The folks over at Vanmonster.com wanted in on the "draw famous logos from memory" thing that's been around for the past few years (see bottom), opting for car logos. One hundred people were asked to draw the logos of brands popular in the UK (where the sketch quiz was given), and we've picked some that overlap with US-popular brands.

And I have to say: I can understand screwing up Alfa Romeo's logo, or reversing the quadrants in BMW's rondel--but how on Earth do you mess up the Audi or Toyota logos? I can only assume some of the tested folks have never seen a car.

Alfa Romeo

Audi

BMW

Ferrari

Ford

Toyota

Volkswagen

You can check out the rest here.

Also See:

- People Trying to Draw Famous Logos from Memory, Part 1

- People Trying to Draw Famous Logos from Memory, Part 2

- A Visual History of the BMW Logo

- A Visual History of the Corvette Logo

In America, folks with mobility issues must turn to aftermarket companies (like this one) to modify their vehicles for their needs. But in Japan, where the population is aging, design considerations for the disabled are baked in right at the factory. Carmaker Daihatsu manufactures an entire "Friendship Series" of automobiles (in the company's bread-and-butter size class, the kei car category) that are designed to make life easier for those with mobility issues.

The company has different models aimed at different needs and size requirements. To carry a wheelchair-bound passenger, Daihatsu's "Sloper" design features a retractable ramp mounted in the rear. Buyers can opt for the smaller Tanto or the (relatively) larger Hijet or Atrai models:

Tanto Sloper

Hijet Sloper

Atrai Sloper

For the passenger who is not wheelchair-bound, but finds ingress and egress difficult with a conventional car design, they offer the Atrai Rear Seat Lift:

Atrai Rear Seat Lift

For the driver who is not wheelchair-bound, but finds ingress and egress difficult with a conventional car design, Daihatsu offers the Move Front Seat Lift and the Tanto Welcome Seat Lift, whose driver's seats both turn and lower electronically:

Move Front Seat Lift

Tanto Welcome Seat Lift

Lastly, for the driver that does use a wheelchair yet is not completely confined to one, the Tanto Welcome Turn Seat allows them to wheel over to their car, stow the chair in the rear via a small built-in crane, and access the driver's position via the turning seat:

Tanto Welcome Turn Seat

The question is: As America's population continues to age, do you think our domestic manufacturers will start to do what Daihatsu's doing? I'm not so sure--while America undoubtedly has or will have greater numbers of people with mobility issues than Japan does, I haven't seen any U.S. car companies take an interest.

In this time of Coronavirus, you may searching through your medicine cabinet, cycling through the supplements, vitamins, ointments, pills, creams, in search of something that will protect you from this increasingly omnipresent threat. As you do so you may become keenly aware of how bad communication design is for medical products. I don't mind saying that drugstores are home to some of the most arcane packaging design that a product can get away with. Last week, I referred to the bizarre graphic design fairy-tales one sees printed on soap dispensers. Similarly, vitamins, supplements, and herbal health products offer an exhibition in poor communication design, but for different reasons.

This culture of design - perhaps a holdover from a time when people trusted pharmaceutical corporations - is no doubt advantageous for producers when it comes to the many health and nutrition products that lack substantial evidence of efficacy. As seen in the image above, even though there is a surplus of "information," it is so horrifically designed you have to have a doctor or chemist standing there with you in the store to help you decode each individual product (luckily, there is usually a pharmacist but they tend to hang around those other medical products for some reason). For Hilma, a new natural remedy start-up, accessible information and the assurance of efficacy defines their products.

For the founders of Hilma, who are themselves consumers of herbal health products, settling for the ambiguous origins and bordering-on-campy graphics of products like Emergen-C felt like a concession. The medicine cabinet appeared to them a strange refuge for poor design, in a day-to-day experience that was otherwise flush with examples of well-designed products and services. More importantly however, they wanted to see a higher standard of naturally sourced health products, that focused on the growing concerns of consumers regarding product transparency.

Which has led to Hilma's first product offerings: "clinical herbs" that they describe as "natural remedies backed by science". Distinguishing them from other herbal supplement products, which are often not backed by reliable studies. One can spend a long time on Hilma's website, going through the information they provide about their medical advisors, the ingredients they use, and the work they put into assessing their products, they even tell you how they conduct their studies. While there is always a threshold of understanding for someone like me who doesn't know anything about medicine, they are at least offering the information they have in a clear and accessible way.

