To help designers of all levels fine tune their sketching skills, Advanced Design Sketching (in partnership with Autodesk) will be hosting SQ1CON, a two-day conference specifically focused on design sketching. The Advanced Design Sketching organization began as a small summer workshop for a handful of design students, but the students and instructors agreed there should a next step. From there, SQ1CON was born. The event will be held in downtown Chicago at the Motorola Mobility HQ and UIC School of Design on October 6th and 7th.

The conference’s name is right in line with the organization’s mission to help teach the importance of design sketching in a collaborative environment. SQ1 refers to Square 1, a restarting phase designers are all too familiar with. Instead of only highlighting the beauty of a final sketch or design, Advanced Design Sketching hopes SQ1CON will help attendees embrace failure, encourage process and inspire creativity. 

Sketching workshops will be lead by industry professionals, including our good friends Michael DiTullo and Spencer Nugent. During the workshops, you can expect to focus on:

Rapid Visualization, Visual Communication, Marker Rendering, Understanding Hierarchy, Product Relationship, Sketching Techniques, Speed, Sketch Notes and Storytelling

To get an idea of designers you can expect to interact with at the conference, we’ve pulled a few videos straight from the Advanced Design Sketching team. In the videos, each designer discusses their relationship with design sketching while showing off their sweet sketching skills:

Interested in attending SQ1CON? Learn more and purchase tickets here.

For decades we’ve seen the military develop expensive technology—radar, GPS, microwaves—that trickled down to the consumer sector and became affordable. Now the consumer sector is apparently returning the favor.

The U.S. Navy’s Virginia-class submarines are $2.7 billion nuclear-powered fast attack vessels bristling with the latest technology. Old-school periscopes have been ditched in favor of two photonics masts that provide a 360-degree view. To control these masts, a sailor uses a joystick similar to what you’d find in a helicopter.

Note: This is an example of a helicopter control stick, not the actual incumbent design. [Image credit]

A Navy survey seeking pain points turned up complaints about “the controls for the scope,” Lt. J.G Kyle Leonard, an assistant weapons officer, told the Virginian-Pilot newspaper. “It’s kind of clunky in your hand; it’s real heavy.”

Lockheed Martin and the Navy put their heads together and came up with an interesting solution: Use off-the-shelf Xbox controllers instead. 

This not only saves money, but vastly reduces the training time:

The Xbox controller is no different than the ones a lot of crew members grew up playing with. Lockheed Martin says the sailors who tested the controller at its lab were intuitively able to figure out how to use it on their own within minutes, compared to hours of training required for the joystick.

The Xbox controller also is significantly cheaper. The company says the photonic mast handgrip and imaging control panel that cost about $38,000 can be replaced with an Xbox controller that typically costs less than $30.

“That joystick is by no means cheap, and it is only designed to fit on a Virginia-class submarine,” said Senior Chief Mark Eichenlaub, the John Warner’s assistant navigator. “I can go to any video game store and procure an Xbox controller anywhere in the world, so it makes a very easy replacement.”

Camera manufacturer Leica was formed nearly a hundred years ago, but their factory looks like it was built 100 years in the future. They’ve released a video inside their Wetzlar factory that was supposed to draw attention to their cameras, but instead we were stunned by the gleaming, pristine environment and the white-uniform-clad, plastic-hairnet-wearing staff. If you told me these were stills from an upcoming Ridley Scott or Christopher Nolan movie, I’d have believed you.

Here’s the vid:

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the facilities are so photogenic. I looked into it and the factory is integrated into Leica’s “Experience Center,” where visitors can peer into the production facilities through three panoramic windows. The compound also contains a Leica store, gallery and exhibition spaces, a café and a restaurant.

Note that the restaurant is called “Casino,” that’s not an actual casino. Leica presumably prefers to take your money the old-fashioned way, by building desirable products.

If you want to visit the place, it’s about 40 minutes outside of Frankfurt and you can learn more here.

Nike’s Flyknit has become synonymous with the brand, now used in everything from sneakers to sports bras. The knit material is more sustainable than many materials used in footwear and fashion, mainly due to its minimal waste production. But since Flyknit’s conception in 2012, Nike has been more focused on silhouette than material development, providing a hole for competitors to fill with a plethora of sustainable options. 

It seems as though a fire has been lit under Nike’s butt, as the company just announced its latest sustainable effort, Flyleather. The name Flyleather may sound like a sick biker jacket worn in Grease, but the material is actually a valid alternative to real leather, as it’s still made from at least 50% of the real thing.

Nike Flyleather Tennis Classic

Instead of reinventing the wheel entirely, Nike is taking resources they already have access to and putting them to better use through a more sustainable production process. To create Flyleather, Nike collects real leather scraps discarded from regular sneaker production, turns the scraps into fiber and then combines the scraps with a polyester blend using a high-pressure hydro process.

Even though leather is only the 10th most used material by Nike, has the second highest environmental impact for both carbon and water. According to Nike’s research, the hybrid material will use 90% less water and the carbon footprint will be 80% lower than traditional full-grain leather. Flyleather will be produced on a roll, which will improve cutting efficiency and further reduce waste. In terms of performance, sneakers made with Flyleather prove to be 40% lighter and five times more durable.

Nike Flyleather Tennis Classic

The first product to feature Flyleather is the Nike Flyleather Tennis Classic. Keeping it simple, the sneaker is all white and steers clear of any crazy design additions. 

In the coming months, Nike will also release Flyleather versions of the Air Force 1, Air Max 90, Cortez, Jordan 1 and an updated Tennis Classic. If you’re in the US, you can sign up to win one of the new pairs here.

When looking at the sneakers mentioned above, you can really see what Flyleather is capable of:

Nike Flyleather Jordan 1

Nike Flyleather Jordan 1 toe box detail 

The slight perforated detail of the Flyleather proves that this is a material easily manipulated either digitally or manually with the hydro process. If Flyleather becomes a regularly used material, at the very least, Nike will be able to significantly lower their carbon footprint.

The xx: On Hold (Jamie xx Remix)
The incredibly talented Jamie xx has taken the lead single from The xx’s latest album I See You and reworked it into a six-minute techno jam that’s made for the dance floor. With minimal vocals included, the “On Hold……

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