Hasta La Ideas

The Shaper Origin, the self-correcting router that we looked at in-depth here, will soon have a new accessory. Shaper has announced they’ll be releasing the Shaper Plate, a universal template that clamps to your workpiece and allows you to quickly cut inlays, recesses for hardware, corner treatments etc., with a minimum of set-up time.

The design of the Plate is clever, with below-surface clamping points that remove the single biggest hassle of a router template. Set-up looks to be quick too, with a retractable fence that you align with your mark to set the cutting area (see video, further down).

And if you’re installing any of the commonly-available hardware pieces whose recesses are already digitized in Shaper’s Hub database, you can get started immediately.

Here’s a demonstration of the Plate’s applications:

(You surely noticed the amount of Festool products in the background of the workspaces. As it turns out, Shaper has been acquired by Festool parent company TTS, joining stablemates Tanos and Saw Stop.)

The Shaper Plate will launch on September 14th, with a list price of $375. Purchased together with the Origin, the bill comes out to $2,874, which includes a $100 discount. You can learn more here.

An ultra-premium mezcal born from a chance encounter

Just over two years ago, a chance encounter at a gas station in Mitla (located about an hour from Oaxaca de Juárez) between Rogelio Juan Hernandez and Rafael Shin led to the creation of Agua Mágica, an ultra-premium mezcal underpinned by tradition and Oaxacan culture. The bright, smooth, gently smoky elixir is perfect for sipping, and its entire process is imbued with folklore, poetry, romance, ancestral wisdom and a little magic.

This exquisite mezcal is made in San Juan del Río, a Zapotec community where all the land is communally owned. The culturally-rich, picturesque region is lush and mountainous, and believed by many to have been blessed by the gods with all the natural elements needed to make perfect mezcal: fresh river water, rich soil and the ideal altitude for growing agave.

A maestro mezcalero, don Rogelio has been making mezcal since he was 15 years old—carrying on a long family tradition—and now works with his son. The land in San Juan del Río is inherently important to don Rogelio, his family and his ancestors. “It is the heritage we have,” he tells us. “It is what helps us generate income, it is what our community feeds from.”

The fact that San Juan del Río’s community, culture, land and history are also important to Shin was crucial to don Rogelio when deciding to collaborate. “He told me that as Agua Mágica grows, we, our palenque and San Juan del Río, will also grow,” don Rogelio tells us. “One of his goals is for San Juan del Río to be recognized as the ‘Bordeaux of mezcal,’ since recognition is never given to our community. He respected our ideas and way of working. He supported us in creating better planning and structure. And he never haggled over our mezcal.”

Shin (whose family moved to Mexico from Korea when he was just a baby) tells us about their first interactions at the gas station and then in San Juan del Río. “For me,” he says, “it was his integrity as a person. Don Rogelio’s passion for the craft of mezcal and especially his love for San Juan del Río stood out. He struck me as someone very humble and thankful, but also with a lot of authority and leadership skills. I could see people in his town trusted him because he cares deeply about his community and its values. You can see it in every aspect of his life history. In addition, he was very transparent and clear about his vision for San Juan while also being open to dialogue.”

Taking part in the project meant don Rogelio would be able to “pursue my greatest dream and goal in life: to have a palenque; to be an example and leader for the community; to give work to the community, especially women; and to make San Juan del Río important to the world.”

The duo, despite being strangers, shared a vision. They assembled an all-Mexican team for the endeavor, with the mission to produce ultra-premium mezcal, preserve artisanal practices, protect the diverse agave, and encourage and empower small producers (they donate a portion of yearly profits to five other family-run palenques in the area), all while drawing well-deserved attention to the town.

Among the many talented employees based in Oaxaca, Sara Aguilar—who has 18 years of experience verifying the quality of mezcal working with El Consejo Mexicano Regulador de la Calidad del Mezcal (the mezcal regulation authority)—is a fundamental contributor. Aguilar oversees quality control, but she offers much more than an objective, scientific viewpoint. “Her biggest talent, in my opinion, is how she connects with mezcaleros by finding that fine line of respecting their craft and also advising them on science in a complex production process that has so many variables,” Shin tells us.

