trace carbon dioxide comparable to human breath. No soot stains your ceilings, no smoke triggers alarms, no lingering smell clings to furniture and curtains the way traditional candle wax does. The brass construction develops a patina over time, recording the lamp’s history in subtle color shifts and darkened areas where hands frequently touch. The compact box design means this flame source travels easily from dining table to side table to outdoor patio, adapting to wherever the evening takes you. Winter gatherings gain instant atmosphere when real fire reflects off brass onto faces gathered around, telling stories.

Click Here to Buy Now: $239.00

What we like

Genuine flame provides an unmatched ambiance that LED alternatives can never replicate.
Handcrafted brass construction means each piece carries slight variations and will age uniquely.
Bioethanol fuel eliminates all the drawbacks of traditional candles while keeping the essential magic of fire.

What we dislike

Bioethanol fuel requires purchasing and storing separately from the lamp itself.
The exposed flame demands more caution around children and pets than enclosed lighting.

4. Fire Capsule Oil Lamp

Minimalist design meets extended burn time in this cylindrical oil lamp that delivers up to 16 hours of continuous light from a single 80ml fill. The sleek form factor disguises remarkable functionality: a precision-engineered lid keeps dust away from the glass chimney, an included aroma plate transforms the lamp into a scent diffuser, and the option to use insect-repelling paraffin oil makes this equally valuable for winter indoor ambiance and summer outdoor dining. The glass cylinder protects the flame while allowing full visibility of the flickering light that creates the same meditative quality fire has provided humans for millennia.

The portability changes how you think about lighting. A drawstring pouch protects the lamp during transport, making this equally at home on a dinner party sideboard, a camping trip table, or a long weekend cabin mantle. The cylindrical shape packs efficiently, and the durable construction survives the bumps of travel that would shatter more delicate candle holders. The aroma plate sits above the flame, gently warming essential oils or fragrance without burning them, creating a subtle scent that disperses naturally rather than the overwhelming cloud some candles produce. Winter nights call for this kind of adjustable, movable light that follows you from room to room as evening activities shift from cooking to conversation to reading.

Click Here to Buy Now: $89.00

What we like

The 16-hour burn time from 80ml capacity means fewer refills and uninterrupted ambiance.
Dual functionality as both light source and aroma diffuser maximizes versatility.
The portable design with protective pouch makes this equally valuable at home or while traveling.

What we dislike

Oil lamps require more active maintenance than battery-powered alternatives.
The open flame design means careful placement away from fabrics and flammable materials.

5. Smart Tea Pot

Tea preparation becomes a personalized wellness ritual with this app-connected teapot that analyzes your biometric data and environmental conditions to brew each cup specifically for your current state. Six integrated sensors read heart rate, finger temperature, ambient temperature, humidity, and other factors to determine whether you need calming chamomile brewed gently or energizing green tea extracted with precision. The comprehensive database includes optimal brewing parameters for hundreds of tea varieties, removing guesswork and delivering consistent results that honor each tea’s unique characteristics. Traditional tea knowledge meets modern sensor technology.

The patented rotary brewing system replicates the subtle wrist movements Japanese and Chinese tea masters spend years perfecting. This mechanical choreography affects extraction rates, flavor development, and aromatic compound release in ways that simply dunking a bag in hot water can never achieve. The teapot essentially contains centuries of tea ceremony expertise translated into repeatable, programmable motion. Winter mornings transform when your first cup emerges, brewed to match your resting heart rate and the cold air temperature, while evening cups adjust to help you wind down as your body temperature drops toward sleep. The app interface removes complexity, letting you simply select a tea type and trust the sensors to handle the details.

Click Here to Buy Now: $349.00

What we like

Biometric sensors create genuinely personalized brewing that responds to your actual physical state rather than generic presets.
The rotary brewing system delivers tea master quality without requiring years of training.
The extensive tea database educates while it brews, expanding your knowledge of varieties and optimal preparation methods.

What we dislike

The technology complexity might overwhelm purists who prefer intuitive, hands-on tea preparation.
App connectivity requirements mean this teapot depends on your phone being charged and nearby.

Why These Gifts Work

Candles represent passive consumption. You light them, they burn, they disappear. These five designs offer something fundamentally different: engagement, customization, and evolution over time. The LEGO snow globes rebuild into new configurations, the ceramic mug develops character with use, the brass lamp gains patina, the oil lamp travels to new contexts, and the smart teapot learns your preferences. Each piece rewards attention and active participation rather than simply existing as background decoration that you replace when the wax melts down.

