Digital printers are supposed to create perfect copies. Print something numerous times and it should look exactly the same, down to the last period. But that’s never quite how it turns out. Inkjet prints, in particular, can end up looking more like off-register screenprints
It seems we can’t get enough of the ’80s. Neon, remakes of classic movies, skinny jeans, leg-warmers … okay, can we please skip the leg-warmers? Just when we thought we were done with revisiting the decade, we spot a product that reminds us the ’80s are back in force.
The nerd fest has begun. Over a hundred thousand fanboys and fangirls, some in elaborate getups, are descending on Comic-Con in San Diego to worship at the altars of character designers, digital animators, writers, and celebrities who get to wear kick-ass armor and save the world.
Lighting designer Lindsey Adelman’s work ranges from the practical to the fantastical, from her sprays of brass armature that look like giant molecular models, to a tangle of rope and bubble glass that evokes a Japanese fishing haul, to a series of spiky, spiny candelabras that would make great centerpieces at a goth wedding. Each of these otherworldly creations take shape in the hands of her 12 employees in a bright, well-lit studio on the Bowery in New York City.
Frustrated by your iPhone’s itsy speaker? (We are.) Jonesing for the sense of accomplishment that comes with building something? (Always.) It’ll take you 30 seconds at most to fold up and stick together eco-made’s eco-amp, a fully recycled paper horn that passively amplifies the sound coming from that underpowered speaker.
CERN’s Large Hadron Collider is a study in superlatives: the world’s largest particle accelerator, housing some of the coldest places in the universe, causes incredibly powerful beams to collide, giving us a glimpse into the nature of the smallest particles. It takes a special kind of designer to see it and think, “I wonder if I could make a home version?”
DIY 3-D printing started out as a humble open source project, but in less than five years has become a big business with a plethora kits, packaged systems, and amazingly low prices.
Early desktop printers were horrible. For the price of thousands of dollars one got lo-res dot matrix printouts on paper that had tractor-feed holes punched in the margins. It wasn’t pretty, but those early models paved the way for high-resolution, low cost laser printing.
You may think of Android as an OS for phones and tablets, but Google’s ambitions run deeper. They’re pitching it as a platform that could run on all kinds of devices. To get developers on board with that plan, the company announced an update to the Android Accessory Development Kit (ADK) 2012 at Google I/O.
Holy handicraft, Batman! As summer’s blockbusters pass through megaplexes faster than speeding bullets, we’ve noticed a trend: superheroes are the greatest designers, inventors, and scrappy do-it-yourselfers we know. Many of our pop-culture icons and sci-fi madcaps achieved greatness not by magic or mutant powers, but with brains and bandsaws. Here’s our top 10 list of the most badass makers in film, who’ve inspired mere mortals everywhere to follow in their footsteps.
You know Craigslist’s Missed Connections, right? The personals page where you log a brief interaction with a stranger who you hope to see again? The posts are a candid, wistful, often hilarious look at interactions — or the lack thereof — between people in the digital age, and beg the question, “Have we become so used to interacting online that we can’t say ‘hi’ in person?”
So you’ve built an amazing new robot or crafted a pop culture homage with Perler beads. Awesome work, but what good is building cool stuff if you can’t get Reddit riled up or make an Etsy sale?
We’re sure this designer, who uses the handle “Vanadium,” isn’t the first to notice how much the Houses in George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series — the books and the show — resemble teams. There are age-old rivalries, free agents, even trades. And of course, each house has their color and mascot, from the Lannisters’ red lions to the grey wolves of Winterfell’s Stark house.
So let’s say you’re big into Star Wars — like, really big into Star Wars — and you’ve amassed a vast collection of toys and figures. You could leave all that stuff in a box in the hope of maintaining its resale value. Or, you could make art with it. Teacher David Eger chose art.
Ever wonder what Steve Jobs would have done if he’d gotten into experimental physics? When CERN scientists announced that they’d probably found the Higgs boson, they got more than their fair share of smack talk from the design community for presenting their discovery in Comic Sans. Even the font’s creator, Vincent Connare, wasn’t impressed.
The hugely popular tabletop game Warhammer 40K is set in the far future and played with 28mm miniature figures. In preparation for Comic-Con, a few fanboys decided to supersize these little Space Marines and built 7-foot-tall, wearable replicas of their armor. Want to make your own? Go for it! It only takes 352 “terribly complicated” steps.
