You may not know the name Gin D. Wong, but you definitely know his work. He’s responsible for some of the most iconic buildings in Los Angeles, including the Theme Building at the Los Angeles Airport (pictured above), and he even inspired the designers of the legendary 1962 animated TV show The Jetsons. Wong died on…
As they say: Life comes at you fast. Yesterday, you were looking at a YouTube logo with the red thing on the right side, highlighting the word “Tube.” Today, it’s on the left side, sporting a play icon. It’s a small update to the design of a popular website, you might say. But will any of us ever be the same?
How many times have you stumbled in the dark, trying to locate a flashlight, only to discover the batteries inside it are dead? It’s an inconvenience in the middle of the night, but a genuine problem in an emergency, which is why this roll-up paper flashlight from Nendo seems like a brilliant idea for when the power…
Ryanair is having a tough time. As Brexit threatens to turn its entire business upside down, passengers can’t stop getting drunk on its flights, doing something stupid on camera, and causing all kinds of chaos when the video hits the internet. Now, Ryanair is trying to restrict how much people drink at the airport.
Steve Jobs was legendary for knowing what he wanted and leaning on his designers until he got it. But according to a new book on the history of the iPhone, he insisted that it should have a back button. After one of his people presented a good argument for the distinctive single home button, he backed down.
Do you ever sit down at your desk and wonder why the elevated surface doesn’t have more sensors to record and analyze data about your movements and habits? Well, wonder no more, my ergonomically-minded friend. Herman Miller, the manufacturer behind the Aeron chair, has invented a solution to the problem you never knew…
The trailers and clips for Ghost in the Shell present a cold, neon-blazed city in distress, reminiscent of Blade Runner and other iconic dystopian scifi. However, some recently released design work hints at a world we could have had.
There are several ways to prevent those inevitable wine bottle drips from staining your tablecloth. You can wrap the bottle in a napkin while you pour, just skip the wine glass altogether and drink straight from the bottle, or use your physics degrees to re-engineer the bottle’s spout so it never drips again.
In the corporate world, business cards are rarely nothing more than empty white rectangles with a few words printed on them. But when you’re a graphic designer like Drew Tetz, your business card is an opportunity to show off exactly what you do for a living, and make everyone stop and say, “Wow, I wish I were high…
Ever since seeing Princess Leia’s floating hologram in Star Wars, artist Joanie Lemercier has worked to design and realize animations that appear to float in mid-air. His latest experiments are reminiscent of the interactive computers used in the movie Minority Report, but also include one of the most impressive ghost…
Like death and taxes, drone crashes are basically inevitable. Even experienced pilots aren’t immune to hardware failures or software problems. But instead of building drones stronger, or wrapping them in awkward safety cages, Swiss researchers have designed a flexible quadcopter that squishes when it crashes,…
The Switch, Nintendo’s new phablet console, was a big bet, but perhaps not a smart one. Despite being marketed as a step into the future, it launched with more hardware issues and irritating design flaws than playable titles. As such, fans who just plunked down $300 are already rolling up their sleeves to build…
In 2012, designer John Collins constructed a paper airplane that flew an astonishing 226 feet, establishing a distance record that still stands. A new video demonstrates the steps required to fold your own version of this record-setting paper-based aircraft.
If you were to stumble across this freaky ring of hairs hanging on a wall you’d probably dismiss it as another confusing piece of modern art. But if you were to give it more than just a passing glance, you’d notice that some of its hairs were moving, because it turns out this piece is actually a functional clock.
The US one dollar bill is still old school. In fact, it has the oldest design of all US currency being produced today. So that means it doesn’t have the flashy tech, or the colorful hues, or the wild looks that have leaked into the redesigns of the more valuable banknotes. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t changed. Just…
The phrase “etched in stone” usually applies to something that’s never going to change. But while the Etch clock looks like the current time has been carved into its face, every minute the etching disappears and refreshes itself, so that phrase doesn’t sound as permanent as it once did.
If it’s not made of gold, furniture recovered from the Titanic, or extraterrestrial materials salvaged from a meteor, you’ll need one heck of a gimmick to convince people to spend $30,000 on coffee table. And that’s probably why Siren Design Studios made its Teles Taxídi table float like a hoverboard.
There’s nothing quite as comfortable as wearing a sweater knit by a grandparent, right? That’s why Nike started using digital knitting machines to create its colorful Flyknit sneakers back in 2012, and why Ikea has now adopted the same technology to create a pair of chairs designed to pamper your posterior.
San Francisco is a city of long lines, and on a Saturday afternoon few lines here are longer than the one in front of the Chocolate Chair in Japantown. The Chocolate Chair’s specialty is Dragon’s Breath, neon-colored balls of puffed rice cereal soaked in liquid nitrogen. When you take a bite, the nitrogen-infusion…
Mowing the lawn ranks among the least enjoyable chores for a homeowner. But you can appease the neighbors who won’t stop complaining about your unkempt yard with this Grassffiti machine that grooms different designs into the surface of your lawn.