The people who think candles are too basic already understand this distinction. They curate rather than accumulate, they value objects that perform multiple functions or reveal new dimensions with extended use, and they invest in pieces that justify their presence through both aesthetics and utility. These winter gifts speak that same language. They bring warmth and light into cold months without relying on the disposable logic that dominates seasonal shopping. Give these to the design-conscious people in your life and watch them actually use them instead of filing them away with other well-intentioned but ultimately generic presents.

The post 5 Best Winter Gifts For People Who Think Candles Are Too Basic first appeared on Yanko Design.

This $200 Display Finally Brings Album Art Back to Your Home

For most musicians and artists, the album artwork of their albums or EPs is serious business. In the days of cassette tapes, CDs, LPs, and other physical forms of media, they also served as part of your space’s display, especially if you’re a collector. But when streaming came along, you could only display these works of musical art on your smartphone or music player. But what if you really love your favorite albums’ cover art and wanted to show them off while listening to them?

That’s the idea behind the Tuneshine Album Art Display, which may become your newest favorite piece of technology. Created by Tobias Butler and lovingly assembled by hand in the USA, this charming little display brings a touch of vintage record store vibes into the streaming age. It basically shows off the album artwork of the song or album that’s currently playing. But if you’re not using it, it can also serve as an image display device.

Designer: Tobias Butler

At its heart, Tuneshine is a 6.3″ x 6.3″ square LED display that’s about 1.57″ thick (or 16cm x 16cm x 4cm if you prefer metric). Don’t let the compact size fool you, as this beauty packs 64 x 64 extra-bright pixels that make your album artwork pop with vibrant colors and impressive clarity. Plus, you have brightness control, so whether you’re setting the mood for a dinner party or jamming out in broad daylight, you can adjust it to perfection.

You can connect it to your music service of choice, including Spotify, Apple Music, Sonos, and last.fm. As long as your albums or playlists live in these services (no idea if YouTube Music will eventually be added), their album covers will be displayed in Tuneshine. You can also use Shazam to display artwork from other sources like vinyl records, CDs, radios, etc., and capture the magic of the art that the artists put effort into. You just need an iOS or Android device and a Wi-Fi connection to do the initial setup.

For those times when you’re not using the device to play music, you can actually customize it to display the image of your choice, whether it’s a favorite photo, a work of art, or a motivational quote. When it comes to the design, the Tuneshine comes in light and dark wood options like Beechwood + Walnut in a solid wood case. You can also get it in a solid anodized aluminum case with five options: Sapphire (a rich blue), Onyx (deep black), Obsidian (dramatic dark tones), Pearl (elegant and light), and Ruby (bold red).

You have to note that Tuneshine doesn’t include an internal or external speaker, so you have to use it alongside an existing speaker or sound system. For collectors, there’s an extra special touch: each Tuneshine unit is assembled, signed, and numbered inside the case by creator Tobias Butler himself, making it a genuine piece of functional art. The wooden versions are fulfilled quickly in 1-2 business days, while the Gems collection takes 1-2 weeks, but the wait is worth it for something this unique.

In our streaming age, we’ve gained incredible convenience but lost some of the tangible magic that came with physical music collections. Remember the ritual of carefully placing a record on the turntable, admiring the cover art before the first note played? Or displaying your favorite albums on your shelf like the treasures they were? Tuneshine bridges that gap beautifully, letting us reclaim that visual connection to our music without sacrificing modern convenience.

Whether you’re a longtime collector missing the days of physical media or simply someone who appreciates beautiful design and wants to celebrate the artistry behind your favorite music, the Tuneshine Album Art Display transforms any space into a personal gallery. It’s not just a gadget; it’s a love letter to album art, a conversation starter, and a daily reminder that music is meant to be experienced with all our senses.

The post This $200 Display Finally Brings Album Art Back to Your Home first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Bright Green Fountain Just Made London’s New District Unmissable

There’s something delightfully unexpected about stumbling upon a fountain that looks like it might start dancing at any moment. That’s exactly what design studio Neon has created for Brent Cross Town in London, and honestly, it’s the kind of public art that makes you stop scrolling through your phone and actually look up.

