Here's what we looked at this week:

Low-cost window insulation: Bubble wrap and water.

Good 20th century industrial design, paired with a smart business model: This West German perpetual calendar.

The Pulling Guard: DARPA's towable anti-piracy measure.

Specialty tool design: This Crimphandy, an automatic wire stripper and crimper.

A trick for extra storage space: Plumbing cutout drawers.

From Switzerland, the SlideGlass system: A glass fence that turns into a glass wall.

A clever way to upcycle unrecyclable misprinted money: Mold it into furniture.

Alternative UI design: The RollerMouse Red.

The Zarges Bread Box, a West German folding military case from 1965.

Clever Amish design for a low-tech, gravity-based tool holder.

Vipera: Powered skis.

A Boston-based startup called Frigid Dynamics has developed a pair of powered skis.

Called Vipera, the custom-built skis feature a motorized track system at the rear, powered by batteries located fore of the wearer's boots.

A wireless remote is located within the handle of one of the included ski poles.

The skis can hit a top speed of 22 mph, and the battery range is said to be 10 miles.

Vipera was developed by mechanical engineer Gurnoor Sooch, who designed them with ski patrol and search-and-rescue professionals in mind. Nevertheless, the skis will be made available to the general public. The company is currently taking $200 deposits for pre-orders, with the $3,000 skis intended to ship in September.

This object is colloquially called a Dutch* Broom Hanger.

It's a low-tech way to hold cylindrical objects to the wall.

As for how it works, ignore the Romanesque shape of the ones above, that's a stylistic element that has nothing to do with the object's function. Inside it looks like this:

When you push a broom handle up from the bottom, the roller (which can just be a length of dowel) moves up the incline. As you release the broom, gravity brings the roller back down, and friction causes it to pin the broom handle in place. To release the broom, you simply lift it upward and toward you.

If you didn't want to capture the roller both front and back—if, for instance, you wanted to see the mechanism—you could do this by capturing the roller at the back, using a protrusion on the roller and a track in the rear panel.

The object also lends itself to 3D printing.

StageTop on Etsy

StageTop on Etsy

StageTop on Etsy

StageTop on Etsy

Printable Accessories

Printable Accessories

Printable Accessories

Printable Accessories

*It's called a "Dutch" Broom Hanger after the Pennsylvania Dutch, who are of course not Dutch at all. ("Dutch" is a bastardization of "Deutsch;" the Amish originally migrated from Germany.) The Amish popularized this design sometime in the 18th or 19th century, and still sell them today.

A more modern version of this design eschews the internal ramp and uses a cam instead.

Designed by German manufacturer Zarges around 1965, this aluminum case might not look like much. But it's got a special trick.

The case was designed for the Bundeswehr (the West German army) to transport field rations, earning it the nickname "The Bread Box." After the rations were consumed, the case could be broken down—quickly, and tool-free—to just 1/6th of its assembled height.

Here's the assembly/disassembly process:

While Zarges still exists today and still makes aluminum cases, sadly they no longer produce this collapsible model.

This RollerMouse Red is by Contour Design, a manufacturer of ergonomic computer hardware. It's presented as an alternative to the computer mouse: Rather than being off to one side, it's placed in the center, between you and your keyboard. The idea is that you use it with both left and right hands, with your wrists supported on a pad, and that this arrangement reduces strain.

To move the cursor up and down, you roll the studded bar. To achieve left and right motion, the bar slides from side to side.

Furthermore there are gigantic clickable buttons beneath the rollerbar, as well as a scroll wheel.

"Its centered design and smooth rollerbar keep your hands in a natural position," the company says, "cutting strain and boosting comfort."

Here's what it looks like in action:

The RollerMouse Red runs $374.

Here's a brilliant way to upcycle an otherwise unrecyclable material.

The Banque of France (their equivalent of the U.S. Mint) prints money.

To make the bills un-counterfeit-able, they use a proprietary printing process called EverFit. This uses cotton fiber paper that can be embedded with holographic stripes and fibers that react to UV, fluorescent lights or infrared. And to make the banknotes durable, both sides are coated with a polymer film.

