Core77

Daniel Stillman makes a case for process-centered design, concluding that it should be regarded as an opportunity for storytelling through creativity.

Now that stereolithography and extrusion-based 3D printers alike are outgrowing their longtime niche, Editor Ray Hu takes a moment to explore the past, present and future of digital fabrication for the mass market.

Tad Toulis explores a less salient (and less savory) case of biomimicry: the notion of an infectious agent—an outsider—as a metaphor for reconfiguring systems qua organisms.

The young designer offers an inside look at his high-performance bicycle frame concept, created to complement the cutting-edge carbon braiding fabrication method.

Spanning the last 30 years, YUNG HO CHANG + FCJZ: MATERIAL-ISM explores FCJZ's experiments in architecture, design, planning and art together with a detailed study into the different aspects of Yung Ho Chang's practice, such as inhabitation, construction methods, urbanism, tradition, perception, and culture.

We chatted with the artist—Lead Graphic Designer at Specialized and co-founder of MASH—on the occasion of his recent exhibition at the Rapha San Francisco Cycling Club.

An Xiao Mina reports back from her ongoing research efforts in the developing world.

This five-parter on the history of the Mercedes 300SL Gullwing is a must-read for any gearhead.

The interior architect has established himself among the Chinese elite—now he looks to make his name in the West.

While we'd seen several ultra-high-end bicycle concepts of late, designer Ben Wilson has come up with a rather more utilitarian take on a two-wheeler for urban settings.

We highly recommend this guide to best practices in contemporary packaging design. Reviewd by Perrin Drumm

Kate Aronowitz, the Director of Design of the Silicon Valley company, shares an exclusive look at the inner workings of the seminal social network.

The multinational design consultancy offers an in-depth case study on creating a handheld educational device for the next generation of tech-savvy students.

A hobbyist launches an open source SLA 3D-printer company from the American heartland, thanks to Kickstarter: on the occasion of World Maker Faire 2012, Mike Joyce shared the story behind his one-man operation.

In his latest report from Qingdao, Roland Boal gets over his culture shock to articulate Occidental insight into the Chinese obsession with pure spectacle.

When the Corning Museum of Glass recently invited Tim Dubitsky to participate in their GlassLab, the Hawai'i-based designer and farmer took the opportunity to make a vessel for his homebrewed ginger beer.

An outbreak of invasive mountain pine beetles spreads from Colorado to British Columbia and Mexico: a four-part look at recovering the afflicted raw materials.

The Tri-State Area was ravaged by a hundred-year storm in the final days of October 2012. We made it through relatively unscathed, but many of our friends and neighbors did not...

A team of researchers recently developed novel applications for 3D-printed objects, thanks in part to high-resolution stereolithography.

Kara Pecknold offers a closer look at GoldieBlox, a construction toy for girls. Developed by Debbie Sterling, the toy is intended to promote the education of girls and more specifically, their science and math skills.

This past summer, a Pratt undergrad took a road that is much less traveled, building (and inhabiting) his very own tiny house.

Going Public, Gestalten's latest publication, features the most innovative and exciting uses of public space from around the world, from dense city centers to forgotten freeway underpasses to distant forests and fjords. Reviewed by Perrin Drumm.

Check out all of our coverage of the second annual Beijing Design Week in one place.

Jon Winebrenner talks about what certain designers and Ferraris have in common: "they run fast and hot... Ideas for these designers come fast and furious... They are designers that live with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder—ADHD or ADD for short."

Professor John Wood argues for a more nuanced approach to design, moving beyond the outdated legacy of myopic humanism towards a more conscientious approach to design, from a culture that celebrates consumption to one that takes context into account.

Senior Interaction Designer Mo Duffy shares her experience on crafting the invisible, hitting the ground running at her first job, graphic design as an icebreaker and more.

Digital cartography gets hyperlocal in Parsons grad Jonathan Baldwin's Tide Pools, a community-generated and -targeted map that can only be accessed via mesh network.

