London-based Scott Richler's design background is atypical: He's worked as both an architect and a jewelry designer. Both disciplines have clearly informed his Harlow Chandelier:

The shades are mold-blown glass, available in white or smoked grey. The structures are available in finishes of brass, nickel, copper, bronze or black steel.

The Harlow Chandeliers are made to order in Montreal by Gabriel Scott, the furniture and lighting brand Richler founded.

Italian industrial designer Bruno Munari designed this radical Cubo posacenere ("Cube ashtray") around 1954:

Image: Di Albertozanardo - CC BY-SA 4.0

Placing the butts inside the box was completely outside-the-box; up until that point, anything we'd call an ashtray was an open dish, with the crushed butts and ash clearly visible.

Image: Di Albertozanardo - CC BY-SA 4.0

Munari explained his thinking: "I thought I'd do something that would hide the mess, because when we're at the table and there's someone smoking we have a plate of food and a plate of butts in front of us, which isn't very nice."

No manufacturer was interested, and the design sat on the shelf for three years. Finally, manufacturer Danese Milano decided to give it a go in 1957.

The shell is made of compression-molded (non-flammable) melamine, and the insert is an anodized aluminum sheet with four bends in it.

Mixed results on the UX, I'd say. On the one hand, breezes can't scatter the ash, and you can move it even in a windy environment without making a mess. On the other hand, you can only tell it needs to be emptied when the butts start clogging the slot, and I don't see any way of emptying it without making a mess.

In later years Munari himself criticized the design, or at least an aspect of it. Delivering a design lecture in 1992 in Venice, he said of the Cubo (roughly translated):

"I got the psychological aspect of the product wrong, since generally one thinks of an ashtray with the butts and ash in plain sight. People seeing Cubo for the first time didn't immediately understand its functionality."

It's refreshing to hear a designer actually speak critically about their own work.

Flaws aside, the Cubo is still in production by Danese Milano. They're a lot smaller than you think, coming in two sizes: Small, 6cm (2.4") and Large, 8cm (3.1"). They go for €64 (USD $68) and €82 (USD $87), respectively.

Designer and manufacturer unknown, but this chair hails from 1970s Norway, according to reseller Møbelhøker.

It demonstrates mastery of steam bending and, surprisingly, it's listed as a folding chair. You can guess where the pivot point is, though the hardware is unseen.

The armrests must have been fiendishly difficult to make. Using a shaper or router to remove the material to create the armrest lip would've been straightforward, but the bend angle is crazy, particularly for a piece that thick.

If anyone knows who the designer is, do tell.

This article was written by Scott Jenson and Michael DiTullo

A few recent tech writers have leaked that the new AirPods case will likely have a touch screen. Other earbud makers have tried this as well but it's Apple, so people will naturally have strong opinions, and we're no different. Designers always see what could be, and the two of us having worked with brands like Apple, Google, Motorola, and Nike had some thoughts on what it takes to make a beautiful and intuitive tactile experience in an increasingly digital world. While Apple may or may not decide to put a screen on the AirPod case, it's unfortunately the expected, even safe answer for almost any electronic product today. But is it the right choice? That's the purpose of this exploration, to push at this assumption and see if we can find something more useful and even delightful.

There are clearly advantages to using a touchscreen: 1) It's more flexible: many screens and many functions. 2) It can be updated: anything can be changed later.

These are big advantages but they are mostly practical, covering a broad range of features. There's nothing wrong with that but we want to explore something more visceral and urgent. Instead of many screens and functions, let's focus on what users actually need frequently. In addition, let's go beyond a generic "swipe and tap" interaction style to something more nuanced and analog.

Moving from a digital screen to analog controls is an interesting challenge. It may be a bit more expensive and likely a bit harder to build but those are secondary concerns that can be solved later. Let's not limit our vision too quickly. Instead of being driven by constraints, what if we leaned into analog controls to see if we can find something far more interesting?

First let's point out the elephant in the room: an analog approach will be more limited functionally. That's why most screens exist today, whether it's on your smart fridge or your EV car: screens are popular as you can cram dozens of small buttons on them. But as we said before, this is mostly a production concern, it ignores the many ergonomic, safety, and even sensual aspects of physical controls. But don't take our word for it, there is already a backlash forming against digital screens in cars today.