But mistakes happen, and occasionally there's a misprint. A stringent inspection process weeds out the defective bills, which are then shredded.

The resultant material—cotton fibers mixed with polymers—is worthless and unrecyclable.

Enter Maximum, the French furniture company that turns industrial waste into products.

"Each fragment of [a shredded] EverFit® banknote," they write, "contains exactly the right proportion of materials needed for its transformation into furniture: a cotton substrate and two layers of heat-sensitive coating. Accumulated, heated, and then strongly compressed, EverFit® shreds form a rigid, smooth, and surprisingly resistant material: Billex."

Maximum uses this Billex material to make stools.

These can be nested, up to six high.

Furthermore, the stools "can be recycled infinitely in our workshops," the company writes. "Because at Maximum we are convinced that archetypes are meant to last and reinvent themselves in line with the challenges and resources of their time."

Here we see a lovely view in Switzerland, which the residents can enjoy from their balcony.

However, valley and mountain locations can also become unpleasantly windy. Thus the glass railing system you see can extend upwards:

Called SlideGlass, it's not motorized, as you might guess. Instead deploying the extensions requires a little (but not much) elbow grease. There are gas-pressure springs concealed within the posts.

The company says it can withstand 57 mph winds.

Paired with an awning, you can make a porch nearly rainproof.

For Jon Marshall, the thrill of design has never left the physical act of creation. "I'm always excited about the act of making things, whether it's simple cardboard models for design process, finalizing designs in our workshop or visiting factories and seeing products enter mass production," he says. It's a grounding principle that runs through a practice defined by its range—from product design to strategy, packaging to digital experiences.

As a partner at Pentagram since 2018, Jon works at intersections that many designers treat as boundaries. His portfolio includes hardware design for Graphcore and Yoto (Ed. note: The Yoto player received a Notable honor in the 2020 Core77 Design Awards and the Yoto Mini was the Professional Winner in Consumer Technology in 2022), exhibition design and installations for Uniqlo and Google, and packaging experiences for Heights and Verizon. His interests gravitate toward abstract and emerging technologies, accessible user experiences, and projects that embrace sustainability—work that demands both conceptual thinking and tangible craft.

Yoto Player - 2020 Core77 Design Awards notable entry - Consumer Technology

Yoto Mini - 2022 Core77 Design Awards Professional Winner - Consumer Technology

That dedication to making manifests in Pentagram's workshop, on factory floors, and in the careful translation of ideas into objects people can hold, use, and understand. For Jon, the journey from sketch to production isn't just process—it's where design proves itself.

Navigating Uncertainty

Yet Jon carries concerns about the field's next generation and the conditions they face as they enter practice. "I'm worried about younger designers being able to establish themselves confidently in design practice during a time of anxiety about climate change and artificial intelligence," he reflects.

It's a recognition that today's emerging designers must navigate not just the usual challenges of building a career, but existential questions about technology's trajectory and the planet's future. The confidence required to establish oneself as a designer has always been hard-won; these compounding uncertainties make that path even more complex.

Show the Full Picture

As jury captain for the 2026 Core77 Design Awards Home & Living category, Jon will be looking for entries that reveal both destination and journey. His advice to entrants is refreshingly specific and practical. "Show a really wide range of images describing all aspects of the product including in-use," Jon says. "Describe a bit of the design process as well as the end result."

It's guidance that reflects his own values—that understanding a product means seeing it in context, in hands, in the world. That the decisions made along the way matter as much as the final form. And that good documentation doesn't just present outcomes; it tells the story of how those outcomes came to be.

For designers entering their work, Jon's asking for the full picture: not just the hero shot, but the messy, iterative, material reality of making something real.

2025 Home & Living Professional Winner

The professional winner in the 2025 Core77 Design Awards in the Home & Living category was the Loka Chai Maker . The product was designed by Jon Marshall in collaboration with Chifen Cheng, Shing Lo, Amelia Kociolkowska, Vincent Fan, Harc Lee, Andrew Aitken, Nikhil Shah, and Anish Shonpal at Pentagram London.

