Hasta La Ideas

We have nothing but love for Steel Drake’s visions. Whether it’s the edgy cars he designs, or the modern gadgets he conceptualizes, there’s always a strong undertone of futurism we’ve grown to really love and look forward to.

Bringing his brand of innovation to the industry of fashion, Drake wants to shake things up with the Keeback. A backpack that is literally like nothing anyone’s seen before. Designed completely from scratch, Steel Drake’s Keeback feels like a backpack designed by someone who doesn’t know what traditional backpacks look like. Retaining every aspect of functionality you’d expect from a carry-case you wear on your back, the Keeback literally looks like something from a futuristic movie, because it comes in a hard-shell design, sports USB ports galore, and has a vertical screen that can be customized to display text, graphics, or a gradient that is sure to grab eyes.

Looking like a backpack quite fit for a species that’s ready to colonize another planet, the Keeback is a complete deviation from traditional, and feels like concept art come to life. The outer hard-shell design gives it a defined form factor and can be swapped for different styles, ranging from solid colors, to metallic hues, to even an organic grill design that quite literally has my heart. One of the only backpacks to sport a clamshell design, the Keeback opens from the base to reveal storage inside, with dedicated slots for a 13-inch laptop, a tablet, phone, wallet, passport, as well as enough empty space for the rest of your peripherals. The backpack even comes with its own whopping 40,000 mAh battery courtesy Panasonic that can not only charge your devices via USB (the Keeback comes with an unprecedented 6 USB ports), but also powers the Keeback’s RGB LED display, as well as a revolutionary 20W speaker fitted into the Keeback’s base, giving your backpack the ability to bust out tunes on your daily commute (now isn’t that a slice of the future for you!).

The Keeback, undeniably modern, also packs a tracking sensor that acts as an anti-theft mechanism for the backpack. Weighing in at just a mere 3.7 pounds (1.7 kilos), the Keeback has quite a feature list, something that most backpacks can’t even compare to. Designed to literally be a class apart, the Keeback feels, looks, and behaves differently from any traditional backpack. Call me when you can find another backpack that has a stunning hardshell design, a screen, a 40,000 mAh built-in battery, 6 USB ports, and a literal speaker-system with a 20W output… I’ll be waiting.

Designer: Steel Drake

Click here to Buy Now: $250.00 $500.00 (50% off).

The world’s first backpack designed as a device with a display.

Breaking the notion that a backpack must be made of fabric, designer and engineer Steel Drake reinvented it and created a multifunctional device with features like display, speaker, USB sockets and more.

Main Features Below

Click here to Buy Now: $250.00 $500.00 (50% off).

A lot of people prefer the French press to brew the perfect cup of coffee, but everybody can agree the cleaning is difficult and cumbersome. It’s messy, takes time, a lot of tap water and will in time automatically clog your drain. Instead of turning to make a new costly French press with an integrated grounds collector, we wanted to make something more simple and universal for the millions or rather billions of beakers already in the market from Ikea, Bodum, Stelton, Cafetiere etc.

This was the basis for Grums (Danish for grounds) , which is basically also just a small “cup”. The small grounds container might look simple at a first glance, but there is a good deal of engineering involved to avoid vacuum build up, unwanted deformation during use and the perfect balance of friction and slide. It took us about two years and dozens of prototypes to get it right. The positive side effects of reducing water usage and saving CO2 are crazy big when we started adding it up. Coffee grounds are not good for your drain and not good for the sewer system in general, but turns out that there are many ways to utilize coffee grounds, for example to fertilize your plants or make exfoliating soap.

View the full project here

Ohio-based industrial designer Michael David Young had a crazy idea: What if a framing hammer could actually dispense nails, teeing them up for you to hammer them in? 

Driven by the concept, Young spent six long years seeing if he could get it to work. And guess what? He did!

Writes Young:

Thanks all for checking out my video! Didn’t actually intend for this to be viewed by more than a few people, I sent it as an unlisted link to a potential buyer. (So basically, excuse how long and boring it is) — I spent 6 years trying to get this to work!

