Springtime is Coming: Arm Your Garden with the Flower Shell

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Gardening is known as a soothing, therapeutic pastime. Guns have a bit of a reputation for causing consternation, unsightly holes and bodily harm. To mix up these old world assumptions, ad firm Studio Total unveiled a new product: the Flower Shell. Rather than pain and strife, these shells spread life. Load up with these standard 12 gauge shells (available in a dozen different flower types) and prepare to blast new growth into your yard. Beyond the addition of seeds, the amount of gunpowder has been reduced in proportion to the type of seeds used. But don’t be concerned by the attenuated firepower—apparently this is a good thing in a product meant to be used at short-range near the home. Ideal for violently reseeding large empty fields and boring (hopefully unpopulated) garden beds.

Tired of both senseless gun violence and quiet, slow tinkering in the garden? Take replanting by storm and force the yielding soil into bountiful submission.

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Note: This concept product is 100% questionable. To aid users, Studio Total has released this series of informative test videos on their Dr. Bronner’s-like website.

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Christina Stephens Made A Prosthetic Leg Out Of Legos

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And it worked for a step or two. Some of us may only remember Legos as a childhood staple or one of the first presents we give kids when they’re old enough not to eat them, but Christina Stephens took Lego building one step further. Even if she can’t walk around in her prosthetic Lego limb for more than a second, it’s still pretty awesome. Stephens, an occupational therapist and clinical researcher, made a time-lapse of the project for her YouTube channel “AmputeeOT,” which shares videos covering healthcare, occupational therapy, prosthetics, manual wheelchairs, medical equipment and more.

After losing her left leg earlier this year, she took on the challenge of a creating the Lego leg after someone in her research lab jokingly suggested she make a prothetic Lego limb. As mentioned in a write-up on Gizmodo: “The joke’s on you—I went home and did it. Please don’t do this yourself, I don’t want you to fall and get hurt!”

One commenter on the write-up sums it up the best. “She is now the first person in history to be happy to step on a Lego.” Not only is this absolutely true, Stephens shows some solid craftsmanship with her creation.

What other childhood building blocks or toys can you see being used outside of the playroom?

Hat tip to Gizmodo

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Coroflot Genius Gallery – The Grand Finale

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As our loyal readers should certainly know, this is the fourteenth and final installment of the weekly Coroflot Genius Gallery, showcasing over a hundred portfolios over the summer of 2011. From foamcore prototypes to fashion photography, we hope that our carefully-curated selections—some 500 images in all—represented the strongest work and most coherent portfolios among the submissions, worthy of featuring both on the Coroflot homepage and Core77 itself.

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Of course, we couldn’t have done it without the countless submissions we’ve received, and we’d like to thank everyone who submitted a portfolio over the past three months. While we would have liked to revisit some of those portfolios that we’d shortlisted early on, this week simply saw too many strong submissions to pass up, including a variety of transportation designers, alongside our usual mix of product designers and illustrators. Turin’s Liviu Tudoran is among the former, though it is his concept work that ultimately earns him the honor of being named our sixth and final book prize winner.

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Liviu has a talent for visually striking transportation design, and the sleek digital chiaroscuro that characterizes his auto designs translates perfectly to science fiction-y concepts as well. The uncanny element of drama truly brings his work to life—you can almost hear the roar and hum of supernatural engines…

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This week also marks the completion of the second book prize, by (alternate) winner Karen Preston. Folks of Fantasy and Places Untold is actually her second artist’s book and even based on the online preview, it looks like something she can truly be proud of. The large-format edition has more of a narrative structure than Andrew Walsh’s more abstract graphic design experiments in Gradient Species, though he might agree with her statement:

I have always felt that art is magic. There is such an excitement that comes with creating something from nothing. One moment you have a blank space, and the next, there’s a new world in front of you. When I finish a piece, and I like it, it’s an incredible high. I can’t sleep the night I finish a piece.

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Without further ado, the last seven selections of the Coroflot Genius Gallery:

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Peter Ragonetti (Brooklyn, NY) – Peter’s found his niche in pet products, but his other work is worth a look as well.

Joris Dewolf (Antwerpen, Belgium) – Joris’s painterly digital illustrations are invariably expressive and often funny.

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Boris Schwarzer (Detroit, Michigan) – Boris designs a variety of vehicles down to the very last detail.

Andrea Moresco (Bologna, Italy) – Andrea’s style is equally pop and punk, at times grotesque but all the more awesome for it.

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Daniele Pesaresi (Milan, Italy) – Daniele demonstrates his strong sense of form in elegant renderings of a mix of ID standbys.

Alex Thusbass (Amerang, Georgia) – Alex’s slick industrial design work is interesting whether it’s on the market or it’s just spec.