Which is more than can be said about a lot of herbal supplements. As Hilma's website asserts, their ingredients are non-GMO, vegan, use only trace amounts of sugar, gluten-free, nut-free, and soy-free. Not only that but they also have a long "no-list," for those ingredients that they will "never" use, but that their competitors use often. Catering their brand and their products to consumers who, with the help of the internet, have become savvy to general nutrition and ethical sourcing.

While this may appeal to those consumers who may just be looking for a stylish, vegan lifestyle product, the communication design standards that Hilma has set for their products may offer a more significant service to consumers. In the United States, access to a human doctor (as opposed to an iphone-doctor, or a fit-bit doctor, or some other tech-based-doctor) you trust is, bizarrely, not a realistic economic option for a great many people and the next best thing is affordable medical products that don't require prescription. Making the need for more readable and accessible medical information a vital component of designing medical products for the modern American consumer.

To be clear, Hilma's products, and no other health product for that matter, can or should replace a doctor you know and trust (again, a human doctor). I don't know if good design could ever change that fact. Yet in the US, where many consumers will inevitably buy a $25 health product if it means dodging a $1000+ medical bill, the products that we do have access to must offer clarity and transparency as the baseline. As has been so clearly demonstrated in the current pandemic, access to reliable and readable information is important to both personal and public health.

The inscrutability of the many medicine bottles and packages we see at the drugstore is more than just poor design it is an illustration of how opaque most major pharmaceutical companies are when it comes to keeping their consumers informed about process and product. Whatever you may think about herbal treatment, Hilma's communication and education as a significant component of the design of their product sets a high bar for modern medical products.

NOTE: As I mentioned above, I know nothing about medicine or health, and so this should not be understood to be medical advise regarding COVID-19.

A study from UC Davis, published in Nature and called "Aerosol emission and superemission during human speech increase with voice loudness," finds that:

"The rate of particle emission during normal human speech is positively correlated with the loudness (amplitude) of vocalization."

To explain: As we all know, coughing or sneezing sends potentially virus-carrying droplets into the air. These coughed or sneezed particles are often large enough for the eye to see, about 50 nanometers or larger.

But the mere acts of breathing or talking also sends droplets into the air. These droplets are much smaller and invisible, at approximately 1 nanometer, but they're still "sufficiently large to carry a variety of respiratory pathogens" includes the measles virus and influenza virus. The study reckons these smaller particles "are potentially more infectious than larger sneeze- or cough-generated droplets" (emphasis ours) for three reasons:

1. Light weight. These smaller particles float around in the air for a longer period of time, unlike the heavier sneeze- and cough- generated particles that gravity takes care of.

2. Smaller size. The smaller particles "have a larger probability of penetrating further into the respiratory tract of a susceptible individual to initiate a lower respiratory tract infection."

3. Higher count. The study states that "speech can release dramatically larger numbers of particles compared to coughing," about 2 to 10 times more, according to their cited research.

Now that you've understood that, let's get to the volume part. Here's what they found by using an "aerodynamic particle sizer (APS) placed in a laminar flow hood" while volunteers spoke into it:

1. The particle emission rate during speech is linearly correlated with the amplitude (loudness) of vocalization, for four different languages tested (English, Spanish, Mandarin, and Arabic).2. The particle size distribution is independent of vocalization loudness or language spoken.3. Some individuals emit particles at a rate more than an order of magnitude larger than their peers, i.e., they behave as "speech superemitters."

What's interesting is that the researchers were not able to nail what makes people superemitters. They looked at age, gender and BMI but found no correlation. Also, while the study found that increasing voice volume increases particle emissions, not all of the superemitters spoke loudly.

In an effort to learn why, study leader Sima Asadi is following up with a new study, according to UC Davis' Chemical Engineering newsletter. This study will look at "how different 'phonemes,' the units of sound that make up words and phrases, relate to particle emission. The theory is that speaking certain words, phrases and languages impacts how many particles a person releases, though she (Asadi) notes that more research needs to be done to confirm."