If you have a forward-thinking idea that could spark a fire with our jurors, share it with us through the 2026 Core77 Design Awards.

Enter the C77DA before February 27 to lock in regular pricing.

With vanities and kitchen counters, the space directly beneath a sink is typically wasted.

DIY'ers, however, have found ways to utilize that space:

So have some manufacturers.

There's no official name for them that I could find, but "plumbing cutout drawer" seems to be a common term.

For those that prefer to half-DIY it, Häfele sells this insert.

It's made out of flexible plastic that can follow different radii, and you can cut the back ends of it to make it fit your application.

Pirates have it rough. In order to board a cargo ship, they need to get within range using a pirate "mothership," typically a hijacked fishing vessel. Once close enough, the mothership launches several small, high-powered skiffs. These skiffs close the distance with the cargo ships, typically traveling through the cargo ship's tumultuous wake to avoid detection. Once alongside the ship, the pirates then have to use grappling hooks or ladders to climb to the deck; not so easy when you've got an AK-47 slung across your back and the cargo ship's crew is desperately trying to douse you with fire hoses.

That's the old Somali model, popular around a decade ago. But current-day Houthi rebels have used technology to change the game. Because they're driven by ideology and not profit, the Houthis don't need to board the ships; they just need to mess them up. They've thus been early adopters of Uncrewed Surface Vehicles (USVs), essentially kamikaze robot boats packed with explosives. These are relatively easy to build—they're just regular skiffs rigged up with GPS and remote control. It's a lot cheaper than building your own navy.

Worse, the Houthis have been getting friendly with Somali pirates. And so, DARPA reckons, it's just a matter of time before Somali pirates start using the Houthi model. Rather than risking life and limb scaling the side of a ship, all they need to do is show up with a bomb-laden USV. They contact the crew of the cargo ship, and explain that unless a $XXX,XXX ransom is delivered, they'll blow the ship up.

DARPA has pre-emptively developed a concept to defend against this: The Pulling Guard. This is a small, unmanned, armed platform that cargo ships would tow behind them. In the event of trouble, the Pulling Guard autonomously sends up a quadrotor drone to get the big picture. A remote operator then views the feed, assesses the threat, and can opt to fire missiles from the Pulling Guard.

DARPA points out that all of the technology to create a Pulling Guard already exists; their focus, then, is on "marinizing" the sensors and systems, and packaging them in a modular way in order to ease manufacture. If they can pull it off, the Houthis will have to go back to the drawing board.

Minnesota-based Wolf River Electric makes their money installing solar panels, but they're also happy to hand out a free tip for reducing your energy bill. Noting that windows are a key source of heat loss in a home, company founder Justin Nielsen points out: "One of the simplest and most overlooked ways to keep heat in your home this winter costs almost nothing, bubble wrap on your windows."

"It sounds unconventional, but the science is solid. Bubble wrap works as an extra layer of insulation by trapping air between the bubbles, slowing down heat transfer through the glass. Windows are one of the biggest culprits for heat loss in a home, and this is a near-zero-cost fix anyone can do in minutes."All you need to do is cut a sheet of bubble wrap to fit your window, lightly mist the glass with water, and press it against the pane, the surface tension holds it in place with no tape or adhesive needed. It lets light in while keeping the cold out."It's not something I'd recommend for your main living areas, but for rooms that don't see much use during winter, a guest bedroom, a basement, a utility room, it's a genuinely effective hack. You'd be surprised how much of a difference it makes to the feel of a room and potentially your energy bill."

"Two important tips I'd give though are firstly not to overly mist your windows. Too much moisture behind the bubble wrap can cause condensation. And secondly, make sure that you lay the bubble wrap bubble side to the window."It seems counter intuitive, as you'd presume that the other side has more area to stick... but by doing it this way, you get an extra layer of insulation."