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Palina Klimava (Gatineau, Canada) – Palina’s drawings and illustrations capture her creative approach to straightforward subjects.

For those of you who didn’t have the pleasure of seeing your name turn up as three months’ worth of Mondays came and went, we can truthfully say that we didn’t have the time or space (i.e. the bandwidth) to highlight everyone who deserved the recognition. We simply can’t thank you guys enough.

We’ll be posting updates on the book winners, but be sure to follow the Coroflot members who happened to strike your fancy (we’ve done our best to choose those who might be not only more consistent but also more active than their peers).

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Coroflot Genius Gallery – Final Countdown

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This marks the second-to-last edition of the Coroflot Genius Gallery. We’ve seen hundreds of amazing portfolios over the past three months, often to the extent that our running list of our top picks seems to grow faster than we can feature them. (Worst case, if you were shortlisted but didn’t make the final cut, we’ll consider your portfolio or thumbnails for a feature in our member gallery or our regular featured portfolio page.)

This week was no exception, and while it skewed towards Core’s focus on industrial design, the likes of James Zanoni and Tina Kugler make for a nice mix of work across the board.

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Jesse Den Herder (Central Lake, Michigan) – Jesse’s packaging and identity work comes across best through his board game creations.

James Zanoni (New York, New York) – James is a motion graphics whiz, and both his graphic and video work demonstrate his mastery of digital special effects.

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Narayan Subramaniam (Ahmedabad, India) – Narayan comes up with some speedy-looking vehicle designs.

Jet Ong (Shenzhen, China) – Jet has a gift for elegant yet memorable product design.

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Velichko Velikov (London, United Kingdom) – Velichko is a veritable jack-of-all-trades who specializes in 3D but also finds expression in a range of media.

Tina Kugler (Los Angeles, California) – Tina’s superb illustrations truly capture a child-like sense of wonder.

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Rafael Morgan (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) – We’ve seen Rafael’s clever designs before and I’m sure we’ll be seeing him again.

Ronny Sauer (Leipzig, Germany) – Ronny’s slick ID work has a distinctly human touch to it.

So this is it: get your submissions in by this Thursday, September 22, for a chance to be featured in the final installment of the Coroflot Genius Gallery! Even though the program is winding down this week, we know for a fact that there are still tons of exceptional portfolios on Coroflot and we’re looking to go out with a bang, so don’t be shy and show us what you’ve got!

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Coroflot Genius Gallery – Class Is in Session

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While the Labor Day holiday typically means the end of summer (at least for those of us in the States), the beginning of a new season marks a new set of opportunities. Besides the start of the school year, September sees a handful of industry showcases from fashion week to a series of European design events, which we’ll be covering over the course of the month.

With that in mind, there’s no time like now to get your name out there, and the Coroflot Genius Gallery is the great place to start. This week, we’ve got a nice variety of artists and designers from Interactive Designer Nick Zhukov to concept-y architect Miro Straka and everything in between. Check ’em out and submit your portfolio today for a chance to see your name in the mix.

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Nick Zhukov (Kiev, Ukraine) – Nick specializes in straightforward iPad & iPhone app designs that make us wish we knew Russian

Tobin Dorn (Curitiba, Brazil) – Tobin’s got a strong grasp of the sports market, both in footwear design and bespoke graphics.

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Catherine Wong (Hong Kong) – Catherine’s renderings of electronics and housewares are so shiny that you might want to turn down the brightness of your screen to look at them.

Otelia Carmen (Los Angeles, CA) – Otelia has a great eye and steady hand for simple but effective renderings.

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Grafficants (Barcelona, Spain) – Grafficants create poppy, skate-inspired work for a range of like-minded clients.

Paul Summerson (Bellingham, Washington) – Paul’s minimalist ID work is excellent from concept to execution.

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Miro Straka (Cifer, Slovakia) – Miro’s exteriors complement his exploration of hypothetical architectural spaces.

Sina Brückmann (Venice, California) – Sina’s graphic design work is presented as clearly as it is designed.

We’ve got just a couple more galleries—and just one more winner to announce—scheduled for the rest of the month, so it’s getting down to the wire for submissions… keep ’em coming for the opportunity to be featured on the Coroflot homepage and on Core77!

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Coroflot Genius Gallery – The Dog Days Are Over

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This past week—number 11, for those of you who are keeping count—saw noticeably fewer submissions to the Coroflot Genius Gallery, possibly due to a little hurricane that went by the name of Irene. Still, we’re pleased to report that submissions were as strong as ever, particularly in illustration and graphic design, and we’re happy to share the best of the best, as well as our latest prize winner. Once again, we have a dazzling mix of cars, packaging, illustration and other designs—check ’em out below.