The Fountain isn’t your grandmother’s classical water feature with cherubs and symmetrical tiers. Instead, imagine a stack of bright green sculptural plates that seem to defy gravity and good manners. They’re asymmetrical, angular, and unapologetically bold. It’s like someone took the idea of what a fountain should be, tossed it in the air, and let it land however it wanted.

Designer: Neon

What makes this installation particularly clever is how it plays with our expectations. We’re so conditioned to see fountains as these elegant, balanced structures centered in plazas and parks. But Neon flipped that script entirely. The green isn’t a subtle sage or muted mint. It’s vibrant, almost electric, demanding attention in the best possible way. It’s the color of highlighters and neon signs, which feels perfectly appropriate for a studio literally named Neon.

The sculptural plates themselves look like they’re caught mid-motion, as if they’re perpetually tumbling through space but somehow frozen at the perfect moment. There’s a playfulness to the design that feels refreshing in the world of public installations, where things can sometimes skew too serious or too safe. This piece doesn’t apologize for taking up space or being seen. It wants to be noticed, and it succeeds.

Located in Brent Cross Town, the fountain sits in a developing area of London that’s been transforming from a shopping center hub into a mixed-use neighborhood. Public art like this becomes crucial in those transitional spaces. It gives people something to gather around, something to use as a meeting point, and most importantly, something that adds character and identity to a place still finding its voice.

What’s particularly interesting about The Fountain is how it bridges multiple design philosophies. There’s definitely a contemporary art sensibility with the abstract forms and bold color choice. But there’s also a functional design element since it’s still, at its core, a working fountain. Water presumably flows through or around these sculptural elements, adding movement and sound to the visual spectacle. That combination of form and function, especially when executed this dramatically, is what separates memorable public installations from forgettable ones.

Neon, the studio behind this work, has built a reputation for creating experiential designs that engage people in unexpected ways. They’re not interested in background pieces that politely fade into their surroundings. Their portfolio demonstrates a consistent commitment to work that provokes reaction, whether that’s delight, curiosity, or even a bit of bewilderment. The Fountain fits perfectly into that philosophy.

There’s also something to be said about using such a saturated color in a public space. Green is often associated with nature, growth, and renewal, but this particular shade pushes past those gentle associations into something more energetic and urban. It’s a green that belongs to street art and graphic design rather than pastoral landscapes. That choice feels intentional for a location that’s urban and forward-looking.

The asymmetry deserves special attention too. In an era where Instagram-perfect symmetry dominates so much of our visual culture, there’s something rebellious about embracing imbalance. The plates appear to stack and tilt at odd angles, creating different silhouettes depending on where you’re standing. That means the fountain isn’t just one experience but multiple ones, changing as you move around it.

Public art should do more than just occupy space. It should create conversation, add joy, and give people a reason to engage with their environment differently. The Fountain manages all three. It’s weird enough to be memorable but accessible enough that you don’t need an art degree to appreciate it. You just need to be willing to accept that fountains can be bright green, delightfully lopsided, and a little bit rebellious. And honestly, couldn’t we all use a bit more of that energy in our public spaces?

The post This Bright Green Fountain Just Made London’s New District Unmissable first appeared on Yanko Design.

UltraBar X Replaces Your Stream Deck, Volume Knob, and Phone Apps

Most desks accumulate a scattered collection of control devices over time. There’s the keyboard and mouse, maybe a Stream Deck for shortcuts, a volume knob for your speakers, a phone running smart home apps, and a separate remote for the desk lamp. Each solves a specific problem, but together they create a landscape of disconnected gadgets competing for space and attention. The monitor sits above it all, while everything underneath becomes a tangled mess of cables and redundant functions.

UltraBar X tries to consolidate that chaos into a single, modular strip that lives under your monitor. Built around a long, wedge-shaped bar with an ultra-wide display, it acts as a command center for your computer, applications, and even your smart home devices. Instead of a fixed product, it works more like a platform where you snap on magnetic modules to build the exact control surface your desk needs.

Designer: Team UltraBar

Click Here to Buy Now: $289 $429 (33% off). Hurry, only 379/500 left! Raised over $178,000.

The central piece is CoreBar, a low, seven-inch display wedge-shaped bar tilted at forty-five degrees so it’s easy to glance at without adjusting your posture. The screen shows clocks, system stats, app icons, and customizable scenes that change based on what you’re doing. Tap the screen to wake your PC, jump between apps, or trigger macros, all from a touch interface that sits right where your hands naturally rest.

