DesignBytes

Last June, Montblanc announced the M, the product of a new partnership with Marc Newson, arguably one of the most influential designers alive today. With this partnership, the first of its kind for the luxury brand, fountain pens take a long-awaited step into the future.

In many ways, 50 years ago at the founding of the NEA, a door was opened into the creative economy and innovative cultural communities to come. Art stimulates, engages and makes us whole.

Transport for London will retrofit windows that open on the upper decks of Thomas Heatherwick's new London buses as the designer originally intended, after passengers complained about the heat.

Chloe Louisin's Wat'bag solves a problem faced by millions and will be developed by Doctors Without Borders.

The design and production worlds seem to come from opposite ends of the spectrum. While designers tend to be creative and highly visual, converters are concerned with structural integrity. Yet, despite their different approaches, they need one another in order to come up with the total package.

Etsy is introducing Etsy Manufacturing, a new service that will link sellers—who often make items by hand—with small manufacturing companies.

Sorry, Apple. Turns out designers don’t use iPads. 64 percent of designers don’t brainstorm with software. They do it with pen and paper.

Herman Miller mastermind George Nelson once said he (Russel Wright) was the designer most responsible for the shift to modern design in the 1930s.

“Ultimately, this is our focus,” says Jonathan Ive, squeezing a new iPhone 6S. 3D Touch “is something we’ve been working on for a long time—multi, multi, multi years.”

Being a leader does not mean being the one that fixes everything. It means empowering others to find solutions. To design is to look at the world and say, “Why is it like that? How would I make it different?”

Shopper-storytellers are now influencers. And they know it.

JanSport asked “What are the things we carry with us? How do we carry them? And how is that changing?”

It's back-to-school time, and you don't have to look very far to find evidence that adults, too, like buying supplies to feel organized.

There is a running joke: “I got so good at designing, I never get to do it anymore.” For young designers, the message is that to be successful, you need to stop designing and start directing.

Life’s too short to build something nobody wants…

Just how much consideration do you give to the colour of your clothes? Flitting through the clothes store rails, you're probably processing two or three garments a second, until one inexplicably stands out and makes it to the changing room. Colour will probably play an important but not decisive role. But is there a subconscious process going into your decision?

Pretty much any time we design something new, we start at the middle. This is all fine and good. Starting at the middle is not the problem. The problem is that we often neglect to design the beginning until the very end.

A series of 3D-printed sculptures designed with proportions corresponding to the Fibonacci Sequence come alive when spun.

We’re using systems and techniques that are thousands of years old. The role of time in society has changed, the technology has changed, yet the imperfect system lives on.

Store bought shoes rarely fit perfectly, and bespoke options are too expensive for many. Italian shoe maker Vibram, more commonly known for its military footwear, has come up with a solution to this problem with its Furoshiki Shoes. Furoshiki (風呂敷) are a traditional Japanese wrapping cloth used for transporting goods. Furoshiki shoes, created by Japanese designer Masaya Hashimoto, have no laces and instead wrap around the foot–hence the name–fastening with velcro.

Don Norman, IDSA, delivers a talk on design and emotion. (from 2003)

People living with dementia commonly spill their food, are left confused by intricate patterns on dinnerware and frequently eat less than they should out of frustration.

If you’ve got a hankering for nugget ice–you know, the tiny, chewable frozen pellets that restaurant chains like Sonic use to chill sodas–then GE has an appliance for you. Aside from feeding one of the stranger compulsions in American dining, the Opal is different from other GE appliances in other ways: It wasn’t the brainchild of GE industrial designers and engineers, nor will it hit Home Depot shelves when it first appears. Instead, the Opal is the product of crowd-sourcing through GE’s new online community, FirstBuild, and it’ll be sold only through crowdfunding site Indiegogo.

... Isn’t crazy-expensive. The MultiFab was thrown together with roughly $7,000 of off-the-shelf parts.