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Industrial designer / Preschool Design Director Joe MacCarthy of Oakland, California made the cut for the Genius Gallery last week, but his consummate portfolio warrants a little more attention… which he’s getting in the form of this week’s book prize! Not only is he an outstanding designer, he’s also been on Coroflot since 2001 and his activity has paid off: Joe’s garnered some 4500+ likeys, all well-deserved. Congrats, can’t wait to see what you come up with!

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Zofia Bogusz (New York, New York) – Zofia’s lush paintings are all the more beautiful for the natural canvases she paints them on.

Marc Senger (Boston, Massachusetts) – Marc’s vehicle renderings are great, but some of his other concepts are even better.

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Dirk Dzimirsky (Bocholt, Germany) – Dirk’s hyperrealist drawings are (hyper)really unbelievable… we’d love to see these in person.

Phil Rose (Sydney, Australia) – Phil’s product design portfolio is as straightforward and focused as it gets.

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Yael Miller (Lakewood, New Jersey) – Yael is a pro at expressive, eye-catching packaging design, and her vanity barcode design ain’t bad either.

Mark Law (Merseyside, England) – Mark takes Dieter Rams’ (or Jony Ives’) less-is-more approach to heart in his electronics designs.

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Daniel Newman (Newberg, Oregon) – Daniel’s intricate illustrations are worth a closer look.

Katarzyna Bazylczyk (Warsaw, Poland) – Katarzyna’s simple designs would add a nice, playful touch to any desktop or bookshelf…

Keep those submissions coming, folks: we have three more galleries and one more prize to give away. Head to the Genius Gallery to submit your portfolio today!

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Coroflot Genius Gallery – Rock You Like a Hurricane

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While Hurricane Irene took the East Coast by storm, as they say, this weekend (and we certainly hope everyone made it through the hurricane relatively unscathed), the inclement weather didn’t affect our Genius Gallery submissions or selections, which were as strong as ever this week. Again, we have a mix of industrial and graphic designers, as well as illustrators and our first—and hopefully not last—architect.

Of course, creatives of all stripes are welcome to submit your portfolios, so show us what you’ve got!

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Robert Romanowicz (Wroclaz, Poland) – Robert’s illustrations are fantastic in every sense of the word.

Joe MacCarthy (Oakland, California) – Joe’s inimitable concepts are strong in themselves, but stellar execution takes them to the next level.

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Paul Taylor (Orlando, Florida) – Paul’s ultra-detailed hand-renderings strike a perfect balance between architecture and illustration.

Mike Serafin (Chicago, Illinois) – Mike has seen a bit of love from us for his Kickstarted project Blimpus, so we were glad to see his name among the submissions.

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Joel Johnson (Springfield, Illinois) – Joel Johnson’s graphic design work is almost too clever for its own good.

Lauren Poole (Greenville, South Carolina) – Whether it’s a greeting card or illustration, Lauren’s elegant designs capture a sense of wonder.

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Brian Stupski (Phoenix, Arizona) – Brian’s draftsmanship conveys the style and class of his vehicle renderings with the very same traits.

Farzan Shamasblou (Bandar-e-Anzali, Iran) – We hope to see some of Farzan’s experiments in contemporary architecture in real life some day.

Want to see your name on Core77 and the Coroflot homepage? Don’t be shy, submit your portfolio today—we’ve got another book prize lined up for this coming week!

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Coroflot Genius Gallery – LOLs for the Win

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It’s that time again: our weekly announcement of eight new Coroflot members who do justice to our Genius Gallery. This week’s submissions skewed towards the three-dimensional end of the spectrum, and it was especially difficult to narrow down the pool of stellar industrial designers. In the end, Matias Conti, Dave Pickett and Ding3000 made the cut, as did a young auto designer by the name of Victor Uribe Chacon (don’t worry if you didn’t make it this week; we’ll keep your name on file for future reference). A few print / graphic / packaging designers make up the balance of the group.

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This week’s Genius Gallery selections also include our fourth book prize winner, Ljubomir Babic of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. His illustrations are cartoonish in the best way possible, and even a brief glance at his 100+ image portfolio will elicit a couple (literal) laughs-out-loud.

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Dave Pickett (Cleveland, Ohio) – Dave has already put together a remarkably strong ID portfolio as he enters his final year at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Victor Uribe Chacon (Turin, Italy) – Victor is just a year older than Dave (above) and his auto design work has gotten a bit of attention on Coroflot.

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Matias Conti (Beijing, China) – While many of the portfolios this week were on par with Matias’, he stood out for his awesome vehicle and action figure concepts.

Ding3000 (Hanover, Germany) – This German studio has a solid portfolio that is characterized by minimalism with a sense of playfulness and sometimes outright humor.