Early sketch iterations on what a physical layout might be like

Given how common it is to think in terms of long feature lists, how can we justify a more limited approach? Isn't missing any amount of functionality a liability? It depends on your point of view: Engineers tend to think mathematically while Designers tend to think statistically. Both are correct, they just have different goals. If your ONLY goal is to cover every possible feature, then having a touchscreen is reasonable. However, if you think statistically and ask "What do people do 99% of the time?" you get a much different answer.

That's where we started: what do people need to do the vast majority of the time?

* Adjust the volume * Adjust tracks forward and backward * Play/Pause (and depending on context answer/hang up the phone)

The default approach is to have three simple push buttons:

Classic physical 3 button transport controls Apple pioneered on their earpods which became industry standard

Nothing is inherently wrong, it's quite minimalist. But in order to squeeze in extra functionality buttons are "doubled up", so, for example, double tapping the plus button would go to the next track. This isn't just hidden, it's error prone. It may work "on paper" but it's tedious and what we've all had to endure with cheap digital audio devices for years. We can do better.

Our approach is to get rid of this 'doubling up' by adding two additional buttons so each has just a single function, making things easier to learn, reducing errors and allowing each button to physically express what it does. This allows us to create buttons with more character: labels aren't always enough, it's helpful if buttons actually look the part. We feel that a device should physically tell you how to use it, whether reading the labels or by touch when it is in your jacket pocket.

Michael and Scott's explorations, from the left to right: Current design, standard 3 button, Multi Function Button (MFB) with single rocker switch, volume roller with USB and single rocker, volume roller with MFB and rocker

In addition, we wanted to get rid of the 'discrete interaction model' for volume. Instead of tapping the + button 6 times, overshooting and then tapping the - button twice, it's far easier, faster, and pleasurable to use a roller. There is a reason high-end stereos have buttery smooth dials instead of clicky +/- buttons.

To be fair, the play/pause button is slightly multi-function as it also answers/ends phone calls but that is driven by a clear context: if a call comes in, the button answers the call, if not, it plays music. What is harder to ignore is activating the voice assistant. Here we chose to make a compromise and double up the play/pause button: have long-press start the voice assistant. This actually mirrors what the earbuds do today so felt compatible with existing user expectations. Our goal was to avoid long-press functions but this feels like a reasonable compromise.

Using these assumptions, this is our proposed design:

Scott and Michael's final design

Note the layout is not symmetric. The goal is to be able to hold this inside your pocket without looking at it and know exactly what button to press. Each button is indented into the case to prevent accidental use (this would need to be tested) Also notice that we've added an LED into the Play/Pause button to replace the existing "Power LED" on Airpods today. This is a slight nod to manufacturing simplicity (one less case integration). At the very least, it's the same LED on the case today to indicate charging status. But it's also an opportunity to explore other types of feedback. For example, if the LED was multi-colored, it could pulse red if the music was paused.

This transforms the case from a utilitarian shell into a fidget-like device that you'd want to hold in your hand.

Scott and Michael's final design in use

We may be doing our best to create a digital world as quickly as possible, but that won't replace hundreds of thousands of years of evolution making us deeply physical beings. From the time we are infants in our crib we humans love to touch stuff. We love tactility, shape, texture, and color. As designers we don't want to fight that, we want to work with it! We think the world can be better, or at the very least more friendly and enjoyable. So to our fellow hardware designers, developers, engineers, and product managers out there who might be reading this, we dare you to take the road less traveled and make something that people will truly love to use.

About the authors:

Scott Jenson: Scott Jenson started as a UX designer at Apple in 1988, working on System 7, Newton, and the Apple Human Interface guidelines. He moved to London to be Director of Symbian's DesignLab, then joined Google in 2005 where he designed the first version of Google Mobile Maps. He went on to manage the Mobile UX team at Google, then left to be a creative director at frog design in San Francisco. He headed up design for two startups and eventually returned to Google to work in Chrome and Android. He has over 35 patents and is now semi-retired.