In the second chapter of his series on Product Licensing, Bruce Tharp of materious provides detailed advice on how to actually turn a profit by licensing your designs.

Attorney Stacy Wu breaks down what designers need to know about the shift beyond '.com' towards new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), such as .music, .Nike, .Africa.

Earlier this year, our longtime contributor Don Lehman undertook a comprehensive how-to guide for would-be 'Crowdfunding Revolutionaries.' With the recent announcement of policy changes for Product Design and Hardware projects, Don offers his two cents on the implications of the new rules, as well as an open letter to Kickstarter on behalf of the industrial design community.

A perennial highlight of the Tri-state event calendar, the family-friendly Faire is a two-day celebration of how the focused creativity of play can be an exploratory process that eventually benefits society as work.

Drawing on the experiences of a suggestively-termed group of "extreme users," designer Ben Pawle hopes to bring innovation to prophylactic packaging.

Hipstomp provides a four-part history of paper-based navigation in the pre-GPS era.

The twofold characterization of Sebastian Errazuriz as a designer and an artist has bedeviled his endeavors for over a decade now. This much is apparent in the dialectical introductory texts to his first monograph—to say nothing of the work itself, which resists characterization as it hovers in the narrow space between understatement and overstatement.

One of our biggest single photo galleries, plus all of our London coverage from September 2012 in one place.

IxD veteran Dave Malouf writes: "We are about to reach the climax of a war among multi-national technology companies. The chess pieces of this war will be intellectual property (IP). In all war, there is collateral damage and in the IP battles that damage is two-fold effecting consumers and smaller technology companies..."

Attorney Michael Hages explores the ins and outs of patent law in this four-part primer on intellectual property.

We've rounded up several informational videos in this handy survey of various methods of 3D-printing metal.

India's Tata Motors are working with the engineering experts at MDI on a diminutive urban vehicle that runs on compressed air.

Esteemed English engineer and invetor Alex Moulton passed away just a few months after this short film was released. We took a look at the history of his eponymous bicycle company on the occasion of their 50th Anniversary, for which "Moulton Bicycle Company - Made in England" was produced.

Dr. James Self presents an interest thesis regarding the underlying premise of design, namely that "design is to engage with an exploration of ideas towards the yet to be."

Filmmaker Gary Hustwit has teamed up with photographer Jon Pack for his latest project, a visual document of former Olympic sites in varying states of ruin or renewal. NYC's Storefront for Art and Architecture hosted an exhibition of selected images of the work-in-progress during the London games.

A mysterious entry for the James Dyson Award raises questions about the boundaries of conceptual design for which innovation comes at the expense of practicality and safety.

The mononymous musician partners with indie publisher McSweeney's for his unconventional 12th 'studio album,' a dossier of sheet music that is intended to be a crowdsourced affair.

Sam Dunne visited the group exhibition, which explores the extraordinary ways people have attempted to improve, adapt and enhance their body's performance throughout history.

From Paris to Brasília, Seoul to San Francisco, Chengdu to Brooklyn, we hope you enjoyed tuning into our global celebration of design excellence! Thanks to all those who participated in this year's program and a special thank you to our jury teams who had the tremendous job of reviewing this year's submissions—we couldn't have done it without you!

We've been fans of Outlier since they first launched, and as designers, cyclists and 21st-Century urbanites, we're duly impressed with Abe and Tyler's continued commitment to innovation in apparel and accessories. The Brooklyn-based brand has built an ever-growing cult following over the years, and we're pleased to present an inside look at their rigorous design process.

The Noun Project collects, organizes and adds to the lexicon of highly recognizable symbols that form the world's visual language so they can be shared in a fun and meaningful way. The symbols are free, simple and high-quality—not to mention truly delightful. Founders Edward Boatman and Sofya Polyakov share how a shared visual language can be the connective tissue across disciplines and geographies, and why you don't need to be a designer to be an effective communicator and change-maker.

The inimitable Don Norman dismantles some basic conventions of user interface design... leaving us with nary a sense of direction for the future.