Together, the entire team created and refined Agua Mágica, which is crafted with local agave (better known as maguey in Oaxaca), fermented with fresh river water and crafted using traditional techniques. The main expression, Agua Mágica Ensamble, is made from seven-year-old Espadin and 15-year-old Tobalá agaves. The smooth mezcal contains subtle smoky, mineral and fresh notes and has “changed the preconception that many people [outside Mexico] have about mezcal: that it’s a very smoky and strong drink,” Shin says.

Shin and don Rogelio approach mezcal production with comprehensive attention to detail and respect—they honor the plant and the process. “My grandfather said something very true,” don Rogelio tells us. “‘You have to take care of the quality of the work, from the sowing, because if a drunk guy walks out and the sowing is poorly done, the magueys can fall and get hurt.’ We want people to have respect for mezcal, that when they put mezcal on a shelf, it is at the level of the best wine because it is a unique, handmade product, it takes a long time to produce, and they value it and see all the work and the process what it means to do it.”

Seeing how much time, energy, effort, respect and passion goes into making mezcal helped Shin appreciate it in new ways. “It’s not only the romantic part of it,” he says. “All this sacrifice actually makes a huge difference on the quality and taste of the product. So when I think about feelings, I would say it would be only fair for people to appreciate and respect what they are drinking and enjoy everything San Juan del Rio and its people have to offer through a single bottle.”

As for the “right” way to drink it, Agua Mágica can be sipped on its own—even for those who don’t usually drink mezcal (or tequila or whiskey) straight. Traditionally, some drops are spilled from the copita onto the ground, to give back to the earth. But there’s no doubt that Agua Mágica can be also be used when crafting high-quality cocktails. (It’s especially sublime in a negroni.) “The mezcal needs to be taken in kisses,” don Rogelio tells us. In order to “feel the notes of flavor and smell in each sip.”

From the storybook packaging to the golden mesh encompassing the green-tinted bottle and the upside down poem on the label (meant to be read while pouring), the brand’s visuals perfectly pair with the mezcal itself. There’s a romantic, fairytale element that permeates Agua Mágica, but ultimately it’s about honoring Oaxacan traditions and culture, and the ritual of celebration.

Hero image courtesy of Dalí Nelio for Agua Mágica

Brooklyn-based ceramicist Eleni Kontos eschews traditional chess pieces for unconventional and otherworldly figures in her handmade chess set. Featuring dyed clay pieces and a board with hand-painted gradient details as well as ebru marbling, this set acts as both unique decor and a fun take on a classic game.

For centuries at this point, the way we chose our spectacles has been pretty standard. You try on hundreds of frames, hoping to stumble across the one that fits your facial measurements, sense of style, and comfort levels. This is a long-drawn process that takes time, energy, and effort without the guarantee that you’ll ever find the perfect frame. Breezm flips the process over by reverse-engineering it. Instead of looking for pre-made frames for you, Breezm analyzes your face shape, measurements, and style requirements and builds out the perfect pair of frames for you. Instead of rummaging through hundreds of frames before finding one that feels ‘satisfactory’, Breezm just creates a bespoke pair of glasses designed to suit your needs. Using as many as 100,000 data points, Breezm helps you find the right glasses that suit you perfectly in mere seconds… because the glasses that you get were ‘made for you’.

Designers: Zenma Park, Will Sung, MG Cho & Ted Choi

Click Here to Buy Now: $129 $198 (35% off). Hurry, for a limited time only!

Almost like a modern version of Cinderella’s glass-shoe story, Breezm is using AI and advanced 3D printing to disrupt the spectacle industry. A winner of the CES Award, Red Dot Design Award, and the iF Design Award, Breezm’s frames are bespoke, lightweight, affordable, durable, and sustainable.

The process for getting your pair of Breezm glasses starts with simply scanning your face using their proprietary A.I.-powered iOS mobile app, which calculates multiple factors, like your face width and height, pupillary distance, nose height and width, and even more nuanced features like your pantoscopic angle (or the tilt of your eyes and face). All these inputs get fed into Breezm’s database which allows it to generate frames for you based on your ergonomic requirements. You can then view the virtual glasses superimposed over your face on their iOS app and choose the style that suits you the best. You can even choose from 8 different colors as well as lens characteristics for a pair of glasses that are 100% unique to you and made to order, quite like a good, well-tailored suit.