For those of us doing DIY electrical work, this tool is our friend:

If you're fixing a lamp, that $35 wire stripper/crimper is good enough. However, an industrial electrician building control panels might need to strip and crimp hundreds of connections during a single shift. The tool above would give them arthritis in no time. Hence this powered CF Crimphandy tool, by German manufacturer Phoenix Contact:

You load it up with a magazine of ferrules, insert a wire, and the tool strips it and crimps the ferrule on in less than two seconds:

It's also got a little cutter:

Aimed squarely at professionals, the tool runs around $2,500 a pop—and can only handle one gauge. The company sells three models: A 16-, 18- and 20-gauge model.

Here's something that was designed around the 1960s or '70s, yet would probably sell well today. This perpetual calendar is by Berendsohn, a company that made a fortune designing promotional objects in 20th-century West Germany. (More on that in a moment.)

Image: Wertwerk

Image: Wertwerk

The calendar's design is interactive. It consists of several dozen white plastic cylinders, as well as one red and one yellow cylinder. Each day the user removes a cylinder from the relevant column, allowing the red cylinder to mark the date. Once a month, they do the same with the 'month' column.

(If you're wondering why the cylinders briefly appear to defy gravity in the video above, that's because in that shot, the unit is placed flat on a table.)

The branding you see on the bottom of the unit isn't for the manufacturer, but the client; Retter Zahn-Technik was a dentist's office.

Image: Wertwerk

Which leads us to Berendsohn's deal: As West Germany's economy took off in the 1950s, company boss Günther Berendsohn—a Holocaust survivor—spotted an opportunity. As the economy prospered, the country had become crowded with advertising. Berendsohn recognized that a better way for companies to cut through the signal noise, was to give away well-designed promotional objects with the client's branding on them.

Image: Wertwerk

Berendsohn shrewdly targeted useful objects that people would interact with daily: Calendars, coffee mugs, key racks, fountain pens, salt-and-pepper shakers. By manufacturing durable, long-lasting items with unique designs, the company prospered, reaching around 100 million Deutsche Marks (USD $55 million) in sales by the 1980s.

Image: Wertwerk

The company still exists today, though sadly, the calendars are gone.

After 17 years in industrial design, Stephen Simantiras still finds himself energized by the new. "I'm continually inspired by emerging technologies and enjoy finding new ways to integrate them into my design process and product development," he says. It's an enthusiasm that has shaped a career built on transforming ideas into impactful products and experiences, and on teaching others to do the same.

As Head of Creative at Canfield Scientific, Stephen leads the Industrial Design and UI/UX initiative to accelerate brand growth and build a team of talented designers. His focus centers on harmonizing form, function, and user experience to establish stronger brand language and fuel creative innovation. Before Canfield, he spent more than a decade at HS Design Inc. (now Ensera Design), growing from Industrial Designer to Director of Design, leading multidisciplinary teams through every stage of development—from research and concepting to prototyping and production. His portfolio spans consumer goods, consumer medical devices, and first-of-their-kind healthcare solutions.

Stephen's commitment to the field extends beyond practice. For over a decade, he has served as an adjunct professor of design at Kean University, teaching industrial design principles, model making, CAD, rendering, and animation, passing on both technical skills and design philosophy to the next generation.

The Soul in the Machine

Yet Stephen's excitement about emerging technologies comes tempered with concern about how designers integrate them into their work. "As AI tools become more integrated into our workflows, it's incredible to see how much they can support and enhance what we do. The possibilities feel endless and exciting," he reflects. "At the same time, I worry that some designers may begin to treat these tools as a crutch and rely on them too heavily."

For Stephen, the core issue is one of responsibility. "It's important to remember that our role as designers is to humanize technology, not hand over our responsibility to think through the best user-centered solutions. Design is inherently empathetic, and a well-crafted product carries a sense of soul."

Empathy as Foundation

As jury captain for the Medical & Healthcare category in the 2026 Core77 Design Awards, Stephen will evaluate entries through this lens of empathy and human centeredness. His advice to entrants circles back to fundamentals that technology can support but never replace.