In order to bring their mobile GlassLab to Governors Island, the folks at the Corning Museum of Glass had to schlep the custom-built tractor trailer from the Finger Lakes region down to Jersey, completing the 200+ mile journey by barge. The series of live glassmaking demonstrations affirm that the trek was well worth the effort: the Corning team offers an experience that is at once informative and spectacular—that they're masters of the craft is a given.

Now that Cape Town has officially accepted the title of World Design Capital 2014—a first for Africa and a first for the Global South—the city's mayor has appointed an industrial designer, Richard Perez, to help the municipality to internalize design thinking. We spoke to the designer, who holds Masters degrees from both the RCA and the University of Cape Town, about his new role and how to elevate the WDC2014 program beyond a year-long festival.

In the second essay on the future of transporation, our own Ray Hu examines how two seemingly disparate solutions actually represent fundamentally diverging approaches to a widely-recognized problem in urban planning.

Designer Roland Boal "decided to give up a cozy life in West London and move to Qingdao, China, to head up the first overseas office for one of the world's leading industrial design consultancies, Priestmangoode." He shares his experiences as a designer and an expat.

While Kickstarter has lowered the cost of entry for young upstarts and industry veterans alike, there's something to be said for working hard and saving up so you have some 'liquid assets' in the ol' rainy day fund when inspiration strikes. That's what Aaron Panone and Joshua Resnikoff did to realize their wildly successful Cuppow, which has since proven its usefulness by facilitating the production of this very publication, via daily doses of caffeine...

We asked and you delivered! Earlier this summer we asked you to help us redesign the Designed in USA brand certification logomark. Core77's LinYee Yuan and Lance Hussey of RKS evaluated a strong pool of submissions, and after much deliberation, we're pleased to announce the winners.

A dubious folding sewing machine concept is the rendering that launches a thousand comments concerning the question of fantasy vs feasibility.

Book Editor Rob Blinn breaks down this comprehensive guide to contemporary manufacturing processes, a handy reference for practicing designers of all stripes.

This year's Royal College of Art annual summer show included work by the greatest number of graduating students in the college's 175-year history. Nearly 500 art and design postgraduate students from more than 40 countries exhibited the results of their creative undertakings during the past two years in what is considered to be one of London's most prestigious creative hubs.

Now that he's completed his degree, our own Dave Seliger is ready to hightail it out of Hanover and discover America—specifically, the current 'state' of American design. Over the course of ten whopping blogposts, Dave stopped in some two dozen cities in nearly as many states, and we've got all of the roving reporting from his 5,000+ mile circuit around these United States in one place.

Bruce Tharp kicks off his column on product licensing in an age open innovation. He contends that product designers—with the volume of innovative ideas they can generate, their understanding of the product development process, and with their ability to visually communicate—are uniquely suited to become the darlings of the product licensing world.

The last weekend in June saw the perennial celebration of cycling and its various subcultures as Brendt Barbur's inimitable Bicycle Film Festival entered its second decade. Even as the popularity of pedal-powered transportation continues to grow, this year sees a more laid-back schedule, hearkening to the festival's grassroots origins.

Tad Toulis tackles the current state of the design profession, specifically how practitioners and their employers alike must embrace the tech-inflected atmosphere of entrepreneurship in order to evolve.

The leader in athletic apparel and footwear has some new tricks up (or rather, on) its sleeve for our fastest, fittest athletes as they step up to the world stage. Plus, streetwise sportswear for Olympians as they earn their places on the podiums throughout London.

We couldn't pass up an opportunity to see what's new and what's next in Japanese housewares at the annual InteriorLifestyle Tokyo show.

The 10th year of Berlin's annual design festival featured everything from the official "Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland" design award to a handful of satellite shows.

A thought-provoking essay on the upside of bad ideas during the ideation (or if you prefer, brainstorming) process, and why 'bad' doesn't necessarily mean 'not good.'