How fascinating would it be if certain words caused increased particle emission?

Lastly, we should note that this study was conducted last year or earlier, well prior to the COVID-19 outbreak; the paper was published on February 20th of 2019. That explains why there are no direct mentions of COVID-19.

Here's the simple step healthcare professionals (and savvy tradespeople) take to keep their eyeglasses fog-free while wearing a facemask.

Image source: Envo Mask

First off, understand what that fog on your lenses is. As you exhale through the mask, some of that air goes straight upwards. The water vapor droplets from your warm, exhaled breath condense on the cooler surface of the lenses, forming that fog.

Image source: Eyeglass Factory Outlet

If the droplets were unable to stick to the mask, there would be no fog. What's needed is a surfactant--like simple soap.

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

Thus:

Immediately before wearing a face mask, wash the spectacles with soapy water and shake off the excess. Then, let the spectacles air dry or gently dry off the lenses with a soft tissue before putting them back on. Now the spectacle lenses should not mist up when the face mask is worn.

This should come in handy not only when you're wearing a mask for COVID-19 protection--but when all of this is finally over and you're back in your shop, wearing a mask for dust protection. Gosh, that sounds like such a luxury right now.

This information is from the National Institutes of Health.

On tech blogs, I've seen a fair bit of excitement about these firefighting drones being pioneered in China:

Now let's think about this for a second. The test shown above is of the drones extinguishing flammable material suspended outside of the building on a scaffold.

But think of how a real fire in an apartment building starts: An overloaded power strip or faulty appliance sparks, spreading to the carpet, the furniture, the drapes. We now have enough plastic and foam-containing furniture in our homes that fires burn super-hot, super-fast.

See: How Furniture Design Affects Firefighting

Fires like these have to be fought from the inside, which is why tall buildings have hose hookups inside of them. It also takes men and women inside the building to go from door to door, occasionally breaking them down, to rescue residents. And it takes firefighters atop the building to judiciously smash vent holes into the roof in an effort to control the fire.

Drones can't do any of those things. They could, however, be of great assistance in correcting what can only be called a major (and sadly common) architectural flaw: Flammable cladding.

With low-rise brick and stone buildings, fire does not spread on the outside, as those materials don't burn. Fire spreads from within the building, going from apartment to apartment, consuming our wooden door frames and plastic-filled furniture. But steel high-rise buildings are a different story. These structures have to be clad, ideally using the fire-resistant zinc cladding on the market.

But tall buildings have a lot of surface area, and cladding costs add up. So some architects, construction firms or building owners sign off on aluminum cladding panels, which cost much less. These aluminum panels contain polyethylene insulation. In a fire, the aluminum can melt, and once the fire hits that polyethylene, it's game over for the panel. And the fire can now spread from panel to panel, outside of the building.

This has been demonstrated to produce disastrous results. As The Guardian reported in 2017, residents of London's ill-fated Grenfell Tower had approved fire-resistant zinc cladding, which the architect had specified. However, to cut costs, what was specified instead in the refurbishment contract was "cheaper aluminium cladding with a polyethylene core" in order "to save £293,368 (about USD $378,000 at 2017 exchange rates)."

Grenfell Tower on fire. Image by Natalie Oxford - CC BY 4.0

Seventy-two people died in a subsequent fire at Grenfell Tower, including one girl from cyanide poisoning, thought to have been caused by inhalation of the burning polyethylene insulation. The fire was incredibly difficult to fight; as the BBC reported, "Fire safety experts say the cladding used on Grenfell Tower is the likely reason why the blaze spread so quickly - making it impossible for the fire to be contained floor-by-floor."

A couple of months later, Dubai's unfortunately-named Torch Tower high-rise caught fire--for the second time. "Investigators blamed flammable siding for the first fire there," reported the Times, "echoing the cause of a blaze at Grenfell Tower in London that killed more than 80 (sic) people in London in June."

Dubai's Torch Tower. Image By TrogledyWretched - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Dubai's Torch Tower on fire. Here you can see how the fire can spread straight upwards via the exterior cladding.

