CNC Music Factory: Ishac Bertran, DJ With a Laser Cutter

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Here’s an innovative use of a CNC laser cutter: Spanish supercreative Ishac Bertran precision sliced segments out of vinyl records, essentially cut-and-pasting music samples for analog playback. He’s posted the entire procedure on his blog, along with notes on how he first experimented with a hot wire cutter and even a utility knife before settling on the laser:

I made many tests to find the right laser power in order to get the cleanest cut possible. The best setting was to let the laser go through *almost* through the vinyl, and then crack manually the last thin layer. If the laser goes all the way through, it melts too much material and leaves a gap. If the laser doesn’t go enough deep, it’s pretty much impossible to take the piece out without creating an undesired crack.

Even if the laser is well calibrated, it always cuts creating a cone-shape cut. Using the first option the crack doesn’t take out any material or creates burrs on the bottom surface, so that surface is the one I used for playing the record afterwards. The top one always have a gap where the stylus would go in.

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Check out the results:

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El Vochol: Making Mexican Folk Art Pop

ElVocho_AdrienneBard.jpgEl Vocho as shot by Adrienne Bard in Mexico City.

Combine the iconic Mexican culture expressions of the psychedelic Huichol and a Volkswagen Beetle or El Vocho as Mexicans have nicknamed it—and you get El Vochol, a beaded VW bug. This dynamic manifestation of indigenous folk art is being used to promote the artisan heritage of the indigenous Mexican communities to an international audience.

El Vochol was first commissioned by the Association of Friends of Museo of Arte Popular in Mexico City to elevate the work of traditional artisans in the public sphere both nationally and internationally. The project took on a greater message to the world: indigenous work is not to be forgotten, and in fact, celebrated. Sonya Santos of the Museo says, “People all over the world are responding in a fabulous way….They are all surprised by the magnificent work.”

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The Huichol, or Wixaritari as they call themselves, are known in Mexico for their intricate bead work lain into beeswax by needle one bead at a time to cover entire objects such as bowls and figurines. The Wixaritari live in the Sierra Nevadas of Western central Mexico and are praised in folkloric markets for their colorful and spiritual works of art produced mainly for tourism. The symbols represented in the bead and yarn work reflect their deep centuries-old shamanic traditions, with veneration to principal deities of corn, deer, peyote, and the eagle.

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To Articulate or Not to Articulate?

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It would be too easy to make a crass joke about iPhone mounts that suck, so let’s just say that suction cup-based designs are getting a foothold—gaining traction suction, perhaps?—in the Apple accessory market. While the “Orbit” just made funding two and a half times over, it may have met its match in the “Barnacle,” an even more minimal mount by iLoveHandles, an accessory startup based in Portland, OR.

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There isn’t much to explain except that it’s a steal at $4.95—plus six bucks S&H in the continental US—compared to the expected MSRP of the “Orbit,” which has jumped from $19.95 to $30 (the Kickstarter price tag came in at $15). I’d also like to point out that both products have launched with an eye-catching orange colorway along with the usual grayscale versions.

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A Treeless Treehouse

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We posted on California-based designer Jeff Casper’s creations about a year ago (here and here), and in the time since, he’s not been idle. Most recently Casper contributed to a project by friend and treehouse building expert Roderick Romero on a treehouse… with no tree.

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While official documentation of the project does not yet exist on the web, Casper was kind enough to fill us in:

The “treeless treehouse” was built high on a hillside site in Bel Air, California. The location lacked trees mature enough to support a structure of this magnitude, so this cantilevered, inverted octagonal cone of wood was anchored into a deep, cubical-shaped concrete foundation. A twisting tornado of Forest Stewardship Council (F.S.C.) certified mixed-species reclaimed Brazilian hardwoods were milled, pre-drilled & mounted around a burly framework of reclaimed vintage Douglas Fir beams.

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For Design Researchers: The NewProductWorks Collection, a Supermarket Featuring 40 Years’ Worth of Product

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Back when I was doing structural package design at a multinational, I always enjoyed visiting their Product Room. Every time one of the designers went overseas for business, they made it a point to stop by a local supermarket and load up a suitcase with indigenous product to bring back. Thus the Product Room was loaded with shampoo bottles from Italy, spray bottles from Thailand, squeeze bottles from Japan, et cetera. It was fascinating to see all the shapes, sizes, colors, label art, and in the case of Japan, insanely complicated closure systems preferred by each country.

A company called GfK Custom Research North America has a similar facility, but on a far larger scale: Their NewProductWorks Collection in Michigan (pictured up top) boasts more than 100,000 package designs, with some dating back to the 1970s for those curious to investigate retro packaging. “Visitors to the collection step back in time through a forest of American consumerism, telling the story of culture,” Marilyn Raymond, GfK Global’s Executive VP, told the Detroit Free Press in an article on the facility.

The NewProductWorks Collection isn’t open to the public, but access is given to researchers, academics and clients. If you fall into one of those categories, you can reach them here.

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Matroshka Space-Saving Furniture System is Alive and Well

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Last year we posted on Matroshka, a system of space-saving furniture inspired by Russian nesting dolls and conceived of by then-Mid-Sweden-University-ID-students Sara Remnerth, Anna Fossane, and Anna Thorsaeus.

We loved the concept but after the website went belly-up, we assumed the project had died for lack of funding.

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Shortly thereafter, we were informed by one of the Annas that the project was not dead, and now we’re pleased to report that Matroshka Furniture AB is back with a new website and taking orders.

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New British Currency Hails Heroes of the Industrial Revolution

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While it’s unlikely we’ll ever see portraits of industrial designers gracing any country’s currency, the UK is at least presenting Industrial Revolutionaries: On Friday the Bank of England announced a new design for 50-pound bills featuring dual portraits of James Watt and Matthew Boulton.

Watt famously updated the design of the steam engine in the 1760s. The Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer observed that nearly three-quarters of the potential energy was wasted by existing steam engines and introduced a more efficient design but, as will be familiar to many an upstart designer, his concept couldn’t get anywhere without the necessary bread.

Entrepreneur Boulton nutted up the cash, and the resultant Boulton & Watt steam engines helped mechanize factories and kickstarted Britain’s Industrial Revolution.

It was only by working together that the inventor and the money man were able to effect this radical change, and thus this 50-pound note is the UK’s first to feature two portraits on it. Look for it—if you’re in a line of work where you’re carrying around 50-pound notes, that is—starting November 2nd.

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Because We Can’s Killer Swiveling Desk

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There are times when I want an L-shaped worksurface, like when I’m working on something requiring a lot of different materials or tools, and times when I want one long table to accommodate a lengthy piece. I figured I couldn’t have it both ways, so I built a long nine-foot surface for my main workbench. But the folks over at the design/build firm Because We Can figured out that you can have it both ways, and now I’m intensely envious.

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This awesome, custom desk they built for a client features two pivot points, enabling the super-long worksurface to go from straight to “L” to “U.”

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Weird French Design for Wall-Mounted Bar Soap is Actually Kind of Awesome

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It looks pretty bizarre, but this idea for wall-mounted soap was apparently once in widespread usage, at least in France. “This was patented in 1950 and used widely in schools, public buildings and by France’s state-run railways,” writes the retailer. “The manufacturers claim you can wash your hands 1,000 times with a 300 g tablet of this pure vegetable soap.”

What I like about it:

– If mounted over the sink to drip-dry, it would eliminate the need to have to constantly drain a soap dish.
– Losing the soap dish also means the bar isn’t constantly sitting in a puddle of its own filth and getting all mealy at the point of contact.
– Suburbanites with room won’t care, but this would actually free up some sinktop space. (The sink in my NYC bathroom is about the size of the one in an airplane bathroom.)

What I don’t like about it:

– They couldn’t use a thumbscrew and it’s held on with a hex nut? What, I’m supposed to get a socket wrench every time I’ve got to put a new bar on?
– I’d have to keep buying these special soap bars from the same manufacturer.

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Actually, strike that last point, I’d probably try to build a jig that perfectly fits a bar of Irish Spring so I could bore the thing out with a Makita.

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Woodgrain Post-it Stack: How the Heck Do You Think They Made This?

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It never occurred to me that if you printed a woodgrain cross-section on a piece of paper, and the ink bled enough to appear on the paper’s edges…

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…and you stacked those sheets into a solid brick, you’d then see woodgrain along the sides. Making this one nifty Post-it pad.

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It still raises the question of how they generated a slightly different cross-section for each sheet. If they were all the same, the sides would just have straight lines running down them, but as they’ve executed this the grain seems natural. Do you think they scanned the cross-section of an actual block of wood, then shaved a hair off, scanned it again, sanded it again, and so on?

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