Tag: design

COVID-19 Designs


we’ll see lots of innovation like this. See also the design differences between quickly-evolving face shields:

Face shield donations are coming fast and furious these days. Ford, Apple, Prusa Research and Foster + Partners are just a few of the organizations pitching in with different designs, which have by necessity evolved rather quickly. Let’s look at the design changes.

First off, what’s needed with a face shield is a curved, transparent sheet that stands off of the face. All designs accomplish this by incorporating a forehead band that serves as both a spacer and, in concert with an elastic band, the thing that holds it onto the user’s head.

Speaking of face masks, too many people are still confused about masks, but these look awesome. And then there’s this personal protective suit. It includes in-suit booze and vaping supply systems, speakers and more. very dystopian cool

Or how about design changes for elevators:

Automatic UV Disinfecting When Cars are Empty

Respirator Design Reuse

To go as fast as possible, the Ford and 3M teams have been resourcefully locating off-the-shelf parts like fans from the Ford F-150’s cooled seats for airflow, 3M HEPA air filters to filter airborne contaminants such as droplets that carry virus particles and portable tool battery packs to power these respirators for up to 8 hours.

Another idea is to reprogram smart CPAP machines to become emergency ventilators. Millions of snorers might save us.

Airplane Bunks

The plan is to have these pods in the Economy cabin, and “an economy-class customer on long-haul flights would be able to book the Economy Skynest in addition to their Economy seat. They would get some quality rest and arrive at their destination ready to go. This is a game changer on so many levels.”

bunk beds for the masses. it could be worse?

Compact trash

A simple idea to reduce the tremendous volume that trash takes up. I always crush my cans and am surprised others are not.

Go to any coffee shop in America, and as you look down the silver-lined waste tube thingy, you’ll see paper and plastic cups in an ungainly pile, taking up way more space than they ought. However, this café in Korea has a better idea

Ebike delivery

Around the world, we have seen how freight companies use cargo bikes to move goods around dense urban neighborhoods more efficiently. NYC’s Department of Transportation is taking a step toward alleviating at least 1 of those causes of congestion: It’s implementing a pilot program to allow electric, pedal-assisted cargo bikes to make deliveries throughout Manhattan’s central business district. The goals of the pilot: reduce congestion, and improve safety on city streets.

A designey solution to this could be the Armadillo:

Bike purists may scoff that the Armadillo looks like it was designed by an engineer. (Germany’s Berliner Morgenpost calls it “a mix of go-kart, bicycle and van.”) But these are highly functional vehicles that a lot of thought went into: – Though they can carry 300kg, they’re only 86cm wide, meaning they can easily fit on bike paths “without causing problems for other cyclists.”

Cybertruck

For the Cybertruck to succeed the way the Model 3 has, Tesla must steal the customers Ford, GM, Chrysler, and other automakers most value. To paraphrase Boromir, one does not simply walk into Detroit with such a plan. The big automakers pay very careful attention to their trucks: They know their customers well and develop each new model based on decades of learnings. Musk has a knack for rethinking the customer experience, and the Cybertruck’s radical design could appeal to drivers looking for something different. But when it comes to meeting what those drivers really need and want from their trucks, it’s playing catch up. “Tesla can figure it out, but they don’t already know. If the truck can’t deliver the functionality [drivers] need, they’re not gonna buy it.” Which means that Tesla is fixing to challenge its core competency—designing vehicles that delight and surprise their drivers—as never before.

and here’s a nice design roast:

They said if we converted the CAD file from IGES to DXF we were going to lose some data. I told them we didn’t mind.


It is also far superior to the F-150:

and perhaps could be used for lunar mining:

SpaceX could use the electric skateboard of the Cybertruck to build all the of vehicles that they need for a lunar mining operation. 30 cybertrucks could be delivered to the moon with every SpaceX Starship.

Design Roast

The design website Core77 has a weekly feature called Design Roast, devoted to making fun of bad industrial design. My “favorite” this time around is a portable leather chess board with rubber pieces that you are meant to wrap around stones you gather before you can play. This is a leather chess board that comes with silicone bands delineating the pieces; you’re meant to find and gather rocks to tie the bands around, in order to complete the pieces (I’m not kidding). I’d like to see a Checkers variant of this–it would come with the board, a sausage, a zucchini, and a chef’s knife.

Peter Saville

last July, at Raf Simons’ Spring/Summer 2018 show in New York City. Deep in Chinatown, underneath the Manhattan Bridge, Simons showed a collection of expressionistically shredded menswear with a cyberpunk edge, and included was a series of garments bearing imagery Saville had created for Factory nearly 40 years prior. This was not the first time Simons has used those graphics. His Fall/Winter 2003 collection contained similar items, many of which are now among the most covetable in his catalogue—military parkas covered in patched and painted renderings of Saville’s imagery now routinely sell for 5 figures. Why, I wondered, is this world of images still so pervasive? I put the question to Simons himself, over email. He responded simply: “It is iconic and timeless.” Well—okay, yes. But what does “timeless” actually mean?

Jony Ive Design Legacy

In conversation, he would always be unfailingly polite (if not always prompt in recent years), a gentle soul in the body of a rugby player. He’d shimmer with intensity as he dove into the tiny things that were always paramount in bringing his visions into physical form. Like Carl Sagan awed at some mind-bending celestial wonder, he’d extol the sound that a laptop made when it closed shut, or praise the way concrete had been poured in the parking garage at Apple headquarters. When we talked about the iPod, he would launch into reveries about its whiteness. “It’s not just a color. So brutally simple and so … pristine … so shocking.” That word again.