As USA Today reported in 2017, "In most of the United States, aluminum panels like those used in Grenfell are not used on high-rises because of fire safety concerns." The fire-prone cladding "looks modern and protects structures from the elements at a comparatively low cost and is most common in the United Kingdom, France, Australia and the United Arab Emirates."

So I'd say those firefighting drones might be of great use in those countries, working in concert with human firefighters doing the truly dangerous stuff inside. It's too bad we couldn't get this equation the other way 'round.

Some politicians have likened the COVID-19 pandemic to war. Wars, at least in the 20th Century, produced iconic social messaging graphics like these:

In future decades, will people look back at our social distancing graphics and find one of them iconic? Based on what's out there, I'd say probably not. Here are some quick crits on the latest I've seen:

Basic, job done. But probably not strong enough an image to go down in the history books.

Basic, and these three don't seem to agree on the recommended distance.

Basic with stylish furniture/color pops apparently meant to appeal to co-working Gen Z or Millenials. I suppose it is of the era, if a bit bland.

This one doesn't make sense and the illustrator should be let go. By attempting to jazz up the drawing with a cityscape, it suggests we must remain on opposite sides of the street.

If you want to integrate a cityscape, this one's done a better job. Uses the time-tested design rule of red to make something--in this case, a coughing, presumably infected person--stand out.

This one's got to be British (the only folks I know who use metric and Imperial interchangeably). Social justice warriors will find the race roles here too controversial for this one to gain any traction.

I'm not crazy about this one, from the distractingly busy background necessitating the sloppy white outlines of the people, to the virus being depicted as a wispy, wafty cloud, the way scents were depicted in old cartoons. Also took me a second to realize that the floating callout in the middle is not a pepperoni pizza nor a strawberry shortcake, but the virus itself.

Basic and uses the cough/sneeze droplets to graphically illustrate the danger. Effective enough. Though I do think it's a strange choice, that the person being sneezed on is a gender-fluid Dr. Manhattan with hands spread in surprise.

If you've come across a different graphic that you think is strong enough to go down in history, please let us know in the comments.

Sony, Panasonic, JVC--these were the Japanese consumer electronics giants that made inroads into America in the 1970s and '80s, gaining household brand recognition.

A lesser-known brand was Sanyo, who like the others made everything--answering machines, portable cassette players, camcorders, VCRs--and probably hoped that you confused their name with "Sony." Here's a Sanyo TV spot from 1986:

What I wouldn't give to see the pitch meeting or the "script" for this coke-fueled piece of 1980s marketing! And the song sounds like something you play, on repeat, to break a prisoner's spirit.

"Pathogen Resistance" refers to a plucky band of rebels…that are viruses, strategizing on how best to keep their movement going. This is the latest from science-y cartoonist XKCD:

XKCD

Time is running out! Enter now

View the full content here

It's no secret that the producers of "Westworld" love architecture and cities; Architectural Digest uncovered that production designer Howard Cummings worked with Bjarke Ingels on the look of 2058 Los Angeles, and Vulture revealed that "Bjarke Ingels, one of the most future-drunk architects around, [consulted] on the city's shape; he raided his firm's cemetery of unbuilt designs and sprinkled them around the skyline."

Shooting reportedly took place in L.A. proper, at locations in Singapore, standing in for future L.A. (a suggestion of Ingels'), at the Southbank Centre in London, and most notably at Santiago Calatrava's City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain.

Both A.D. and Vulture's pieces are great, and we recommend you read them. Our contribution here will be the eye candy, as I've been compulsively pausing and screenshotting the show as I watch it.

"Westworld" Episode 4 goes live this Sunday.

LED strips that come in rolls are convenient for, well, making illuminated strips. If you want to cover a wider area, you can lay rows, but then you've got to solder the connections for each. To save time and provide design flexibility for these types of applications, a Denver-based company called Evo-Lite makes Auragami, a roughly 9" x 20" sheet that you can cut to size.

The company reckons Auragami will be helpful in the following situtations:

- Final dimensions are not known or likely to change- Folding and/or cutting would save time during installation- Curved surfaces or mixed sizes and shapes are involved- Multiple planes need to be backlit- A low clearance solution--as little as 3/8" (9.5mm) or more of space behind the translucent material--is needed- Dry, damp, or wet location use

You can learn more about the product here.