Our friends at Kikkerland celebrated their 20th Anniversary at the ICFF this year, taking the opportunity to reflect on how they've grown over the past two decades. From founder Jan van der Lande's houseboat on the Hudson to their current international design studio, we're pleased to present exclusive excerpts and a Q&A with Jan.

Interdisciplinary designer Dawn Danby shares invaluable insights into a more focused, nuanced approach to sustainable design.

Our own An Xiao Mina spoke to gamemaster Tessa Finlev of Catalysts for Change on the occasion of their recent 48-hour brainstorming marathon, built on the Foresight Engine online gaming platform.

Locals made a strong showing at ICFF and elsewhere in NYC this May... though we might be biased in our opinion that our own All City All Stars show (gallery below) was the highlight.

All of our coverage from the Salone and its ever-expanding universe of annual satellite events: from the canals of Zona Tortona to the warehouses of Ventura Lambrate, we tracked down the best of Milan 2012.

We gladly made rounds at the Skylight Soho for the second year of New York's premier bike expo. We've got a full event recap, as well as a more in-depth framebuilder highlight and plenty of photos from the weekend event.

It's hard to go wrong with a visual anthology from Gestalten. Reviewed by Perrin Drumm.

For NY Design Week 2012, we called on our fellow Gothamites to show us the current state of design in the five boroughs (including Staten Island), and they did not disappoint.

Dave Seliger interviews BRD Motorcycles CEO Marc Fenigstein on their slick electric bikes. It's not rocket science (though engineering training helps): "Nobody needs electric motorcycles," says Marc, "but we found a way to make everyone want electric: by making them go faster."

Rob Achten, VP of Product & Creative Director of Icebreaker, offers an inside look at the New Zealand apparel company's vertically integrated business model.

Rachel Lehrer examines the somatic side of user experience design in an important yet often overlooked setting. The MFA candidate presents her findings and insight into hospital hygiene in a two-part case study.

Carly Ayres reports live from three days at the Savannah College of Art and Design, thoroughly illustrating how the second annual Design Ethos event is not just a conference, it's a 'do-ference.'

Contributor Raymond Jepson reflects on the renowned car designer's legacy.

Jan Chipchase of frog design offers his expertise on 'Design Imperialism,' drawing on his extensive experience in ethnographic research.

Highlights from the "Ideas and Inspiration" blog's annual conference.

We celebrated the launch of Sight Unseen's first collection of design stories, Paper View, at NYC's Creatures of Comfort.

Marking the end of auto exhibition season, this year's show was decidedly mainstream with an abundance of plug-in electric options on parade; see our favs in our gallery.

Inspired by recent stories on European cycling culture and autonomous cars—by Streetsblog and Wired's Tom Vanderbilt, respectively—our own Ray Hu explores the future of transportation: maybe computer-guided automobiles are the perfect complement to pedal-powered vehicles.

Sydney-based designer Steve Baty offers a close examination of intent as a first principle of design, providing a detailed analysis of the ideation process that precedes and informs prototyping and actual execution.

Like many All-American entrepreneurial stories we're hearing these days, the Kickstarter debut of SoCal studio Kinetic Custom Machine is a timely tale of a couple young fellas with a dream and a CNC machine.

Design Indaba has certainly put South Africa on the design map as an annual destination for design practitioners the world over. René Redzepi of NOMA and architect Dan Pearson offered a pair of standout of talks at this year's conference.

Don't miss our exclusive coverage of the annual show, including photos, videos and interviews live from Chicago!

Perrin Drumm stops by the Brooklyn graphic design studio to discover how the five-person operation led by principals Sarah Gephart and Alicia Cheng tackles up to ten projects at a time.

The Danish architecture studio recently designed the interior of the new Food Lab at Copenhagen's renowned NOMA

Kolko offers his insight on Horst Rittel's notion of 'wicked problems,' and how designers might begin to tackle them. Reviewed by Rob Blinn.