Michael DiTullo: Michael DiTullo has been designing iconic products for some of the world's best brands for more than 25 years. He has worked with an amazingly wide assortment of companies including Nike, Google, Honda, Timex, Chantal, Converse, Motorola, Hasbro, Arc Electric Boats and Kirei. Prior to starting his eponymous design studio Michael was Chief Design Officer for Sound United, creative director for frog design's San Francisco studio and spent nearly a decade at Nike. Michael is listed on over 30 patents and has won numerous awards including the IDSA's special lifetime achievement award for contributions to the design industry.

Interior design magazine RUM posted these shots of an NYC apartment renovation:

While the newer furniture pieces are credited, this vernacular chair in the second shot is not:

Image: Piet Albert Goethals

The seatback flows downward to become the front leg, of which there are only three, to handle uneven flooring. It is a fascinating piece of furniture, and one I've never seen before. I am dying to inspect it up close to see how it was joined.

Using Google's image search turns up some vintage French and African chairs that bear some similarity to the design, structurally speaking…

…but none with the elegant gesture and minimal material use of the chair in question, shown larger below. I even love the ungainly, compensatory support beneath the seat that may have been added at a later time (the wood looks just a shade lighter to me). That the angles on the rear feet do not cleanly meet the floor made me wonder if the chair has sagged over time; but that seems unlikely, as if the feet angle did match the floor, the seat would be cast at too steep an angle. You can also see a hint of a handle at the top of the seatback.

Image: Piet Albert Goethals

Do any of you recognize this chair? Do any of you know who designed/built it? I have a bad feeling it was a thrift store find overseas, a one-off made a century ago by someone in a rural area whose name we'll never know. But I'm hoping one of you will recognize it as typical of a particular region and time.

We don't often see softgoods in ID students' portfolios, so this one jumped out at us. This M–W256 project was done by Sven Abplanalp while studying Industrial Design at ECAL:

"M–W256" is a project resulting from a global analysis of connectors from the textile industry. This research resulted in the development of an androgynous clip in order to exploit its advantages.

Adapting to various daily situations, "M–W256" is a versatile bag designed for urban mobility, offering a multitude of configurations, thanks to a universal clip. This symmetrical connector allows the user to modulate the use of this portable container, arranging two straps provided for this purpose as desired.

"In perhaps one of the great ironies of human civilisation," writes Brian Kaller, "mechanical devices to truly magnify human power came along as soon as we didn't need them." Kaller's article, "The Hidden Potential of Bicycles," is well worth a read.

To Kaller's point, bicycles came around in the late 1800s, and the motor car followed soon after. This makes it easy to overlook that bicycles are, in Kaller's opinion, "the most efficient method of using our bodies, allowing us to attain higher machine speeds for longer than we would on muscle power alone – and without using any more fuel or causing any more weather to go haywire."

Speaking of bicycles, remember industrial designer Josep Rubau's aquatic bicycles?

While those transform a pedaling motion into forward thrust in water, a French invention called the Seabike does the same—but gets rid of the middleman, so to speak. The Seabike is essentially a pair of pedals driving a propellor, and is meant to be worn by swimmers.

"It's simple! You pedal, the propeller turns."

"SEABIKE is a portable water bike that is attached to the belt (included with the transport bag). Pedaling it helps you travel across long distances in freshwater and saltwater alike. It allows you to cover distances of several kilometers with moderate energy consumption. The speed of movement in nominal mode is 1 m/s, the maximum speed is 2.2 m/s."

As you can see, this dude is indeed cruising:

Some underwater footage that gives you a closer look:

The Seabike base model runs €290 (USD $309). The Seabike Pro version, which features a quick-release propellor and a ballast weight to adjust its buoyancy, runs €370 (USD $395). The Seabike Premium is the Pro, but made of titanium; they don't say what the other versions are made of.

On a Wire is a record stand as unique as your collection: the only record stand available today that organizes and displays your records simultaneously. On a Wire lives near your turntable, organizing your new, favorite, and new favorite records, while also displaying a record of your choice.

On a Wire was designed for vinyl records and the people who collect them, play them, and love them. Our collections grow and they grow quickly, with new records filling up our shelves, milk crates, plywood boxes, and floors faster than we can listen to them. That's where On a Wire comes in.

On a Wire is a home for your special records, whether they're your frequent listens, rare collectors' pieces, new records, or your whole growing collection. On a Wire keeps these records organized and accessible, your selection visible at a glance without having to dig through the rest of your collection; and when you've chosen the one you want, you can display it right on top.