Now that many of you are trapped at home, you're undoubtedly noticing those many home improvement projects you never got around to. If you're like me and unsatisfied with your standard-swinging kitchen cabinet doors, indulge yourself in a few moments of fantasy with Blum's variety of upwards-swinging Aventos system components:

It's kind of quaint that they don't show a single man in the kitchen, no? Anyways, here are what the individual differences are within the system:

Aventos HF: Bi-Fold Lift

Aventos HS: Up-and-Over Lift

Aventos HL: Lift-Up

Aventos HK: Stay Lift

Servo Drive (Powered)

The Servo Drive option can be added to any of the four systems.

The engineering-minded among you are surely curious how the mechanisms work. You can get a little taste with the X-ray views shown in this video below:

Here's a look at some entry-level underground shelters, designed and fabricated by the Texas-based Rising S Company. While Rising S has been in the news for being a luxury shelter supplier for billionaires--and we looked at their high-end stuff here--we wanted to show you the low-end offerings as well.

Rising S offers one design for an "Economy" shelter, and three designs of "Standard" shelters (each of the latter with upgrade options, like more storage and full showers with hot water).

Economy - 8x12 Mini BunkerPrice: $39,500Floorplan:

Features:* a single bunk bed ( with room for storage underneath )* basic NBC air filtration system* kitchen counter* stainless sink* shelving in the kitchen* water pressure pump* grey-water evacuation tank* fresh water inlet* staircase handrail* composting toilet* 12 volt tv/dvd combo* 12 volt LED lighting* solar generated charging system with battery supply* 120/240 volt inlet* painted interior* 150 year coating on the exteriorVideo Walkthrough:

Standard - 10' x 20', Base Model
Price: $58,500Floorplan:

Features:* Bullet Resistant Door* Side Entrance Staircase w/ Handrail* NBC Air Filtration* Water Filtration* Fresh Water Inlet* Private Bathroom w/ Composting Toilet* Shelving For Food Storage* Water Pressure Pump* Grey-Water Evacuation Tank* Grey-Water Evacuation Pump* Full Kitchen* Alcohol Burning Stove* Dining Table With Bench* Single Counter* Solar Generating Charging System with Battery Supply* 12 Volt LED Lighting* 12 Volt TV/DVD Combo* 120/240 Volt Inlet* Painted Interior and 150 Year Coating on the ExteriorStandard - 10' x 20', Upgraded ModelPrice: $65,500Floorplan:

Features:

* Bullet Resistant Door* Side Entrance Staircase w/ Handrail* NBC Air Filtration with Blast Valves and Over pressure Valve* Water Filtration* Fresh Water Inlet* Private Bathroom w/ Composting Toilet* Full Shower* Water Pressure Pump* Water Heater* Grey-Water Evacuation Tank* Grey-Water Evacuation Pump* Full Kitchen* Alcohol Burning Stove* Dining Table With Bench* Shelving For Food Storage* Solar Generating Charging System with Battery Supply* 12 Volt LED Lighting* 12 Volt TV/DVD Combo* 120/240 Volt Inlet* Painted Interior and 150 Year Coating on the Exterior
Standard - 10' x 30', Base ModelPrice: $74,500Floorplan:

Features:* Bullet Resistant Door* Side Entrance Staircase w/ Handrail* NBC Air Filtration* Water Filtration* Fresh Water Inlet* Private Bathroom w/ Composting Toilet* Shelving For Food Storage* Water Pressure Pump* Grey-Water Evacuation Tank* Grey-Water Evacuation Pump* Full Kitchen* Alcohol Burning Stove* Dining Table With Bench* Double Counter* Solar Generating Charging System with Battery Supply* 12 Volt LED Lighting* 12 Volt TV/DVD Combo* 120/240 Volt Inlet* Painted Interior and 150 Year Coating on the Exterior
Standard - 10' x 30', Upgraded ModelPrice: $ 80,500Floorplan:

Features:* Bullet Resistant Door* Side Entrance Staircase w/ Handrail* NBC Air Filtration with Blast Valves and Over pressure Valve* Water Filtration* Fresh Water Inlet* Private Bathroom w/ Composting Toilet* Full Shower* Water Pressure Pump* Water Heater* Grey-Water Evacuation Tank* Grey-Water Evacuation Pump* Full Kitchen* Alcohol Burning Stove* Dining Table With Bench* Double Counter* Shelving For Food Storage* Jack Knife Sofa (Doubles as Extra Bed)* Solar Generating Charging System with Battery Supply* 12 Volt LED Lighting* 12 Volt TV/DVD Combo* 120/240 Volt Inlet* Painted Interior and 150 Year Coating on the Exterior
Standard - 10' x 40', Base ModelPrice: $ 85,500Floorplan:

Features:* Bullet Resistant Door* Side Entrance Staircase w/ Handrail* NBC Air Filtration* Water Filtration* Fresh Water Inlet* Private Bathroom w/ Composting Toilet* Water Pressure Pump* Grey-Water Evacuation Tank* Grey-Water Evacuation Pump* Full Kitchen* Alcohol Burning Stove* Dining Table With Bench* Double Counter* Shelving For Food Storage* Jack Knife Sofa (Doubles as Extra Bed)* Solar Generating Charging System with Battery Supply* 12 Volt LED Lighting* 12 Volt TV/DVD Combo* 120/240 Volt Inlet* Painted Interior and 150 Year Coating on the ExteriorVideo Walkthrough:

Standard - 10' x 40', Upgraded Model
Price: $ 95,500Floorplan:

Features:* Bullet Resistant Door* Side Entrance Staircase w/ Handrail* NBC Air Filtration with Blast Valves and Over pressure Valve* Water Filtration* Fresh Water Inlet* Private Bathroom w/ Composting Toilet* Full Shower* Water Pressure Pump* Water Heater* Grey-Water Evacuation Tank* Grey-Water Evacuation Pump* Full Kitchen* Alcohol Burning Stove* Dining Table With Bench* Double Counter* Shelving For Food Storage* Jack Knife Sofa (Doubles as Extra Bed)* Solar Generating Charging System with Battery Supply* 12 Volt LED Lighting* 12 Volt TV/DVD Combo* 120/240 Volt Inlet* Painted Interior and 150 Year Coating on the Exterior

So, that's what $39,500 to $95,500 gets you. If you're a dreamer and want to see what $3.3 million to $8.4 million gets you, click here.

Stuck inside, with family members or co-habitants driving you nuts? (Virtually) whisk yourselves away to L.A., where the Petersen Automotive Museum is livestreaming one-hour tours of their Vault, which contains some of the most beautiful and rare auto designs on Earth.

Paradoxically, you can see more on the virtual tour--like inside the cars and under the hoods--than you could if you were physically there, since they don't have to worry about you getting your greasy fingerprints on everything.

Although we wish you were with us at the museum, we can now extend the stories of our collection to a global audience and give our patrons, you, more access to the cars than ever before! On the tour, you will get to see under the hoods and even inside some of the vehicles!The 60 minute tour will cover the gems of the Vault and we will have staff working to field all comments during the tour. If we don't get to your comment or cover a particular vehicle, we will respond to all questions after the tour ends. The tours are live, so please make sure to comment if you have questions and we'll try our best to get to them. All tours beginning (3/25) will be suggested donation. All donations allow us to continue to maintain the collection and support our staff and digital programs during this unfortunate time. We greatly appreciate your support and thank you for being with us during this time.You can check the schedule and sign up at this link.

If their livestreaming schedule doesn't jive with yours, here's a 30-minute pre-recorded tour of the vault's "Presidential/Post-War Themed" vehicles:

I've seen a lot of reporting on establishments adding cashier-protecting sneeze guards to checkout lines--but no scientific evidence that they help. The explanatory language is vague: The guards provide "extra reassurance," one retail executive told Reuters, while another told USA Today that they provide "peace of mind."

But if there's no evidence they help, they certainly can't hurt. And I suppose companies want to be seen as doing everything they can to protect people from COVID-19.