I can’t believe this thing still exists. It’s a tracing of my childhood teddy bear, Jingle—so named for a defunct bell in his right ear. It’s the earliest independently made piece of artwork that I have any record of, and I actually remember creating it. I was 5, and I was doing something I’d do again and again in my life as a maker: breaking rules.
Ever wonder what you’d look like as paperweight? Now you can find out. A new app called OmNomNom (say it out loud, it’s the sound of a chomping jaw) designed by a member of the MakerBot community Thingiverse just made it way easy to transform any image—photo, jpeg, whatever—into a 3-D print, no CAD expertise required.
Back in elementary school, paper planes were a distraction. They were the class clown’s preferred weapon and the bane of teachers everywhere. But some creators took their school-time shenanigans to the pro level, becoming aeronautical engineers, origami artists, world champions, and record setters. From the biggest to the trickiest to the most intricately designed, here are 10 of the most impressive paper planes on the planet.
Electronic music composer Jeff Bryant never imagined that learning to knit would be part of his graduate coursework at California Institute of the Arts. But when his interface design instructor challenged him to build a non-boring MIDI controller device last fall, Bryant found an unlikely musical ally: red yarn. By weaving conductive thread into the yarn, Bryant found that he could manipulate the fiber to control a musical instrument—a decidedly non-boring outcome.
Anyone who has ever walked through an urban center and seen preteens careening off railings and steps can attest to the fact that skateboarding is an occupation marked by creativity. When a city wants to build a park to contain its resident skaters, it turns to California Skateparks, one of the best skate park designers in the world.
It took English lighting designer Bruce Munro a while to come around to the art world, but when he did, he did it in a big way. Munro’s first solo show, Light: Installations by Bruce Munro, covers 23 acres of Longwood Gardens, just outside of Philadelphia. The show, which opened this month and runs through September, comprises 12 installations and a set of sculptures that use a whopping 235 miles of fiber-optic cable.
Raspberry Pi is an ultra-cheap, bare-bones Linux computer. Greg Holloway is an aficionado of 4x4s and RC cars. Together they’re going to make an unmanned solar-powered motorboat that will traverse the Atlantic.
Walt Disney never wanted his park to be completed. “It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world,” he said. Today the heirs to Disney’s legacy continue to push the limits of what is possible, redesigning the whole theme park experience from roller coasters to ice cream to tchotchkes. In 2012, this is the state of the imagination.
SketchUp lets you plot out everything from a closet reorganization to a new home addition. But instead of picking up the program, you’ve been spending your time puzzling over some half-formed treehouse plans. Don’t worry. We brought Matthew McKee, an interior designer with San Francisco bike companies like Mission Workshop, Specialized’s Globe Bicycles and Bicycle Coffee, in for a pep talk.
Guy Cramer was annoyed by the cost of Canada’s newest military uniform redesign. He’d been interested in camo since the ‘80s, when he wore it as a professional paint baller. He decided he could do better, so Cramer invested in a $100 design program, spent an hour retooling the pattern and posted the critique online.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a robot that cheats at rock-paper-scissors by detecting the gesture you’re about to throw. It’s the automated equivalent of your jerk friend hesitating a moment before committing to their move — except that it happens at superhuman speed.
Alongside collections of everyday objects like light-switch covers and felt bags, Rachel Gant’s SF Design Week offerings earlier this month were decidedly in-season. She was showing a series of bags that convert into picnic blankets, and in the store’s window, she put a giant spinning top on display.
Now that summer is upon us, you’ll be seeing the kiddos around more often. What’s up your sleeve to keep ‘em busy and happy during the dog days of summer? Jan Halvarson of the design blog Poppytalk is a master of rounding up crafty and fun projects for all ages. Her site is a veritable bazaar of beautiful and fun things to do for the whole family. I asked Jan to share with us a handful of her favorite DIY projects for children in the summer months.
Gearing up for Comic-Con fatigue? Sure, a swift drink will temporarily take the edge off, but events taking place in a bar around the corner will offer even greater relief. Better than convention center craziness is Trickster, a DIY “creator convention” taking place at the Wine Steals / Proper restaurant and pub down the street.
Slobbering aliens, mutant zombies, and heroic space marines have helped raise over $1.2 million on Kickstarter—and climbing. The 30mm-tall customizable figurines, or minis, are parts in two boardgame projects that the company Cool Mini Or Not (CMON) recently floated out over the funding platform.
forum before function