View the full project here

Yet another AI genie's out of the bottle. The…geniuses over at Microsoft have unveiled their new VASA technology for "Lifelike audio-driven talking faces generated in real time." The tech can use a single snapshot, then animate it to match whatever audio is plugged into it. "Make anyone say anything," is how this reviewer describes it.

It has to be seen to be believed (obviously you need to click the sound on):

Male:

Female:

While it has a slight air of videogame-cut-scene, would you have noticed these aren't real if you weren't told in advance?

Watching them and knowing, it is chilling just how dead the eyes look. I don't know if it's the blinking rate, or if human eyes IRL have some subtle twinkling that we're not aware of, but the demo is downright creepy. Even worse, it's just a matter of time before they attend to this and get it "right."

And as this example shows, it looks like some animation jobs are going to evaporate:

A full demonstration:

Yet another bizarre design origin story.

People come to product and furniture design through different routes. Some go to school and get a degree in Industrial Design. Others become architects, then decide working on smaller-scale stuff is more interesting. In Europe and Scandinavia, some apprentice as cabinetmakers, then discover they've got a knack for design as well as craftsmanship. Still others are simply born relentlessly creative, and by pursuing their passions, fall into a series of wildly unlikely accidents that leads to them becoming designers.

One designer I've met who falls into that latter category is Jory Brigham, his story is nuts. Another designer in that category is Danish designer Arnold Madsen, who passed away in 1989. He's the guy who designed that beautiful Tove Lounge Chair with Henry Schübell; their unlikely partnership, Madsen & Schübell, produced scores of well-regarded furniture pieces in the mid-20th-century.

While trying to untangle why the Tove is often misattributed in listings, I came across interviews with Madsen's daughter and Schübell's son, and pieced together their fascinating backstory.

Arnold Madsen, born in a small town in northern Denmark in 1907, did not study design nor architecture; as a young man he worked as a sailor. Sometime in the 1930s, Madsen got off of a ship in America and decided to stick around, illegally. He somehow found work as a cowboy and learned rodeo riding, according to his surviving daughter, Johna Møhring-Andersen, and was eventually arrested for stealing winter clothes. When the authorities learned he was in the country illegally, he wound up in prison.

"As far as I know, he did not have a bad time in prison," Johna recounts.

After being released Madsen made his way back to Denmark. Seeking work, he apprenticed with an upholstery firm; Madsen was good with his hands, and by 1941 had opened his own upholstery shop. "He could do everything," Johna remembers. "He helped me sew clothes, he built things in the house - and he even lost a finger once in the process.

"My father was always experimenting with materials and making things with his hands. In our house he had a room of his own with a worktable where he would spend hours experimenting until he had an idea."

As an example, he envisioned a chair that was shaped like an open clam. Madsen knew what he wanted it to look like, and knew he had the skills to upholster it; what he didn't have was a knowledge of how to build the frame. He sculpted a small plaster model of what the exterior would look like, then started knocking on the doors of cabinetmaking businesses. He'd show them his model and ask if they could make a frame to help him realize the design.

Images of the plaster model do not exist, but apparently it was quite complicated; no one could figure out how to build the frame. Madsen went down his list of cabinetmaking shops, weathering rejections, and finally arrived at one called Winter & Winding. The foreman there, Henry Schübell, examined the model, then started sketching out a working drawing. Once he had it worked out on paper, Schübell told Madsen he could design the frame and his workers could build it.

However, "they had some problems with it, because it was a difficult construction," says Flemming Schübell, Henry's son. The key difficulty was the transition where the seat meets the back. To remain faithful to Madsen's design, Schübell had to design a piece of joinery that was fiendishly difficult to manufacture. A piece of wood needed to be cut on a bandsaw with a thin blade that could do tight curves. The piece required two curved cuts to be made in the top, and then the piece was rotated, and two curved cuts were made in the bottom. These curves had to meet precisely.

In practice, the shop workers could get one set of these curves right, but not the other. To cut curves on a bandsaw, you guide the piece with your hands. The curves requiring right-hand guidance were achievable, but the other curves, which required left-hand guidance, were too tricky for the workers to nail. So Henry himself stepped in.