Following their open call for bespoke objects "designed to protect you in case of a break-in or some other 'threatening' situation," the AmDC selected 54 projects to exhibit in the springbenefit show.

Ento is a roadmap for introducing edible insects to the Western diet, a project undertaken by a team of four postgraduate students from the RCA and Imperial College London who wanted to tackle the issue of food supply in an increasingly hungry world. Motivated by the failings of the livestock industry, the team wanted to see how this provocative new food source could be introduced to Western diets by driving cultural change through understanding human perceptions, using strategic design thinking, as well as through creating innovative and compelling experiences.

Nike's continued materials experimentation has yielded Flyknit, their proprietary blend of "yarns and fabric variations [that] are precisely engineered only where they are needed for a featherweight, formfitting and virtually seamless upper." The benefits are threefold: 1) lighter weight; 2) less waste, as the Flyknit materials comprise the bulk of the upper; and 3) combining the comfort of a sock with the structure and support of a traditional sneaker.

Design leader Robert Suarez and Sustainability Strategist Kathy Zarsky have been exploring this question through their studies in biomimicry with Biomimcry 3.8, the world-leading organization that harnesses nature's strategies to inspire new kinds of creative problem-solving. In this conversation with the Designers Accord, we learn from Robert and Kathy not just what they ask nature but why they ask nature, and how it makes them better designers.

They call it the first and last mile, an urban planning issue that has only recently crossed the threshold of collective consciousness, thanks to the ZipCar and bikeshare programs alike. A couple new options for folding electric bikes offer a promising new solution.

Designer Don Lehman explores the pros & cons and ins & outs of the growing popularity of crowdfunding platforms as a venue for product design. His mission: to "describe what it's like to run a product design project in 2012, the early, Wild-West days of Crowdfunding."

We intentionally omitted one of our favorite iF Product Design Gold Award-Winners from our list of notables because we had the opportunity to talk to two members of Motorola Solutions' design team. Scott Richards, a Senior Industrial Designer, and Mariah Levitt, a Human Factors Engineer for Motorola Solutions, were happy to share several insights into the premise and process of the APX XE Remote Speaker Microphone.

"Swept Away: Dust, Ashes and Dirt in Contemporary Art and Design" is MAD's latest exhibition in their ongoing examination of materials and process. As its title suggests, all of the works are composed of materials that are overlooked or otherwise ignored, if not eliminated altogether—unsavory scourges of sanitation that accrue over time, infinitesimal residues man-made and otherwise—dirt, dust, soot, ash, smoke and sand.

Now in it's fifth year, the London Design Museum's Designs of the Year exhibition presents a snapshot of industry heavyweights across seven categories including: Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Product Design, and Transport. The show features 89 nominations, the winner for each category and overall winner for 2012 will be announced later this year in April.

The online data giant's own UX wizards offers a fascinating look into the design process and considerations behind leader in digital cartography. A must-read not only for designers but anyone who uses Google Maps—in other words, just about everyone.

Feast your eyes on these remarkably detailed vehicular sculptures by Michael Ulman. The Boston-based artist uses found objects as his medium, abiding by the maxim that "God is in the details."

SVA Design Criticism MFA candidate Barbara Eldredge tackled the annual tradeshow in a series of divisive reports on trends from both the floor and the shooting range. The outspoken readers' reactions were at least as interesting as the trip to Las Vegas...

Apple has continued to innovate despite the various storylines of Steve Jobs' passing, labor questions, bullish sales figures and persistent hardware rumors as the tech titan looks to reinvent the textbook with iBooks 2.

The founder of the San Francisco consultancy offers some insights into the thoughtully-designed new line of "lifestyle and welllness products designed to transform life's small tasks into moments of joy."

As Asian businesses such as Samsung, Huawei, Baidu, Lenovo and HTC (to name a few) increasingly flex their economic clout on a global stage, Daniel Szuc and Josephine Wong note that UX is paramount to their continued success

The Executive Creative Director of frog provides a comprehensive overview on the current state of ethnographic recruiting via Facebook et al.