What makes the system feel different is how the magnetic modules expand it. DotKey snaps onto the side and brings a cluster of Cherry MX mechanical keys for shortcuts and macros. KnobKey adds a precision rotary dial that clicks crisply as you turn it, perfect for adjusting volume, brush size, or timeline scrubbing. VivoCube is a tiny controller with its own AMOLED screen and switches, small enough to hold or dock alongside the bar.

Of course, there’s also SenseCube, the environmental sensing module. Inside its small triangular shell are millimeter-wave radar and sensors for light, temperature, humidity, and vibration. This gives your desk a kind of ambient awareness, letting it detect when you sit down, notice changes in lighting, or respond when the room gets too warm. The workspace starts to feel less static and more responsive without constant input.

A typical morning might look like this. You walk up to your desk and tap CoreBar to wake the PC, which also brings up a layout tuned for writing and email. The mechanical keys are mapped to window management shortcuts, while the knob handles scrolling through long documents. Later, a single press shifts CoreBar into a design layout, and pretty much the same modules now control brush size, zoom, and layers in Photoshop or Illustrator.

The system doesn’t stop at the screen. Through its network connection, CoreBar can talk to Philips Hue lights to adjust the room based on your focus mode, or trigger a Sonos playlist with a single tap on an icon. The same bar that manages your open apps can also dim the lights or change the soundtrack, turning your desktop into a bridge between your computer and the rest of your space.

What keeps the experience from feeling overwhelming is how the software handles it. CoreBar runs a custom system with an app store and a library of templates for different workflows. Programmers get layouts for terminal, debugging, and IDE shortcuts. Designers get knobs and keys for brushes and layers. Streamers get scene controls and quick mutes. These templates bundle icons, animations, and logic, so you can load a complete setup without building from scratch.

That said, the modular approach means the system can grow over time. You can start with just CoreBar and add modules as you figure out what you actually need, swapping them in and out as your workflow shifts. The QuantumLink magnetic protocol means modules snap on, get recognized instantly, and can be reconfigured in seconds without tools or menus.

UltraBar X is made for people who enjoy shaping their tools rather than accepting whatever default interface their operating system provides. It doesn’t replace your keyboard or mouse, but it gives the space under your monitor a clear job beyond collecting dust and cable clutter. For anyone tired of juggling separate devices or hunting through nested menus, a modular bar that can sense, adapt, and consolidate feels like a thoughtful step toward desks that work the way you do.

Click Here to Buy Now: $289 $429 (33% off). Hurry, only 379/500 left! Raised over $178,000.

The post UltraBar X Replaces Your Stream Deck, Volume Knob, and Phone Apps first appeared on Yanko Design.

Starbucks China Is Selling a $28 Camera With Dual Sensors and Y2K Filters

Starbucks wants you to photograph your coffee so badly that they’ve started selling you the camera to do it with. The Seattle coffee chain has ventured into digital imaging with a retro-styled camera that’s generating buzz for being surprisingly functional rather than just another piece of logo-plastered merchandise.

Released in China for the 2025 holiday season, the Starbucks Retro Digital Camera comes with dual sensors, vintage filters, and a design aesthetic borrowed from classic rangefinder cameras. At 198 yuan (roughly $28), it undercuts almost every digital camera on the market while offering features like proper selfie framing through its rear sensor and Y2K photo overlays. The metal-and-leather construction in burgundy-gold or green-silver colorways suggests Starbucks contracted with an established camera manufacturer rather than creating novelty electronics from scratch.

Designer: Starbucks

Look, Starbucks absolutely did not design this camera from the ground up. That $28 price point screams white-label collaboration with one of China’s numerous budget camera OEMs, and honestly, why wouldn’t they? The country has an entire ecosystem of manufacturers churning out retro-inspired digital cameras for the nostalgia market. You’d be an idiot to build camera R&D infrastructure when you’re a coffee company. Slap your logo on proven hardware, customize the leather colors, engrave “EVERY MOMENT MATTERS” around the lens ring, and call it a day. Starbucks already did this dance with LOMO on an instant camera in 2024, so they know the playbook. Partner with people who actually understand imaging sensors and leave the coffee roasting to yourself.