"My father could use his left hand as well as his right hand," Flemming says, "because he was from a generation that got a beating if you used your left hand."

In other words, Schübell was naturally left-handed, but had acquired ambidexterity through negative reinforcement.

"Arnold Madsen was so impressed by his work," says Flemming (or Schübell's other son, Preben, it's not clear) "that he suggested that they form a partnership where Henry Schubell would design the furniture and produce the wooden frames which Arnold Madsen would then upholster and market." This was in 1944. Madsen must have been persuasive, because by 1945 or 1946 (accounts differ) Schübell had quit his job as foreman of Winter & Winding, and was now one half of Madsen & Schübell.

"I had my hands on my hips first--stop copying me."

The new firm started producing the Clam Chair, which sold well.

Another hit of theirs was the Oda chair, which used an unusual-for-the-time steel frame; Madsen "took a welding course and then spent weeks in the company factory working on the first prototype," Johha says. "The workers thought he had gone completely mad - but he did not stop until the frame was exactly as he had imagined it."

Their Prague chair, a sort of successor to the Clam chair, was another success.

Madsen & Schübell produced furniture throughout the 1940s, '50s and '60s out of their shop in Copenhagen, and also licensed the designs to manufacturers Vik & Blendheim in Norway and Bovenkamp in the Netherlands. The duo worked together until the mid-60s, then split to each set up firms with their own sons; the resultant ventures never reached the level of success of Madsen & Schübell.

Today Madsen & Schübell pieces are in high demand on vintage sites, but strangely, their names were apparently not well known during their original period of commercial success. Aaron FitzGerald, of London-based furniture restoration firm Dagmar Design, calls the Clam chair "one of the most sought-after and simultaneously misattributed and copied chair designs of the twentieth century;" for years the chair had been attributed to Norwegian retailer Martin Olsen and/or Danish architect Philip Arctander. Similarly, the Oda chair spent years being erroneously credited to Danish designer Nanna Ditzel.

An original Clam chair is particularly hard to come by. "We're no longer selling vintage ones in high numbers because the supply has more or less dried up," FitzGerald says, "and the ones that are left are incredibly expensive." FitzGerald eventually negotiated with Madsen's estate and has gained rights to reproduce it. They sell them here, and the asking price is about $8,400.

The Japanese art of flower arrangement, Ikebana, is a captivating practice that aims for poetic synthesis of human hand and natural beauty in each composition. Stickybana, as documented on this Instagram page, is a sub-genre that centers cannabis within that tradition.

The pairing is quite simpatico: Ikebana and cannabis practitioners alike explore space and time, seeking balance and harmony. The boundaries of the art though seem a bit blurry, and the concept not exactly focused: amongst the photos of cut arrangements there are examples of trained miniature plants, aka the entirely separate Japanese art of Bonsai, but here executed with weed, so, you know, like, Bongsai.

Given the adjacency of the account's creation to April 20th, 4/20 for us in the USA, a festive date on any stoner's calendar, this may just all be an illusion. But perhaps it truly is a perpetually forgotten art ...

See more at: @stickybana on Instagram

Here's what we looked at this week:

Startup Humane has debuted their Ai Pin, to damning reviews. The UI/UX design is just insane.

Form follows function: NASA's zero-gravity drinking cup, prototyped in space.

Some wonderful scans from "The Function of Colour in Factories Schools & Hospitals," a British book published in 1930.

DeWalt's Carbon Fiber Staple Gun weighs 50% less and can take a beating.

Whole lotta welding going on with architect/furniture designer Leif Jørgensen's LJ Spider Chair.

Form follows function: This no-tools-required hanging hook from the early 1900s.

The PSF1 is a stylish folding e-bike by Taiwanese manufacturer BESV.

Here's a bit of weirdness: A Japanese automotive supplier has successfully Kickstarted a titanium cutting board.

There are some unusual design details in this Hans J. Wegner sewing table.

Nendo's mesmerizing '50 Manga Chairs' animation, inspired by the visual representation of kinetic energy.

Porch piracy deterrent: A security camera that fires paintballs and tear gas. What could go wrong?

This one-legged desk design, from 1970s France, would make sense for a resource-poor environment.