Young came very close to selling his idea:

When I finally got it to what I felt was a manufacturable and durable form, I got a provisional patent (paid a lawyer $1200 to walk me through writing it myself) and then I sent it to all the major tool companies in the US. There was major interest from two of the big ones, I got a big offer to purchase the IP from one, but then the person I was working with left the company right before signing, their department was purchased and downsized, and after a year of slow discussion they retracted their offer. A provisional patent gives you 1 year to show an idea essentially before you need to pay for a whole patent, around 13k (not including international). At the end of the year I decided I didn’t want to invest the 13k or 6k (estimate) to make a metal prototype and really try for it all over again.

I’m a race car and product designer by trade, so I am in the practice of creating new things and letting many of them go : ) Maybe this will come back given its recent popularity, but the video has only existed in my portfolio up until now. Here’s to more ideas and future inventions for us all!

A pierced concrete wall based on camera apertures fronts this photography studio in Forth Worth, Texas, by local firm Ibañez Shaw Architecture.

The Fort Worth Camera Studios is located on the city’s Montgomery Street, and houses photography classrooms, studios, galleries and a shop.

The street-facing wall of Ibañez Shaw Architecture‘s concrete building is punctured with seven lines of holes that vary in size, referencing the different “standard apertures” used to vary amount of light able to reach a camera lens.

As light filters through the openings in the facade, it forms a dappled pattern on the floors in the spaces behind: a hallway on the ground floor and a terrace above.

“The hole pattern in the concrete screen wall depicts the graphic proportionality of seven standard apertures that restrict how much light is allowed to enter the camera,” said the studio in a statement. “The openings in the wall are conically flared to increase the visual transparency and graphic presentation.”

These holes are among a number of details that Ibañez Shaw Architecture included to allude to the building’s use.

Two sets of umbrella lights, commonly used in photo studios, are used to illuminate a conference room and the lobby. Also, photography reflectors on the roof bounce light off the top of the concrete walls that run either side.

“Photography lights and reflectors were incorporated in the design as vestiges of the technology and art for which the building is devoted,” said the firm.

Fort Worth Camera Studios is set on a plot that is slightly inclined from north to south, and more prominently sloped from east to west. Its two levels accommodate the level change, with the lower floor roughly half the footprint of the one above.

Access to the building is provided on the southern side, behind a wall of perforated white mesh that adjoins the concrete facade. The screen shields the car park and also bears the venue’s name in capital letters.

A long and slender retail space runs along one side of this floor. Here, Ibañez Shaw Architecture embedded a set of glass shelves into the concrete wall to form a display for different types of cameras.

Other features of the retail space include a square-shaped window nook that extends out from the northern wall. A thick yellow frame surrounds the opening, designed as a play space for children with matching tiny yellow tables.

A studio and an office are located on the eastern, street-facing side of the lower floor. Both are fronted with the glass wall that rises behind the feature concrete wall, with doors that open onto the deck.

Another studio and a lounge occupy the same spot on the level below. A slender gallery is placed behind to cut the floor in half, and partition a room for finishing photo prints at the rear.

Concrete is left exposed inside most of the building, except in the rooms that need different lighting effects, and are therefore lined.

Fort Worth is located in northern Texas, next to the larger city of Dallas. The photography studios sit opposite The Museum of Science and Historyby Mexican firm Legorreta + Legorreta, while other key buildings nearby include the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth by Japanese architect Tadao Ando.

The post Ibañez Shaw’s Fort Worth Camera Studios feature details that allude to photography appeared first on Dezeen.

Most everyone, college student or not, has periods in life when we have more stuff than space. Beyond the obvious solution of vastly reducing the amount of stuff you have, here are more ideas for making do with the space you have.

Shelving: Most dorm rooms don’t come with shelving, and with a minimal amount of floor space to work with you want to utilize as much vertical space as possible. Most colleges do not allow you to put nail holes in your walls, so I suggest a tall, cheap bookshelf, and use it for everything from books to files to your shower caddy. If you can’t afford a cheap bookshelf, never underestimate the power of the classic plank-and-brick construction.

Raise Your Bed: Some colleges provide beds that have built in storage spaces underneath. However, if they do not, putting risers under your bed is another great way to maximize space in your dorm room.

Store Information Digitally: Most colleges encourage students to have laptops, and digitally storing your information is a great way to combat clutter of all kinds. Invest in an external hard drive. And, no matter what, make sure you back up your files.

Feel welcome to read and add more space-saving advice in the comments.

This post has been updated since its original publication in 2008.

Post written by Intern Julia