"As I mentioned above, good design is rooted in empathy," Stephen says. "Beyond the blood, sweat, and occasional tears that go into creating your work, ask yourself: Is it truly user centered? Is it intuitive to interact with, and does it create a sense of safety for the end user?"

The work that will stand out, he suggests, combines technical innovation with genuine human benefit. "If your product is meaningfully disruptive, advances design and technology in ways that genuinely improve people's lives, it will undoubtedly stand out in this competition."

2025 Professional Winner

Last year the professional winner in the Medical & Healthcare category was Couplet Care Bassinet by Ty Hagler, from Trig, designed to address a critical gap in postpartum care: the lack of accessible, user-centered hospital bassinets.

If you have a forward-thinking idea that could spark a fire with our jurors, share it with us through the 2026 Core77 Design Awards.

Enter the C77DA before February 27 to lock in regular pricing.

Here's what we looked at this week:

Bcomp and BMW's next-gen composite materials: Using flax rather than carbon fiber.

Good low-tech design: This vet care meds chart.

The CourtSense Tennis Rebounder: A clever, low-tech, no-robots design for a passive tennis partner.

Remedial design: Apple TV's "I couldn't hear the dialogue" feature.

Startup Pines Footwear aims to produce injury-reducing sneakers.

Ronan Bouroullec's cast iron Trivet Necklace.

Schweisstisch24's smart production hack for welding a pegged grid.

Mau's Kona Scratcher: An attractive, functional furniture piece for humans and cats.

The Feuerwasser wood-fired outdoor shower.

Same designer, different approaches: Naoto Fukusawa's Za and Déjà-Vu Stools.

The LoadRunner climbs dumpsters to dump your wheelbarrow.

Snatch, by CW&T: A non-destructive add-on shoulder strap that increases the utility of cheapie tote bags.

Milwaukee's impressive new 10-gauge cordless nibbler contains the mess.

A few months ago Oki Sato, founder of Nendo, started a comic strip (of sorts, on Instagram; you need to cli). While some of it is product-design-related content…

…some are just funny product observations…

…while others are just weirdly relatable stories about objects:

Plenty more to see here.

Through her work across four continents, Montana Cherney has learned how design can support meaningful and lasting change. Not just through the solutions it creates, but through the capabilities it builds in others. As Innovation Coach at the International Baccalaureate, and through her work advancing innovation in education, healthcare, financial services, government, and public services, she's learned that the most lasting impact often comes from what happens after the designer leaves the room.

"What excites me most is building teams' capabilities in design and innovation, both mindset and skillset, and celebrating the moments when those capabilities become visible, shared, and passed on," Montana says. Her work has ranged from digitally-enabled financial savings products for smallholder farmers to brand and service delivery strategies for HIV prevention, co-designed with girls and women in Sub-Saharan Africa—all built through partnerships with communities, system stakeholders, innovators, governments, and policymakers.

The moments that matter most to Montana reveal themselves in unexpected ways. "Some of the most meaningful moments in my work come from seeing the ripple effects of coaching," she explains. "When colleagues in multi-governmental organizations describe feeling supported enough to openly share challenges and ideas, or when senior officials in a Ministry of Health, newly introduced to human-centered design, confidently lead co-creation workshops and articulate the value of an HCD approach for women's health in their own words."

Beyond Optimism

Asked about her concerns for the design field, Montana reframes the question itself. "At the moment, I am less worried about the world of design and more worried about the world itself," she says. "Designers have long been optimistic and adaptive, and the question I continue to grapple with is how the field can remain resilient, navigating uncertainty with agility and creativity, not only to produce new solutions, but also to model new ways of working and collaborating that contribute meaningfully to broader societal challenges."

It's a perspective that acknowledges design's role extends beyond deliverables to the processes and relationships that shape how change happens.

Shifting Roles

As jury captain for the Design for Social Impact category in the 2026 Core77 Design Awards, Montana brings this understanding of design's evolving position in systems change. Her advice to entrants reflects a fundamental shift in how designers might understand their work.