From the "Walking Sticks & Canes" exhibit at the Triennale Milano, here are four experimental walking stick designs that seek to increase functionality.

Wera's Screw Gripper holds non-magnetic screws on the tip of your driver.

This Lee Bench, by experimental designer Marco Campardo, is a Nakashima-inspired walnut bench with unusual details.

Cloche, by industrial designer Guillaume Bloget, is a low-tech, designey food smoker.

Surprisingly this Tove Lounge Chair, a beautiful Mid-Century design by Madsen and Schübell, features a sprung reclining mechanism.

Boston Dynamics unveiled their new Atlas robot, which features some pretty inhuman movement capabilities.

Packaging design case study: Zenpack's sustainable solution for coffee pods.

Zenpack is a packaging design firm with a key difference from competitors: They also handle fulfillment, bringing design and manufacturing under one roof to offer clients a turnkey solution.

They were recently hired by coffee retailer Cambio Roasters. "When Cambio Roasters was getting ready to launch their organic coffee pods to the k-cup market, they needed a sustainable packaging solution to match their mission," the firm writes. Here's their case study of how they tackled the project:

The ProblemKeurig coffee makers are now a kitchen counter staple for many homes throughout the world. Simple and fast, it doesn't get much easier to make yourself a morning cup. Some coffee pod brands, however, have their drawbacks like coffee quality, worker equity, and pod recyclability. The founders of Cambio noticed these issues and responded by starting their own coffee company committed to "Eco-Friendly, People-Powered, Profit-Sharing Coffee Pods". The next step was finding a packaging material that would encourage customers to recycle the pods.The OutcomeThe Zenpack design team engineered a molded pulp container and lid, secured with a glue-free paper belly band. Once customers open the packaging and start using the pods at home, it transforms into a convenient countertop recycling bin. It's a simple reminder to collect Cambio's new pods that were redesigned for easy recycling. When they're ready to dispose of the bin, customers can toss the pods and bin into the recycling, or use the paper pulp bin in their at-home composting or curbside composting program.

ChallengesWe all know that changing habits can be an uphill battle, especially when it comes to simple tasks like throwing things away into the right recycling bin. Some cities are single stream while others require separation before pickup. But once the waste arrives at the local facility, there's a good chance it's not being recycled as intended. Experts estimate that only 9% of all plastic ever produced has been recycled—the other 91% is incinerated or left in the landfill to leach into the earth.

As coffee drinkers across the world fell in love with their coffee pod machines, landfills welcomed yet another plastic shape. Most coffee pods are very difficult to recycle because they're made from multiple types of plastic, including a thin lid that's heat sealed onto the pod, making it difficult to remove and dump out the grounds.

Perfect for coffee pod machines, but terrible for the environment, to the tune of over 30 million pods in the landfill per day. Before Cambio even put their coffee inside a pod, they knew they had to make a better version. They developed and patented a proprietary pod using only two materials, #5 polypropylene plastic and aluminum.

Cambio did their part; now it was our turn. We love a sustainability challenge, so we poured our energy (along with many cups of coffee) into figuring out how to encourage customers to quickly and easily recycle Cambio's new pod. Our heart was set on molded pulp container, but even the most versatile materials present challenges. The Zenpack engineers would need to focus on rigidity and stack-ability while the branding team would figure out the best way to brand the Cambio family of roasts.

SolutionWhile molded pulp is just water and paper fiber, it requires specific structural engineering to achieve maximum functionality. In this case, we needed more rigidity, so we added vertical ribs to provide more structure. We then put the container through various stacking and fitment tests to determine the optimal wall thickness to keep lids tight during shipping. The resulting container can hold 10 pods, remains strong during shipment, and continues to be useful long after delivery.

The pulp bin is universal, meaning that Cambio can use it for every product. To distinguish the roasts, we designed a glue-free belly band with a tear strip. It's a visually effective system, but we encountered color-matching challenges under the constraints of the 4-color lithographic printing process.