With no standardized form factor, there is a fair bit of design variety in these sneeze guards, which range from off-the-shelf solutions to custom made by companies, to let's-let-the-maintenance-guy-figure-something-out. If you've not ventured outside of your house recently, here's what they look like, and you'll note that the complexity of fabrication/installation varies:

Simple sheet, straight-cut, minimal fasteners

Image source: Marc Jones

Sheet with rounded corners up top, two rows of fasteners

Image source: Mims

Angled cuts and rounded corners, heat-bent, double-layered, pass-through window

Image source: Nisa Okehampton

Simple sheet, 2x4 frame(Possible flaw: One side will be more difficult to wipe down.)

Image source: Village of Richfield

Simple sheet, suspended from ceiling

Image source: The Global Display Solution

Simple sheet, suspended from ceiling, red border added

Image source: iSupply

The iSupply ones are my favorite, if I may have a favorite thing that may or may not provide effective protection. But like I said they can't hurt, and peace of mind is probably something people are craving these days.

Image source: iSupply

This Tesla-design-criticizing Tweet is making the rounds:

Okay, point taken: Blending the rear hatch into the bumper is a terrible idea from a damage/replacement cost standpoint. It was probably done to give the user the lowest-possible loading lip height.

However, we should point out that this design flaw, if we can call it that, is not unique to Tesla. Here's the 2019 Chevy Blazer:

And the 2020 Mercedes EQC:

If we go back in time a bit, look at Acura's 2013 design for the RDX:

Note that the 2020 redesign does away with the practice:

It seems that auto design staff who pay attention to things like insurance rates have a learning opportunity.

An astrophysicist attempting to invent an anti-COVID-19 necklace had to go to the hospital to have magnets removed from his nose.

While recent news is filled with promising stories of medical inventions--James Dyson quickly designing a new ventilator from scratch, Italian engineers 3D printing hospital hacks, Ford and 3M designers MacGyver'ing respirator solutions--not everyone's getting it right.

Dr. Daniel Reardon, an Australian astrophysicist, had the idea of a necklace that would warn you if you moved your hands too close to your face. The concept required the user to wear magnets on their wrists, which would trip a sensor in the necklace if brought too close, causing the necklace to buzz.

The first problem was that the necklace worked backwards. ""My invention had the opposite effect – it buzzed continuously until a magnet was put close," Reardon told the BBC.

The second problem is that Reardon didn't put the powerful neodymium magnets away. "After scrapping that idea, I was still a bit bored, playing with the magnets," he told The Guardian. "I clipped them to my earlobes and then clipped them to my nostril and things went downhill pretty quickly when I clipped the magnets to my other nostril."

Reardon said he placed two magnets inside his nostrils, and two on the outside. When he removed the magnets from the outside of his nose, the two inside stuck together. Unfortunately, the researcher then attempted to use his remaining magnets to remove them."After struggling for 20 minutes, I decided to Google the problem and found an article about an 11-year-old boy who had the same problem. The solution in that was more magnets. To put on the outside to offset the pull from the ones inside."As I was pulling downwards to try and remove the magnets, they clipped on to each other and I lost my grip. And those two magnets ended up in my left nostril while the other one was in my right. At this point I ran out of magnets."

Reardon then turned to pliers--which made the problem worse, as they became magnetized. "Every time I brought the pliers close to my nose, my entire nose would shift towards the pliers and then the pliers would stick to the magnet. It was a little bit painful at this point."

Reardon's partner, who works at a hospital, brought him there. Doctors there (medical doctors) were able to remove three magnets--but a fourth fell down his throat. Luckily, Reardon was able to cough it up, and says "I am not going to play with the magnets any more."

He must have a good sense of humor about the whole thing, as he's the one who provided these photos to the news outlets.

As the 3D printed face shield frames are taking hours per unit, I've tried to design a face shield that can be produced from a variety of materials/thicknesses and on a range of tools.

Our intent is to try to manufacture these in high volume with die-cutting, but they are compact enough to be made in most laser cutters, and with vinyl cutters and drawknives in thinner materials.

View the full project here

As industrial designer Michael DiTullo points out, BMW's classic, iconic grille…

…has in recent years evolved into something that can only be described as "whatever this is:"

Over the past few years, the designers on the Core77 Discussion Boards haven't been thrilled with the changes (see: "WHAT IS BMW DOING?") A rendering rescue was in order. Here DiTullo does what I wish they'd done in the original design studio: