Hasta La Ideas

Although more and more of us are abandoning daily planner books for much more convenient digital calendars, there’s still something terribly satisfying about keeping your to-do list in the physical world.

New creative outfit Show Show Room are offering up a new way to jot down your schedule with their Flexible Day Planner. Layed out to provide as much freedom as possible, this print-on-demand service also allows you to start and end your planner on any dates in 2011—perfect, perhaps, for individual projects. The minimalist back and front covers feature white boxes that act as blank space, ripe for personalisation.

The 6″x9″ planners are available to order from the Show Show Room site for the duration of 2011.

(more…)

This morning while I was looking for Muller Mobelfabrikation’s website, I stumbled across an unrelated company called Muller & Schmidt, which makes neat cutlery like this:

I knew I’d seen the name Muller & Schmidt before, so after digging through some old bookmarks I found the original place I’d spotted them. Turns out the company’s quite old, judging by this Muller & Schmidt vintage desk set of scissors, letter opener and sheath:

Those were spotted on ShopGoodwill.com, which is that charity organization’s version of eBay. If you’re inspired by vintage forms, as I’ve recently been, or just need some inspiration the site is a great way to browse lots of cool objects you’ve probably never seen before: Old-school ceramic CPU’s, random wooden cases, vintage fire extinguishers, et cetera. Have at it!

(more…)

Been a while since I had my socks knocked off, but I’m writing this barefoot as I’ve just stumbled across the website of Muller Mobelfabrikation.

Also written “Mueller Moebelfabrikation” to compensate for umlauts, the German company manufacturers desks, sideboards, trolleys, rolling bar refrigerators and more, all done up in an Art Deco/Streamlined style.

Their pieces are gorgeous, made from sheet steel and natural woods, topped off with a durable, scratch-proof lacquer. And I like their ethic:

The most important tool: our hands.

We produce all our furniture by hand using traditional procedures. This guarantees excellent workmanship and the typical unique character. After cutting, pressing and stamping the steel plate for each piece of furniture is welded by hand. For the varnish we use acrylic varnish from the car industry. In this way we achieve high shine surfaces, which are both hard wearing and easy care…. In this way you experience handicraft expertise and maximum diversity in every piece from our workshops.

See their full lineup here.

(more…)

Stephen Ronsheim is the other kind of industrial designer, the kind that designs industrial machines and assembly lines. While remodeling his own home, he ran into a design problem. In solving it, may have revolutionized how staircases are built in the future–at least if enough architects, engineers and designers become aware of his product.

What tickled us the most: Ronsheim solved his staircase problem using both high technology–and the Amish.

The Indiana-based designer recently premiered his product and resulting company, Ascendings, at the Build Boston trade show. Core77 caught up with him afterwards for a brief interview on what makes these staircases so special and how he designed them.

Core77: For those who aren’t familiar with how staircases are built, what’s the difference between your product and a standard staircase?
Ronsheim: The major difference from an Ascendings stairway and any other is the fact that the Ascendings stairway is modular in design. The modularity concept opens up many new doors. An example of that would be a remodel job in an existing structure, such as a condo or a loft. In most cases it is nearly impossible to rebuild stairways in this type of structure, due to the fact that most stairways are prefabricated and built prior to arriving at jobsite. It is then the responsibility of the builder to move that stairway into the building being remodeled. There have actually been cases where exterior brick walls have been removed so that a staircase may enter a building.

(more…)

It’s still freezing here in NYC, and having just come back inside, my exposed face feels like I shaved with gasoline.

Few weeks ago I wrote a post lamenting the unfriendly look of ski masks. In response, Brooklyn-based hackmistress Becky Stern sent us a link to artist Andrew Salomone’s recently updated ID-Preserving Balaclava.

Salomone photographed his own head from multiple angles, blended them into a single image in Photoshop, and created a bitmap file of the image. He then used Stern’s hacktacular Electronic Knitting Machine to “plot” the file, as it were, into cotton yarn.

Is the resultant mask cool? Heck yes. Does it solve my “scary” problem? Heck no! This look still says “I am always one step ahead of the cops.”

Have a look at Stern’s machine:

(more…)