Michael DiTullo shares his story about transitioning from student to professional, including a detour at an electronics superstore.

Our editorial team is pleased to bring you a comprehensive look at 2011: we pored over some 2000+ posts' worth of content to bring you the best of the best. Over the course of six heavily-linked posts, we've compiled our favorites as well as yours, from design for social impact to soon-to-be-classic viral videos.

We were glad to have Nikkei Design Magazine Editor Junya Hirokawa reporting from Design Tide Tokyo this year. Hirokawa demonstrated his intimate knowledge of the contemporary Japanese scene by inviting his designer friends to share their top picks from the exhibition.

Stephen Clune and Simon Lockrey present a very thorough and timely case for the "Double Diamond" method of Life Cycle Assessment. Drawing on their research at the Centre for Design, Clune and Lockrey cite existing examples as evidence that sustainability is deeper than many companies may think.

Now in its seventh year, Design Miami has grown 50% bigger since last year... and, with any luck, is that much better this time around. The gallery, as always, is a feast for the eyes for those of you who couldn't make it down there.

In this year-end entry for our Apocalypse 2012 series, our Editor-in-Chief Allan Chochinov breaks down the diametric forces that dictate design thinking today, and how we must proceed in order to surmount these challenges.

London's Berg gave us a little insight into the future with the unveiling of the "Little Printer," a desktop device that is more or less exactly what it sounds like. We spoke to Principal & CEO Matt Webb about the invention as the first manifestation of their concurrently-launched BERG Cloud technology.

Cameron Tonkinwise of the New School's Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability (DESIS) Lab examines community-based solutions for sustainability in this four-part series.

Looking towards the future of design at the grand opening of a state-of-the-art design school in Pune, India, brainchild of entrepreneur D.S. Kulkarni and French school Supinfocom.

Robert Blinn's review of Maggie Macnab's second book is as comprehensive as the book itself... and equally as informative concerning its subject matter.

In the first post of our year-long "Apocalypse 2012" series, Jon Kolko makes sense of the myriad crises—from the recent past and in the recent future—so that we, as a society, might collectively design a better future.

Core77's resident graphic novel enthusiast Dave Seliger walks us through his favorites—from classics such as Akira to dark horses (no pun intended) such as Batwoman: Elegy—and why they're must-reads.

IDEO brings their human-centered design philosophy to housing that is specifically designed for returning veterans. As per our interview with project lead Altay Sendil, "The Wounded Warrior Home Project is a new model for accessible homes on military bases." Read on for more.

Our expert sketchnote-taker Craighton Berman (a.k.a. Fueledbycoffee) presents his latest edition of "visual notes that are drawn in real time."

Core77 Book Editor Robert Blinn shares his thoughts on Klara Sjolen's eye-catching second book on design sketching.

Panthea Lee of Reboot tackles the topic of design as an underutilized but paramount aspect of international development projects in a comprehensive seven-part series.

We put Melbourne-based bike-light producers Knog to the test on the mean streets of NYC, and we're pleased to report that no one was harmed in the making of this review.

Matt Brown traces the origins of more awesome apocrypha: from "First-Love" Baseball Bats to doily decoders, Trace Hurns is the subject of yet another modern myth.

The wide release of the filmmaker's third straight design documentary is the occasion for reflection on how his outsiders' naïete is precisely why his films are so interesting.

The annual design exhibition celebrates its tenth year in Eindhoven. A must-see for anyone who's interested in what's new and next in design.

This is the first piece in a series exploring cork from designer and educator Daniel Michalik. He designs furniture and objects using underutilized materials and manufacturing methods. Recent explorations have included cork from sustainably managed forests and lumber from structures around New York City.As a prelude to this series, Michalik produced a beautiful photo gallery documenting the cork harvest.

Our clogger Dave Seliger provided comprehensive coverage of the annual student-organized conference, including an excellent interview with Panthea Lee of Reboot.