We worked closely with Cambio's graphic designer to develop a method for setting up the artwork. This color management process helped to reduce color shifts, resulting in accurate, vibrant colors.When a Cambio delivery arrives, customers open the cardboard shipper, pull the belly band tear strip, and start brewing. Once the pod has cooled down, they pull the aluminum tab, compost or discard the grounds, and toss the pod and lid into the recycling bin. For many, the paper pulp bin becomes a mini recycling bin. When it's full, they can toss the entire thing into their larger receptacle. And since paper pulp is an ideal brown ingredient for composting, some customers use it as a temporary compost bin where they can discard the grounds and other kitchen scraps.

ResultWe delivered an efficient packaging system for six products using the same container with belly bands printed specifically for each SKU. The result is a cohesive family of coffees that has helped Cambio expand their customer base to all 50 states in only six months. With the rapid growth, they can continue making good on their mission to contribute 20% of profits to Cambio coffee-farming families across the world. In 2024, the iF Design Awards recognized Zenpack and Cambio with honors in the Beverages Packaging category. Zenpack will continue working with Cambio for their next generation packaging as they keep on changing the coffee world, one pod at a time.

You can see more of Zenpack's work here.

This screw gripper, designed and manufactured by Wera Tools, is for holding non-magnetic screws on the tip of your driver. It slides over cylindrical and hexagonal shafts with a diameter of 4.5mm to 6mm.

Made of soft plastic, they won't mar the surface of your workpiece as the screw reaches home.

They also have an insulated version, sold as a pair; this includes the 4.5mm-to-6mm-sized unit and a larger one that can handle 6mm to 8.5mm.

They run $6 and $12, respectively.

This Tove Lounge Chair was designed by Arnold Madsen and Henry Schübell*, a 20th-century Danish design duo.

Produced in the 1950s and '60s, it's finely designed and made, with a well-balanced blend of curves and straight lines. The frame is Oak and the sculpted armrests are made of Teak, and the transitions between the two have been beautifully done. The armrests flow gracefully into the front legs, and are joined to the rear legs via wedged tenon.

Looking at the underside, you can see this piece has been repaired at some point. The telltale is the screws that attach to the seat. The pair of larger slotted screws are undoubtedly the originals; the smaller Pozi-head screws are practically swimming in the original countersinks.

Below is a rare variant of the Tove chair with a mechanical feature. From the left side and the rear, it looks like an ordinary Tove…

…but from the right you'll spot this lever with a knob.

This variant incorporated a sprung reclining mechanism. It provided eight different angles of recline.

It's hard to spot in the photos above, but in the shots below, you can see that this reclining version of the chair does not have the wedged-tenon joinery where the armrest meets the rear legs.

There was a companion footstool that could also be tilted.

Looking at the underside of this specific chair, it also appears to have been repaired; while it's possible that the clunkily-integrated piano hinge was used, the support pieces look to be stained, and I have a hard time believing a manufacturer would go to the trouble of staining unseen pieces, in a different color no less. My guess is the repairer had these pieces on hand.

*Note: The Tove was designed by Arnold Madsen and Henry Schübell. On numerous vintage sites I've seen it attributed to Ib Madsen and Acton Schübell, which is incorrect.

Ib Madsen was Arnold's son, and the two did eventually go into business together--years after the Tove design was introduced. Henry Schübell had sons named Flemming and Preben, and Flemming eventually worked for his father, but there's no Acton that I can find a record of. So I'm not sure where the "Acton" attribution comes from…unless it's Danish for "Hank?" (Flemming, who was still alive as of 2021, is known as Flemming.)

This low-tech Cloche table smoker is by Paris-based industrial designer Guillaume Bloget. It's made of Beech and stainless steel.

"CLOCHE is for cold smoking food from aromatic plants or wood chips. It preserves the intrinsic flavors of each food while perfuming them with a smoky note."

"The smoker becomes both a preparation and presentation utensil. Placed on a table, it establishes a sort of ritual. We arrange the food, we light the fire in the hearth, then we put out the fire with the bell to stifle the combustion and create smoke. After about thirty minutes, the bell is lifted, a residual wisp of smoke escapes and reveals the food ready to be enjoyed."

"Turned in beech by Luis Morgado, French craftsman, CLOCHE is a more poetic and friendly alternative to electric smokers and barbecues."

Cloche runs €485 (USD $516) and is in production by French manufacturer Oros.

