Category Archives: futurecraft

font quiz

gabriel blue cira designed font flash cards for graphic designers and other ‘yupsters’ (between yuppies and hipsters). he might even make you a set or sell them one day at yupsta.com.

Also posted in 2d, visualization | Comments closed

font building blocks

yesterday i stopped by the bruno munari show in shiodome-italia and among all of the design classics one design stood out for me: alfabeto e fantasia, a set of tiles for children to write, but instead of using already-made letters, it relies on geometric primitives from which to compose – and invent – characters. of […]

Also posted in 2d, children, fabrication, open objects, product design, tangible | Comments closed

cuff-webs

tsitsi gora and ryan murphy made this ‘political prosthetic’ in futurecraft – a giant chinese finger trap made to transform handshakes into a touching experience. the elegant extension of shirtsleeves into this grasping cuff helps to make the perfunctory gesture mean something, for real.

Also posted in fashion, materials, product design, soft/glowing | Comments closed

consumers and the machine

alex rosenberg makes blown glass objects the old-fashioned way, and he made a video comparing his slow, hand-crafted process to industrial mass-production. whereas his objects are hand-crafted and locally made, retailers sell cheap, machine-made glassware at a fraction of the cost of real blown glass. the machines are faster, but not necessarily better. blow-molding leaves […]

Also posted in conviviality, customization, fabrication, marketing, materials, open objects, possessed products, product design | Comments closed

free wheels

the whirlwind project is designing and freely licensing an open-source wheelchair design that was designed by and can be manufactured locally by individuals in wheelchairs. the chair has significant advantages over traditional models, most notably because it can be used to go up and down stairs, can handle rough terrain and allows a parent to […]

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future shop

etsy is a revolutionary on-line store where individual makers can sell their goods. unlike existing shopping portals etsy relies on novel means of promoting individual sellers and motivating a social network. for example, there is a ‘buy local’ button that shows you only designers within your neighborhood, a ‘time machine’ that reveals what is being […]

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3D sharing

we have flickr for sharing pictures and youtube for sharing videos, but how can we share three-dimensional work on-line? aerospace pioneer dassault has released a beta website that combines a free 3D modeling software with a social platform to upload and download free 3d models and a browser plug-in that allows you to browse the […]

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design for keeps

in today’s homogeneous product landscape it seems that nothing off-the-shelf can compete with a hand-made gift. but few of us have the time or skill to craft presents for each other, so we leave the personal touches to cards and packaging. instead of useless wrappings, why not design products to be unfinished so that the […]

Also posted in environment, fabrication, product design | Comments closed