What actually matters here is that dual-sensor setup, because it solves a problem that every budget camera has ignored for decades. Taking selfies with a traditional camera means holding it at arm’s length, pressing the shutter, and praying you’re somewhere in the frame. Maybe your face is cut off. Maybe you captured mostly ceiling. Who knows? Starbucks stuck a second sensor where the viewfinder would normally sit, turning decorative nonsense into a functional front-facing camera. You frame yourself on the rear LCD exactly like using a smartphone, which means the target audience (people who want filtered photos for Instagram) can actually use this thing without wanting to throw it against a wall. Those nine Y2K photo frame overlays and retro filters are pure nostalgia bait, but we’re drowning in millennium aesthetics right now anyway. Fashion’s doing it, UI design’s doing it, why shouldn’t cameras?

Resale prices jumped to $72 almost immediately, which tells you everything about actual demand. Triple the original price means people want these as functional devices, not just collectors hoarding Starbucks merch. The lychee leather texture and metal construction feel surprisingly premium when you hold one. Those decorative dials on top are completely useless, sure, but they nail the vintage rangefinder look well enough that you’d need to inspect closely to realize this costs less than a week of lattes. At some point, perceived quality matters as much as actual specs, especially when you’re targeting casual photographers who care more about vibes than aperture settings.

The post Starbucks China Is Selling a $28 Camera With Dual Sensors and Y2K Filters first appeared on Yanko Design.

Rimac’s Verne Turns the Robotaxi Into a Private Lounge on Wheels

Mate Rimac built his reputation on speed. The Nevera hypercar, with its 1,914 horsepower and sub-two-second sprint to 60 mph, represents everything traditional car enthusiasts worship: acceleration, cornering, the primal connection between human and machine. So when the same company unveils a vehicle designed to never exceed city speeds, one without a steering wheel or pedals, the contrast demands attention. The Verne robotaxi is not a departure from Rimac’s engineering ambitions. It is a redirection of those ambitions toward a question the automotive industry has been avoiding: what does a vehicle become when you delete the driver entirely?

Designer: Rimac

The answer, according to Rimac, looks more like a hotel room than a car. The Verne’s interior abandons the dashboard-centric layout that has defined automobiles for over a century. In its place sits a 43-inch ultra-wide display that stretches across the cabin like a digital horizon line, flanked by lounge seats that recline through five positions including fully flat. Rimac describes the space as “less automotive and more like a living room,” and the company means this literally. There are no controls to learn, no interfaces to master, no traditional automotive vocabulary at all.

Designing From the Inside Out

Most vehicles begin as an engine bay connected to a passenger compartment. The proportions follow predictable rules: hood length communicates power, wheelbase suggests stability, and the cabin fits whatever space remains after mechanical necessities claim their real estate. The Verne inverts this hierarchy completely.

Rimac’s design team started with a two-person living room brief and worked outward. The result is a compact exterior with a trapezoidal profile, short overhangs, and a tall cabin that claims more legroom than a Rolls-Royce despite fitting easily on narrow European streets. This is not marketing exaggeration. When you remove the engine bay, transmission tunnel, and driver’s cockpit, the remaining volume can be redistributed entirely toward passenger comfort.

The exterior reads as a clean monovolume pod, almost architectural in its simplicity. Unlike many autonomous test vehicles, which wear their sensor arrays like medical equipment strapped to the roof, the Verne integrates its Mobileye hardware directly into the bodywork. The lidar, radar, and camera systems that enable Level 4 autonomy remain invisible from the passenger’s perspective. This design choice reflects a deeper philosophy: the technology should enable the experience without announcing itself.

Twin sliding doors reinforce this architectural thinking. Rather than swinging outward into traffic or requiring passengers to squeeze past a door edge, Verne’s doors glide along the body, opening a full entry that lets you step in and sit down in a single motion. For a vehicle designed to operate in dense urban environments, picking up passengers along crowded curbs, this is not merely convenient. It is the kind of detail that separates mobility design from automotive styling.

The Lounge Cabin as a New Typology

Step inside the Verne and the absence of traditional automotive elements creates an immediate spatial shift. There is no steering column to navigate around, no center console dividing driver from passenger, no dashboard cluttering the forward view. The cabin feels less like sitting in a car and more like settling into a premium railway compartment or private jet. The 43-inch display serves multiple functions depending on context: cinema screen, workspace, or simply a window to curated content during transit.