Personalize – Mix and match the colors on their iOS app based on their 23 frame designs that flatter every face shape and skin tone.

Crafted for Ultimate Comfort – Based on the scan results, their Al recommends an array of frame designs that best suit you.

Light as a Feather – Weighs 7g.

Prescription-ready Premium Lens – All their lenses are prescription-ready and benefit from top treatments, including anti-scratch, anti-reflection, and UV protection.

High Precision 3D Printing – 3D printed in their smart factory using the industry’s most advanced Multi Jet Fusion and Selective Laser Sintering printers. The printers’ powder bed fusion process ensures top-level consistency, precision, and quality.

Dyeing & Drying – Their in-house dyeing machinery and process bring out eight unique colors.

The frames you get aren’t your standard acetate glasses. Unlike acetate frames that result in vast amounts of plastic wastage, Breezm’s frames are 3D printed using selective laser sintering, which results in virtually no wasted material while also helping create frames that are 6x lighter (at just 7 grams) and have a wonderful smooth finish. This doesn’t just make Breezm’s frames sustainable, but also goes a long way in making them affordable for their style (because there’s less material wastage but also because each pair of glasses is made to order and shipped directly to consumers without any middlemen). The frames are made from an FDA-approved PA-12 (Polyamide) material that’s more durable than acetate too before being outfitted with beta-titanium temple stems, and you can additionally choose to have your Breezm spectacles outfitted with a variety of lens types including 1.67 high index lenses, blue-light blocking ones, photochromic ones, and even tinted lenses so you can rock your frames as sunglasses.

Starting at $129, the Breezm frames come with a premium protective case, a microfiber lens cloth, an eyewear personalization report, and a bookmark made from leftover raw material. The Breezm iOS app is set to launch this October once their Kickstarter campaign ends.

Click Here to Buy Now: $129 $198 (35% off). Hurry, for a limited time only!

The post These 3D-printed glasses are custom-designed using biometric scans of your face first appeared on Yanko Design.

It’s a Game Boy, it’s a Switch, it’s… both?!

Meet the Game Boy Famicom, a conceptual gaming console that pays tribute to the handheld console, the modern-day modular Nintendo Switch, and most importantly, the consoles that came before it – namely the cassette-based consoles like the SNES, SEGA Genesis, etc. It’s handheld, but features a modular design that lets you simply plug the screen into a dock the way you would a cassette (or even the Switch) for a more console-style gaming experience. The Famicom offers a landscape style gaming experience, but in a device that’s portrait in its orientation. This breaks away from the Switch’s elongated profile, giving you a console that’s more compact and easier to carry around with you. One could argue that it’s cooler too?!

Designer: Dopamine Design

The Game Boy Famicom is basically a tablet gaming device with a modular base. You can either use it with its plug-and-play controls, or swap the controls out for an adapter that lets you plug the Famicom into a rather retro-inspired dock that lets you beam your game to a larger screen like a TV or projector. It’s a conceptual successor to the Nintendo Switch, or rather, feels more like a Nintendo Switch from an alternate timeline in which the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP didn’t exist!

I just love the Game Boy Famicom’s overall vibe. It’s understated yet expressive. Minimalist yet functional and non-compromising. There’s nothing about it that makes it feel ‘lesser’ than the Switch, just because the Famicom’s design pretty much dots all I’s and crosses all T’s. Its controls are minimalistic yet detailed. You’ve got a D-pad on the left, XYAB controls on the right, and a speaker in between. A ring around the D-pad also doubles as a volume knob, letting you crank the volume on high or mute gameplay depending on where you are.

The dock is a retro icon too. The white and grey color scheme with accents of orange gives the Game Boy Famicom a major Teenage Engineering appeal that elevates the concept to another level entirely. Sigh… if only this existed!

The post This shapeshifting Game Boy console has the soul of a Nintendo Switch first appeared on Yanko Design.