Design

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…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Sep 2

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…

Tech News Eric Limer Sep 2

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…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Sep 2

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…

Tech News Leslie Horn Aug 30

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…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski Aug 30

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…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Aug 29

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…

Tech News Andrew Tarantola Aug 29

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…

Tech News Adam Glynn-Finnegan Aug 29

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…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Aug 29

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…

Tech News Casey Chan Aug 28

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…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Aug 28

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…

Tech News Leslie Horn Aug 28

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…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes Aug 28

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…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski Aug 28

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…

Tech News Mario Aguilar Aug 28

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…

Tech News Jordan Kushins Aug 28

This Clever Map Compares Chicago Before and After the Great Fire

When the proverbial cow kicked over the proverbial lantern on a Tuesday night in 1871 Chicago, it set in motion an urban transformation that would see its hodgepodge of wooden buildings replaced with the Windy City we know today. Now, thanks to the data viz wizards at Esri and the patronage of The Smithsonian, you…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Aug 27

This Sweet Little House-Shaped Humidifier Keeps You Cozy Anywhere

Whether you like it or not, sunburns from these balmy late summer days will soon give way to that dreadful dry skin of early winter mornings. It’s inevitable, and if you don’t prepare yourself now, it’ll be miserable. That’s right. It’s almost humidifier season. The Casamita humidifier is what you need. Powered by AAA batteries…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes Aug 27

A Creepy Tour of Russia’s Decrepit Abandoned Summer Camps

When kids love camp, they really, really love camp. And they’re not hard to spot since they never shut up about it—often into adulthood. So for those of you who relish the nostalgia of those carefree, summer days of yore, you’ll probably want to look away now. The blog English Russia has posted a collection…

Tech News Ashley Feinberg Aug 27

This Modern Home Frames the Winery Around It With Weathered Steel

Houses like the Cloudy Bay Shack in Marlborough, New Zealand, make you wonder why anyone would ever choose to live in an apartment (besides, you know, money). This house has everything: lovely rural scenery, a brilliant layout and a bold modern aesthetic. And though those two things might not normally jibe, they actually work in…

Tech News Leslie Horn Aug 26

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

8 Horrible Data Visualizations That Make No Sense

A Lamp That Looks Like It’s Made From Meccano

Most Beautiful Items: August 24 – 30, 2013

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

This Munich Museum Moved Into a Building Made Entirely of Scaffolding

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

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

The 17 Worst College Football Uniform Designs, Ranked

Nike Lebron 11: Shoes That Look Like Space Rock Diamonds

Can Bugs, Toilets, and Mushrooms Change the World?

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

You’d Be Crazy Not to Buy This Straitjacketed Wine

A Hybrid Braille Font Lets Visually Impaired Kids Read Any Book

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

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

This Clever Map Compares Chicago Before and After the Great Fire

This Sweet Little House-Shaped Humidifier Keeps You Cozy Anywhere

A Creepy Tour of Russia’s Decrepit Abandoned Summer Camps

This Modern Home Frames the Winery Around It With Weathered Steel

‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’ Will Please Gross Horror Fans

Somehow Paramount’s ‘Avatar’ Movie Has Leaked, Too

The World Is Basically Begging for Another iPod

Anker’s EufyMake E1 Finally Brings Printers Out of the Dark Ages

OpenAI Says Elon Musk Is ‘Injecting Chaos’ with Recent Legal Maneuver

Google Displayed Polymarket Bets as News ‘In Error,’ Google Says

‘Marvel Rivals’ Wants to Start Being More Than Just a Hero Shooter

‘How Do We Make Sure That Claude Behaves Itself?’: Anthropic Invited 15 Christians for a Summit

This Loud-Ass Party Speaker Almost Got Me High AF

Asus Zenbook A16 Review: Start Considering Snapdragon on PC, for Real

Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 Review: Almost Better than My Ecobee

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

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