A 17-speaker audio system surrounds the cabin, and the circular Halo ring sunroof overhead washes the space in ambient light that Rimac calibrated to feel warm and residential rather than automotive. The seats themselves draw more from airline business-class design than traditional car buckets, with deep recline options that transform the vehicle into a genuine nap pod. What makes this interior approach significant is not the individual features. Large screens and reclining seats exist in luxury vehicles already. The significance lies in the coherence: without a driver to accommodate, every design decision can optimize for passenger experience alone. The seating geometry, the display placement, the ambient lighting, the acoustic tuning all work toward a single purpose rather than competing with driver-centric requirements.

Rimac included one deliberate exception to the screen-dominated interface. A physical “Median” control sits within reach, providing a tactile way to start and end rides. In a cabin stripped of mechanical controls, this single physical interaction point offers psychological reassurance. You are still in control of something, even when the vehicle handles everything else. This is furniture design meeting transportation design, with transportation losing its traditional priority.

Why Two Seats Is a Design Choice, Not a Limitation

The Verne’s two-seat configuration will strike many observers as restrictive. Conventional automotive thinking says more seats equal more utility, more potential passengers, more flexibility. Rimac’s research led them to a different conclusion.

Analysis of ride-hailing data reveals that approximately 90% of trips involve one or two passengers. The rear bench seat in a typical sedan, the one that supposedly provides flexibility, sits empty on nine out of ten journeys. This is not an argument against four-seat vehicles. It is an argument for purpose-built alternatives. By eliminating that largely unused rear space, Rimac freed up volume for stretch-out legroom, substantial luggage capacity, and a sense of openness that a cramped four-seat cabin cannot provide.

Right-Sizing Performance for Cities

The powertrain specification tells a story of intentional restraint. Where the Nevera produces nearly 2,000 horsepower, the Verne makes do with approximately 150 kW. The battery pack holds 60 kWh compared to the Nevera’s 120 kWh setup. Range reaches roughly 240 kilometers, modest by EV standards but more than sufficient for urban fleet operation where vehicles return to charging hubs between shifts.

This represents a deliberate rejection of the spec-sheet competition that dominates electric vehicle marketing. Rimac could have installed larger batteries and higher-output motors. The company certainly has the engineering capability. Instead, they optimized for city duty: lower material consumption, easier charging cadence, reduced manufacturing complexity, and a lighter footprint for the urban environments where Verne will operate. The performance numbers are not a compromise. They are a design decision as intentional as the sliding doors or the lie-flat seats.

Autonomy as Invisible Infrastructure

The Verne runs on Mobileye Drive, a purpose-built autonomous driving platform that integrates multiple lidar units, radar arrays, and over thirteen cameras. This sensor architecture enables Level 4 autonomy, meaning the vehicle can handle all driving tasks within its operational domain without human intervention or supervision. For design purposes, the important word is “invisible.” The entire autonomous stack exists to enable the clean cabin experience. Every sensor, processor, and software system works toward a single goal: erasing the need for human attention to the road.

Rimac extended this invisible infrastructure philosophy to the user experience layer. An app lets riders configure their preferred environment before the vehicle arrives: temperature, seat position, ambient lighting, music selection, even scent. When the Verne pulls up, your ride is already personalized. You do not adjust anything. You simply enter a space that was curated for you. This shifts the experience from operating a vehicle to inhabiting one. The entry system reinforces this transition: instead of a door handle, you unlock via keypad or app, a gesture more architectural than automotive, closer to entering a hotel room than climbing into a car.

A New Species of Urban Object

The Verne represents something the automotive industry has been circling for years without quite achieving: a vehicle designed entirely around passengers rather than drivers. Previous attempts at autonomous concepts retained too much conventional automotive vocabulary. They looked like cars that happened to drive themselves. The Verne looks like something else entirely, a mobile room that happens to move through cities.

Rimac plans initial deployments in European and Middle Eastern cities starting around 2026, with service hubs and charging infrastructure designed as extensions of the Verne’s visual language. The vehicle becomes part of a larger system, a fleet of identical pods circulating through urban environments, picking up passengers, delivering them, returning to charge. This is not personal transportation in the traditional sense. It is infrastructure that feels personal.

The questions this raises extend beyond Rimac’s specific implementation. What happens to automotive identity when the driver disappears? How do cities redesign curb space for vehicles that open sideways? Does the two-seat configuration represent a constraint or an intentional intimacy that larger vehicles cannot offer? The Verne does not answer all of these questions. But it is the first production-intent vehicle that forces the industry to ask them seriously.