Liz Gerber, a designer, entrepreneur, and an academic, currently teaches design and innovation at the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University. As a co-founder of Design for America, an award winning national network of designers using human centered design to make social and local impact, Gerber is passionate about building innovation capacity in organizations.

Ziba Design Director Paul Backett wraps up his five-part series on design education with a postscript and prescription for posterity.

Hundreds of photos from a half-dozen events that comprise the ever-growing London Design Festival.

Don Norman's latest rant: "Design education is led by craftspeople who are proud of their skills and they see no reason to change. Design education is mired in the past." Read all about it.

Nature is taking over New York! Or, at least a sizable plot in Kips Bay on the East side of Manhattan. And, at least temporarily, until the farm built on milk crates easily picks up and moves to its next home. For now, the farm and its 7,000 fruit and vegetable plants, in 85 varieties, are thriving on a "stalled" site, right next to Riverpark, the newest Tom Collicchio venture and proprietors of the farm.

Willem Van Lancker shows us how Mad Men's Don Draper predicted the latest shift towards truly human-centered design. Between Facebook and Apple, Van Lancker argues that technology is finally at the tipping point of humanizing digital interaction.

Senior Vice President & CMO of GE Beth Comstock reflects on the hitting the seven billion mark and what the future holds—specifically, how design thinking will come into play.

Our Book Editor Robert Blinn analyzes Millman's interviews with the likes of Grant McCracken, Malcolm Gladwell and Karim Rashid, and how Brand Thinking encapsulates the conflict inherent in branding today.

Industrial Design Director of Ziba Paul Backett shares five pillars for rethinking design education. Many of today's Industrial Design programs ask their students to be social scientists, technologists, business analysts and brand strategists—just about everything. The reality is, most of these skills are best learned through experience on the job, and the traditional ID skill set still makes for the best foundation: framing the problem, exploring ideas, making prototypes and storytelling.

For the past year, Core77 Editor-in-Chief Allan Chochinov has been putting together the bones of a new MFA program in Products of Design at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, welcoming its first students in the fall of 2012. So now it's a year in and a year away, Chochinov has taken time to document some of the thoughts and strategies and arguments for the new program, and lay the groundwork for the certain learning ahead.

September saw the relaunch of our Design Directory, a searchable directory listing professional design firms offering services across a wide array of fields. New features introduced in the redesign include improved searching with larger, image-based results, more browsing options, and a focus on individual projects to showcase firms' work. Monthly plans and add-ons are available to meet firms' exposure needs, and the new design is built on top of the detailed firm listings and increased traffic our SEO and strategic partnership with Bloomberg Businessweek provides.

2.5 Weeks + 1000 Miles + 4 States + Countless Encounters. Follow Cindy Gilbert, director of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design program on Sustainable Design, as she bikes 1000+ miles from Montana to Minnesota in an effort to raise need-based scholarship money for students.

Incase was kind enough to provide us with their full line-up of all new headphones, their first foray into the electronics category. Read our first impressions here.

Featuring everyone from large international design houses to small independent designers, this season's fair was all about getting business done with a few new products launches. Trends include bamboo kitchenware, chalkboard paint and one-liner gift items.

Preeminent origami artist Paul Jackson distills years of teaching the 3D art of paper folding to design students in a beautifully illustrated book. This book should inspire readers to find out how far a form can go; how else it can be applied and transformed.
Reviewed by Daniel Stillman.

With computer workstations chaining us to a staid work environment, sit/stand desks offer a dynamic trend in office design. Every week in August, we took an in-depth look at some of our favorite options on the market. See how desks from Geekdesk, Haworth, Steelcase, Humanscale & Giraffe stand up to one another.

This year's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for corporate and institutional achievement was given to furniture design company Knoll. Andrew Cogan, CEO of the Pennsylvania-based company since 2001, chatted with Helen Walters about the company's ongoing commitment to innovation, describing how Knoll has learned to evolve and adapt along with the market even as it continues to emphasize the importance of design.