"For the Design for Social Impact category specifically, I would encourage entrants to reflect on the role they play as designers," Montana says. "When designing for social impact, the designer's role often shifts, from being the primary problem-solver to serving as a coach, convener, and coordinator, applying creative approaches to support others in shaping solutions throughout the entire journey, from discovery to delivery."

It's an invitation to think beyond the artifact and toward the ecosystem—to show not just what was designed, but how the design process itself enabled others to create lasting change.

2025 Winner

The 2025 Professional winner in the Design for Social Impact was The Lotus Ring from Julia Lemle at Lotus. With this ring you can control anything—lights, fans, appliances, even TVs. With this product you can convert any space into an accessible space in seconds—and you can take it with you wherever you go.

If you have a forward-thinking idea that could spark a fire with our jurors, share it with us through the 2026 Core77 Design Awards. Enter the C77DA before February 27 to lock in regular pricing.

As we saw here, if your cat damages your sofa, you can perform a kintsugi-style repair with embroidery.

However, if you'd prefer to avoid the problem altogether, you could draw your cat away from the sofa with a scratching post. To prevent living room eyesores, cat furniture company Mau offers this Kona Scratcher, a bent plywood sidetable that conceals a scratching surface:

The scratching surface is just corrugated cardboard. The company sells refills for a whopping $60 per pair, but you could probably make your own with an Amazon box and a Sunday afternoon.

The table runs $400.

German company Schweisstisch24 sells this D28 Tool Trolley, which targets their industrial welding clients. The beefy trolley, designed to hold clamps, squares and tools, has a load capacity of 240kg (529 lbs).

Because the company knows a thing or two about welding, they've come up with a production trick to cut the manufacturing time of these trolleys. Before welding the tubular pegs to the steel plate, they first run those parts through a laser cutter:

"This makes our production process significantly faster," they explain, "as nothing needs to be aligned before welding."

No measuring, no squaring parts up, no clamping in place. Smart.

We're excited to help the Autodesk Fusion announce the third annual Autodesk Fusion Prize as part of the 2026 Core77 Design Awards. This award recognizes the most outstanding project that utilized Autodesk Fusion product development software from all entries in this year's awards program – student and professional, across all 20 categories. This recognition not only highlights the winner's exceptional work but also underscores their ability to leverage advanced, modern design tools to create impactful solutions.

What is Autodesk Fusion?

If you're not familiar with Autodesk Fusion, let's start there. Autodesk Fusion is a cloud-based 3D CAD, CAM, CAE and PCB design tool for product design and manufacturing. It combines industrial and mechanical design, simulation, collaboration/data management, and machining in a single product. Fusion is widely used by designers, engineers, and manufacturers to streamline their product development process from concept to production.

Last Year's Winner

The judges at Autodesk selected LIF – designed for all abilities as the winner of the Autodesk Fusion Prize for 2025 which is awarded to Artyom Shpagin, Yixin Zhu, and Thorben Westendorf from Umeå University. This project addresses the critical role dehumidifiers play in maintaining healthy indoor environments because they frequently lack user-friendly, accessible interfaces. This team sought to address this shortfall through innovative design.

How to win the 2026 Autodesk Fusion Prize

The first step on the path to winning your own Autodesk Fusion Prize is to enter the Core77 Design Awards. If you used Fusion during your design process, you are eligible to enter. Look for the section on the entry form asking if you used Fusion as part of your work, and if so select "yes" and you're in the running. This award is open to both students and professionals.

The judges will look for projects where the solutions are beautiful, efficient and novel while distilling complexity into a well-designed form factor. Supporting research, prototyping and use of the various professional-grade tools built into Fusion will also make your entry stand out.

This is an incredible opportunity to gain recognition for your work and to be celebrated by Core77, Autodesk, and the wider design community. Don't miss your chance to vie for the Autodesk Fusion Prize and showcase your innovative projects to the world. Learn more about the Autodesk Fusion prize here and we look forward to seeing the amazing projects that you have created with Fusion software.