The hypercar maker from Croatia has delivered something unexpected: a slow, quiet pod that may influence urban mobility design more profoundly than any 250-mph supercar ever could. Sometimes the most ambitious engineering is knowing when to stop.

The post Rimac’s Verne Turns the Robotaxi Into a Private Lounge on Wheels first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Amazon Rainforest Pavilion Uses Bamboo and Biomimicry to Reconnect Humans With Nature

As technology accelerates and daily life becomes increasingly disconnected from the natural environment, the Amazon Immersion Pavilion offers a quiet counterpoint grounded in presence, atmosphere, and ecological respect. Conceived as a conceptual project for Iquitos, Peru, the pavilion proposes a gentle architectural intervention that allows visitors to experience the rainforest through sound, texture, light, and movement. It approaches the Amazon as a living partner rather than a backdrop, inviting visitors to rediscover a relationship with nature through deliberate sensory engagement.

The pavilion centers on the idea that architecture can heighten awareness when it blends into the rhythms of a landscape. The design seeks to create a space that listens to the environment and responds through form, materiality, and environmental intelligence.

Designer: Nathalia Cristina de Souza Vilela Telis

The project began with a desire to create deeper dialogue between humans and the forest. The Amazon provides constant motion and sound, and the design team wanted a structure that would reveal these qualities rather than compete with them. The result is an organically composed pavilion shaped by biomimicry, sustainable material thinking, and an understanding of local ecosystems. Bamboo was selected as the primary material because it is strong, flexible, and deeply rooted in regional construction traditions. Its use affirms the project’s commitment to low-impact building and ecological responsibility.

The sensory experience is structured as a gradual unfolding across two levels; the first floor establishes a calm and introspective atmosphere. The circular base, measuring 31,500 mm in diameter, creates a grounded platform for the structure. A partially enclosed volume captures natural light from an overhead opening, allowing soft illumination to guide the visitor. Water flows gently along the walls, creating a rhythmic soundscape similar to a small waterfall. Lush plantings soften the edges of the space, allowing architecture and vegetation to blend into one continuous environment. Humidity, aroma, and sound work together to create a cocoon-like experience.

As visitors move upward to the second floor, the atmosphere changes. The space opens outward and offers a wide view of the Amazon River as it stretches toward the horizon. The architecture recedes to make room for the scale of the landscape. The main body, with a diameter of 17,000 mm and a height of 14,000 mm, supports natural ventilation and introduces a sense of elevation within the forest canopy. The contrast between enclosure and openness creates a clear emotional arc: grounding, expansion, and renewed connection.

Sustainability shapes every design decision. The pavilion uses a biomimetic approach informed by natural growth patterns and the fluid movement of the river. Bamboo construction reduces environmental disruption and reflects local building culture. Passive ventilation works with the natural breezes of the rainforest, while carefully directed natural light reduces reliance on artificial systems. Low-impact assembly techniques help protect the forest floor and the delicate ecosystems surrounding the site. Together, these strategies allow the pavilion to behave like a companion to the landscape, quietly aligning itself with the rhythms of the forest.

The project draws from research on environmental design, indigenous construction knowledge, sensory behavior, and Amazonian ecology. The methodology included a bibliographic study, environmental impact evaluation, and an examination of the social context surrounding Iquitos. The goal was to create an architectural experience that supports ecological understanding and deepens a sense of environmental awareness.

Although the pavilion remains fictional, the design process revealed the challenges of creating architecture for remote natural settings. The limits of bamboo in large spans, the logistics of transporting sustainable materials, and the need for construction methods that respect ecological cycles were key considerations. Crafting an immersive sensory environment within such constraints required careful problem-solving and adaptation.

The post This Amazon Rainforest Pavilion Uses Bamboo and Biomimicry to Reconnect Humans With Nature first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Cardboard Guitar Is 70% Air… But It Still Plays Like A Fender

Ten years ago, Fender and Signal put out a cardboard Stratocaster that made the rounds online and promptly disappeared into the “cool but impractical” category of guitar experiments. Burls Art saw it and had a different reaction: he wanted to build his own. Not as a replica, but as a legitimate exploration of what corrugated cardboard could do as a guitar-building material. The result is a 4.42-pound fully functional electric guitar that sounds surprisingly good and raises some interesting questions about material choices in instrument design.