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Lisa Llanes (New York, New York) – Lisa’s identity and collateral designs take client briefs to the next level.

David Matos (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain) – David does digipacks and he does them well.

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Cassandra King (Kansas City, Missouri) – Cassandra’s graphic designs are simple yet expressive.

And to those of you who (you know who are): our selection criteria ranges from clean presentation to accurate information to editing (i.e. what you choose to omit is as important as what you choose to include). That said, we like to see enough work to demonstrate that you know what you’re doing in your creative discipline of choice… though it’s worth reiterating that a handful of well-organized projects typically goes further than a disorganized pile of images. So whether it’s your first time or your fifth time, submit your portfolio today!

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Coroflot Genius Gallery – It’s Always a Good Time to Shine

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We’re back to basics following last week’s Genius Gallery super-post: this week, we’re pleased to announce eight carefully-selected portfolios that represent the many facets of the gallery. Besides a few of the usual suspects—industrial designers Andrea Filogonio, Formboten and Jm Jo—we were also impressed by the likes of young fashion designer Xenia Kuhn and established glass and ceramic artisan Alda Tomás. And while we continue to abide by our high standards for images, renders and photography, each of these portfolios certainly invites closer inspection.

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Garrett Owen (Dallas, Texas) – Garrett delivers on his promise of superb graphic design without compromising clarity for creativity.

Andrea Filogonio (Rome, Italy) – Andrea’s work is characterized by a strong sense of surfaces and curves, not to mention a bit of humor.

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Xenia Kuhn (Berlin, Germany) – Xenia’s work in fashion and accessories is alternately playful and conceptual, but consistently well-executed.

Davide Perrone (Turin, Italy) – Davide’s automobile renders are technical and expressive in equal measure.

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Karen Preston (Medford, Massachusetts) – Karen dream-like imagery and in her paintings and vector illustrations.

Jm Jo (Shanghai, China) – Jm’s focus on electronics ranges from the practical to the more fantastical.

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Alda Tomás (Lisboa, Portugal) – Alda takes the traditional crafts of glass and ceramic design to the next level, both in terms of form and patterns.

Formboten [Patrick Decker & Florian Langer] (Hanover, Germany) – The German design duo bring their highly conceptual approach to product and furniture design.

We’ll be announcing a new winner next Monday, so submit your portfolio by tomorrow, Tuesday, August 16, to be eligible for the fourth of our six Blurb book prizes!

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Coroflot Genius Gallery – Eyes On the Prize

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This week marks the halfway point of the Coroflot Genius Gallery and we’ve got a couple of exciting announcements: first of all, we’re pleased to present Laura Anderson of Minneapolis, MN, with our third book prize. Laura’s packaging and identity design is expressive, thoughtful and elegantly executed—not to mention the excellent photography. Congratulations on the win, Laura!

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Laura Anderson (Minneapolis, MN) – The breadth and depth of Laura’s portfolio belie the fact that she completed her B.S. in Graphic Design last May. Her graphic design work is invariably on point, and we’re sure her clients are as thrilled with her work as we are. Moreover, we think her photography skills will go a long way towards producing an outstanding book.

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Like previous winners Jasmin Darnell and Andrew Walsh, Laura has earned a $200 credit towards a book at Blurb.com—an enviable prize if we say so ourselves—and it seems that three weeks has been more than enough time for our last winner, Andrew, to take advantage of his well-deserved certificate. His book Gradient Species is available for preview and purchase on Blurb. Here are a few of the spreads featuring new work:

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And lest we forget the essence of the genius gallery, we’re also very happy with the seven other creative folks whose portfolios really stood out among this week’s excellent submissions. Remember, you can submit up to once a week and it’s as quick and painless as it gets, so head over to the Genius Gallery and submit today! (A bit of advice to the repeat entrants: updating not only your sets and images but also your info can go a long way towards getting featured…)

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Wagner Campelo (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) – Wagner’s floral patterns and textile designs equally capture the spirit of his culture and his eye for detail.

Olga Kalugina (Moscow, Russia) – Olga’s renderings are super neat in both senses of the word.

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Herman Francisco Delos Santos (San Francisco, CA) – Herman takes automobile design to the next level with his abstracted graphics

Gustavo Brigante (Buenos Aires, Argentina) – Gustavo blends comics, collage and expert draftsmanship in his illustration and graphic design work.

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Jonathan Lo (Brooklyn, NY) – Jonathan’s print work and style guides really capture the essence of clear design.

Michael Secrist (Baltimore, MD) – Michael is equally good at rendering interiors and exteriors with great detail and just the right lighting.

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Thierry Fischer (Lille, France) – Thierry’s industrial design work is superb in itself, but his sense of presentation is truly, well, genius.

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