Despite the name, the UK's Grimsdyke Farm is actually a research facility and experimental fabrication workshop for artists, designers and architects. "Established in 2004 by [architect and RCA instructor] Guan Lee, it has been hosting workshops, seminars and residencies with the aim of exploring the essential connections between materials, processes of design, and place," they write.

One participant in Grimsdyke Farm's programmes is London-based designer and design researcher Marco Campardo. "Marco's work starts with hands-on experimentation and research to question the nature of contemporary models of production," his bio reads. "With a keen interest in materiality, his research seeks to subvert or adapt industrial manufacturing processes to propose an alternative to standardised, mass production. The final result of this process is aesthetically and conceptually refined objects, whose final form is determined by the very process of making."

One such object is this Lee Bench, fabricated from a Walnut tree felled on the Grimsdyke property.

"Keeping the wooden planks in their original state, the edges have been [gouged] to highlight the qualities of walnut, while evoking sculptural detailing and high-end craftsmanship."

"Inspired by the work of George Nakashima, the iconic American architect and woodworker, the collection features an interpretation of the butterfly joint. Popularised by Nakashima, the butterfly joint has become a decorative, as much as structural detail, in woodworking. Replaced here by a squiggly brass joint, called 'Caterpillar joint', this unexpected detail seeks to reinterpret classic woodworking techniques."

The tree yielded more material than the bench needed, and the remaining wood was shaped into a buffet, a wall shelf and a mirror frame using the same techniques.

Early sewing machine designs failed because the inventors attempted to replicate human motions with mechanical parts. The way humans sew is by drawing a needle all the way through the fabric, thus the needle's eye is at the tail end. There was no workable way, using 19th century technology, to mechanically grab the needle on the underside of the fabric. But by moving the eye to the pointy end of the needle and having it only partially pierce the fabric, while a hook beneath it grabbed only the thread, the designs eventually succeeded.

Similarly, right now humanoid robots are trending, with their motions modeled on hours. But just because they're shaped like humans, doesn't mean they have to move like humans, as Boston Dynamics' engineers have realized. They've just unveiled their new design for their Atlas robot. Check out the way it gets up, and moves around:

It's creepy, like something out of a horror movie, but using fully-rotating joints is a much smarter method than the way we humans clumsily get off of the ground.

Of course, the old Atlas did make some incredible strides, as the company reminds us with this send-off video for the retired design. It includes a lot of never-before-seen bloopers that are horrendous and funny; I never realized that if it falls, it can sustain vicious wounds that cause it to spray hydraulic fluid rather than blood:

Produced in the 1950s and '60s, this AT-33 sewing table was designed by Hans J. Wegner. (The "AT" is for manufacturer Andreas Tuck, and "33" is the model number.) The frame is oak, and the tabletop and shelf are made of teak.

Up top, the design is straightforward and conventional. There are two drop leaves. The drawer is compartmentalized for sewing notions. The rightmost compartment features two types of wooden pins, for holding both cylindrical and conical spools of thread.

Moving down below reveals a couple of design details that will seem strange to modern eyes. The first is the slide-out, removeable basket, handwoven out of rattan, for holding skeins of yarn.

The second is more puzzling, and concerns the shelf at the bottom. From the front, the shelf appears to be captured between the two stretchers.

However, from an angle we can see that the ends of the shelf protrude through the stretchers.

In this shot from the bottom, we can see it's fastened in place with screws.

So the stretchers have each had a long slot routed through them to capture the shelf. I can't think of any benefit this arrangement would provide to the manufacturer or the end user. We can conclude it was done purely for visual effect.

This piece was mass produced and is widely available on secondhand sites (though occasionally with the basket missing).

While this design of desk doesn't provide much flexibility for room layout, it is a good example of doing more with less.

Made of rosewood and chromed steel, the vintage furniture site reselling it describes it as a wall desk from 1970s France. Although France was not a resource-poor environment, this design of desk, created with more humble materials and a simpler drawer, would make sense in one that was (for instance, a school in a developing nation). While you'd need battens and fasteners, or L-brackets, to secure the desks to the walls, that cost could be outweighed by the savings on three legs per desk.

This piece may have originally come with a corresponding bracket or cleat, but none appears in the listing.

They're asking $5,671 for it, which sounds kind of pricey considering both the designer and manufacturer are unknown.