The concept isn’t about gimmickry or standard internet clout-chasing, it’s about pushing cardboard to its structural limits while keeping the guitar genuinely playable. Burls Art started with recycled corrugated cardboard sheets, laminating them with resin into blanks thick enough to shape into a body and neck. The key was saturating each piece thoroughly while letting excess resin drain through runners, leaving the corrugated channels mostly hollow. This gave him blanks that were roughly 70% air but rigid enough to route and carve like traditional tonewoods.

Designer: Burls Arts

The body came together relatively smoothly. He used a router sled instead of risking the planer, carving in standard contours – a belly carve on the back, an arm bevel on top – that wouldn’t look out of place on any conventional Strat-style build. The visual effect is unexpectedly compelling: from up close, the corrugation creates a textured, almost screen-like appearance, but step back and align your sight line just right, and the guitar becomes nearly transparent, with just the outline visible through thousands of tiny cardboard channels.

The neck presented a more complex engineering challenge. String tension on a guitar neck isn’t trivial, we’re talking about roughly 100-150 pounds of force depending on string gauge and tuning. Cardboard, even laminated cardboard, doesn’t immediately inspire confidence in this application. Burls Art’s first approach drew inspiration from an unexpected source: the Wiggle Side Chair he’d seen at the London Design Museum, which alternates the grain orientation of its cardboard layers for added strength. He tested two lamination methods – one with consistent orientation, another alternating… and the results were dramatic. The alternated pattern withstood 125 pounds of force before breaking, compared to just 37 pounds for the standard orientation.

The first neck, despite being theoretically strong enough, had a fatal flaw: the edges kept peeling and creating rough, jagged surfaces that would be uncomfortable to play. This is where real-world application diverges from lab testing, a neck that can withstand string tension in theory still needs to feel right in your hands. Rather than continuing to troubleshoot the alternating pattern, he pivoted to a fully resin-saturated approach, essentially creating a cardboard-epoxy composite. It’s heavier, sure, but the cardboard fibers act like fiberglass reinforcement, preventing the cracking issues you’d see in a pure resin neck while giving him a surface that could be carved smooth and fretted without delamination issues.

Weight became the next puzzle. That resin-saturated neck was too heavy for the ultra-light body, creating the dreaded neck dive – where the headstock droops toward the floor when you’re wearing the guitar on a strap. He carved aggressively, removing as much material as possible without compromising structural integrity, using the balance point at the neck plate as his target. The final setup required dropping down to Super Slinky strings to reduce the tension demands on the truss rod, which makes sense when you’re working at the edge of a material’s capabilities.

Hardware mounting in corrugated cardboard requires creative problem-solving. You can’t just screw into hollow channels and expect it to hold. For the bridge, he fabricated a resin-saturated cardboard backplate that gets inset into the body, creating a clamping system with the cardboard sandwiched between the bridge and plate. The electronics cavity cover uses magnets paired with screw heads hot-glued into the corrugation – a cleaner solution than trying to thread screws into this material.

The finished instrument plays better than you’d expect. Action is solid, intonation holds, and the sound quality is legitimately good with its pair of lipstick single-coils. There’s an interesting side effect from the flexible body: it’s exceptionally responsive to vibrato from arm pressure. Apply a bit of force with your forearm and you get pronounced pitch modulation, far more than you’d get from a traditional solid-body design. Whether that’s a feature or a bug depends on your playing style, but it’s the kind of unexpected behavior that makes alternative materials interesting.

The tactile experience is admittedly different from your standard Stratocaster. The surface has a sticky quality against fabric, and the edges are intentionally rough – he could have added wood binding to smooth them out but chose to keep it authentically cardboard. At 4.42 pounds, it’s 3-4 pounds lighter than a typical electric guitar, which puts it closer to laptop weight than instrument weight. That’s legitimately remarkable when you consider it’s holding tune under full string tension.

This isn’t going to replace your main gigging guitar, and Burls Art isn’t suggesting it should. But it’s a genuine exploration of material science applied to lutherie (the craft of making stringed instruments), the kind of project that answers questions nobody was asking but everyone’s curious about once they see the results. The original Fender collaboration was proof of concept. This is proof that with enough ingenuity and willingness to iterate past initial failures, cardboard can be a legitimate choice for guitar-building… after all IKEA’s made tables out of the same material too.

The post This Cardboard Guitar Is 70% Air… But It Still Plays Like A Fender first appeared on Yanko Design.