The Museum of Modern Art's most recent exploration on design, Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects, explores the shifting terrain of design: nowadays, designers are not only expected to create form and function in objects but they also must impart meaning. With the aid of recent technological innovations, objects are now expected to interface with users and "contemporary designers now write the initial scripts that are the foundations for these useful and satisfying conversations."

Norman's Law of Product Development: A project is behind schedule and over its budget the day it is started. Don Norman weighs in on design research and argues for alternative strategies for design in his newest op-ed column. Here are five very different arguments to support the practical reality of starting by designing, not through design research.

Core77 & Phaidon were pleased to celebrate the launch of Dieter Rams: As Little Design As Possible with an exhibition and panel discussion. We received 60+ drawings from Rams fans the world over; see the finalists here.

August bore witness to tantalizing teaser images and video of Wacom's new digital pen, which tracks and records actual (ink) penstrokes with a special sensor, freeing draftsmen from the cumbersome tablet.

In his book Car Guys Versus Bean Counters, Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman in charge of product development, chronicles the very wary GM of 2001 through it's first still-born turn-around, it's acquisition by the American and Canadian governments and it's new born success since 2009.
Reviewed by Ray Jepson.

It's Tool Time! Each week, a selection of our favorite designers from the worlds of craft, hack and DIY to help curate a selection of gifts and gets to inspire you to get your hands dirty and dive, safety-goggles first, into the season for making!

This is the moment you've been waiting for. Set your clocks because beginning next week, we'll be broadcasting LIVE over 10 days from eight countries with our distinguished judges announcing the winners from 15 categories. Drumroll please...

Columnist Don Norman deliberates over his frequent state of "simultaneous dismay and delightful admiration about the end product of designers." Practical versus delightful: Which do you prefer?

"Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities" presents an eclectic range of dioramas, models and site specific installations alongside photographs and video created from the hand-built works.

Columnist Tad Toulis weighs in on the nature of successful collaboration. Like two pugilists in a ring, creative collaborations require passion, ambition and a good dose of competitiveness if they're to deliver results that matter.

This summer, Core77 & Coroflot have partnered with Blurb, the online photo book publisher, to bring our readers the Coroflot Genius Gallery, a contest celebrating some of our members' most inspired creative visual work.

Returning to the Bulgarian capital for it's third year, Sofia Design Week took over the city for eight days with a packed schedule of exhibitions, design talks and workshops. The festival—a relatively newcomer to the design calendar—is as much about generating design awareness amongst the locals as it is a platform for showcasing new and emerging design talent.

We review Jonathan Olivares' dissertation on office chairs, a dissertation on the novel features from a curated selection: With full color photographs and breakdowns of chair bases, armrests and more...
Reviewed by Robert Blinn

Ten years after Cradle to Cradle, design for sustainability is now moving towards a new qualitatively different area of exploration: designing to build adaptive capacity—designing for resilience, designing for resourcefulness and designing for empathy.

Core77 contributor Aart Van Bezooyen and Paula Raché embark on a 184-day creative journey around the world conducting lectures, student workshops, exchanging ideas with designers and taking notes on sustainability examples and challenges in the cities they visit.

Not only did Core77 provide live video coverage from this year's Home and Housewares Show in Chicago but we also have product highlights of all our favorite water bottles, rainbow-colored kitchen gadgets, indoor fire pits and housewares bobbles collected in one easy photo gallery!

The top sustainability experts in the world share 7 things every designer should know about their field of sustainability in a short-video series curated by the Designers Accord.

As the notion of design expands, it becomes more and more important for designers to continue to raise the curtain and democratize design by simply articulating what design is. Design educator Sami Nerenberg presents a simple and straightforward framework for tackling the question, "What is design?"

The first history of design we've seen in quite a while that also gives editorial space comparing the arc of industrial design in the United States as compared to Europe. The book opens tracking the "Twin Revolutions" in industry in the United States and Britain, walking the reader from the origins of design in both countries into the seamless multinational production effort that is most ID today. Reviewed by Robert Blinn.