1.Take In a Little Light Reading With This Book-Inspired Lamp

My latest post for Wired.com about a San Francisco-based architect who developed a collapsible, book shaped, lamp. The book concept is a little forced and using the idea of using  it as an emergency light (as demonstrated in the Kickstarter video) is a bit far fetched, but the stunning photography and versatility of the design have helped it raise over $340,000 with more than two weeks remaining.

2. PillPack.com Rethinking Mail Order Pharmacy

Most designers don’t want to get their hands dirty with the world of regulation or industrial robotics, but the team at PillPack.com has written a new prescription that helps medicine go down much easier. Instead of fumbling with half a dozen bottles or buying one of those tacky “day of the week” pill boxes, PillPack puts all your prescriptions in personalized packets organized by time of day. It’s a simple, but potentially transformative, idea.

The company hasn’t officially launched yet, but is participating in the TechStars incubator and has a chance to massively change the way we take our medicine. Sign up for their mailing list, they’re one to watch.

3. Photos of Neatly Arranged Collections

Portland Photographer Jim Golden shoots pictures of neatly arranged collections that capture the compulsive character of their curators. Prints start at $90.00, a fraction of the price of starting your own collection.

HT: Nick de la Mare

1. Medieval Bookbinding

Alexandra Gillespie is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, focused on English and medieval studies. She’s an expert on medieval manuscripts, early printed books, and is keeping a blog on medieval bookbinding techniques.

HT: Tim O’Reilly

2. The Reports of Retail’s Death are Greatly Exaggerated

Fred Destin, a Boston area VC, has a comprehensive post that pokes some holes in Marc Andreessen’s software is eating the world/death of retail. Basically, while retail has some structural problems, ecommerce faces plenty of headwinds as well.

HT: Nate Murray

3. Farm Hack

Farm Hacks is 4H for the internet age — Young farmers getting together to talk shop, gelding.

HT: Tim O’Reilly

4. Laqueristas

There is a community of 26,773 Redditors focused on exploring the art of nail polish. While many would dismiss it as frivalous, 2012 saw $768MM in sales and 70% category growth. As with Pinterest and the Cricut, this is a booming DIY category that doesn’t get much focus.

Photo Credit: RainbowCutie

In April of 2012 I joined Wired.com writing for the newly launched “Design” section which is focused on the emerging trends that are redefining what it means to be a designer. It’s been an awesome experience, but I’ve neglected this blog for almost a year and want to change that.

Many of the things I used to write about here are now my focus at Wired, so I’ll be reorienting the subjects I cover while keeping the big themes intact. Here’s what you can expect on this blog:

Retail and Video: The 3-D printer and related developments are going to continue to have a profound impact on the world of design. As more retail sales go to Amazon, Kickstarter, other ecommerce vendors there is going to be a lot of vacant retail space.

There will also be more “noise” and a search for new communication channels. I think the most important development to come in world of DIY is not a new type of 3-D Printer, but the next Apple TV.

Links: Many of my favorite blogs use the “link post” as a regular feature. I love getting exposed to a few links with a bit of analysis and hope you will too (We also curate a lot of these over at Wired Design in the “Elsewhere” section).

Opinions and Edge Cases: I’ll also be using this space as a collection point for random data points and percolating ideas that aren’t yet full stories.

If you liked the type of posts I wrote about 3-D printers and other fab subjects, definitely check out my stuff at Wired.com (or on my Twitter feed). It’s definitely better written and more thoroughly researched

Thanks to everyone who has read, commented and shared over the past five years and I hope you’ll stick around for the next five!

The Making of Paranorman Ebook

Paranorman was produced using thousands of 3-D printed models. Laika, the studio behind the additive fabrication animation, has created a free ebook that gives some behind the scenes perspective on how plaster powder produced a popular picture.

Why Brits Lagged Behind Americans in Gadget Adoption

During the middle of the 20th century, Americans had a 10, 20, to 30 year lead in gadget ownership over our British buddies.  Megan McArdle has some theories as to why.

Nine Real Life Pokemon Characters

Bizarre looking animals that would be right at home in the Pokemon universe.

Algorithmic Orange Juice

Fascinating story about how Coca-Cola engineers it’s Minute Maid Orange Juice.

“is definitely one of the most complex applications of business analytics. It requires analyzing up to 1 quintillion decision variables to consistently deliver the optimal blend, despite the whims of Mother Nature.”

The Black Book model includes detailed data about the myriad flavors—more than 600 in all—that make up an orange, and consumer preferences. Those data are matched to a profile detailing acidity, sweetness, and other attributes of each batch of raw juice. The algorithm then tells Coke how to blend batches to replicate a certain taste and consistency, right down to pulp content.

Also, there is an entire book about orange juice — Squeezed: What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice.

Unpainted Action Figures

One reason 3-D printers won’t be a viable replacement for most manufactured goods — Painting and surface decoration are incredibly important. This great gallery shows what iconic action figures look like before they’re painted in the trademark color schemes. Via.

1. Penny Arcade reports on the secrets of successful Kickstarter campaigns — ones that deliver on time, not those that raise a bunch of money and keep backers hanging.

2. “As Seen on YouTube” — Epic Meal Time is turning their fratty food show into a line of cooking gear.

3. Straight Line Designs does amazing things with plywood and CNC routers. Via.

4. Joris Peels’s essays on 3-D printing are always thought provoking. He’s written a great report on companies that have interesting patents in the 3-D printing market.

5. Megan McArdle provides an amazingly astute take on medical innovation:

Via.

6. Sparkfun has become a victim of their own success. Their “Free Days” used to mean huge discounts of free products for customers. Now fear of lawsuits is forcing them to end the program.

7. Pictures of Ireland from 100 years ago — This is where my father is from. Doesn’t seem that different from when I visited in the 1980s.

1. Could the medical system learn from one of the industries most responsible for the spike in chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes? Surgeon and author Atul Gawande thinks so and beautifully explains how in this New Yorker piece about what hospitals could learn from the Cheesecake Factory. Saved room for dessert? Here is Dr. Gawande on NPR.

2. Ace of Cakes left the Food Network a couple years ago, but chef Duff Goldman is turning up the heat on his personal brand. With a line of cake decorating supplies at Michael’s craft stores and a new chain of “Color Me Mine” style cake decorating bakeries in the oven, the brand has never been hotter.

3. Johnny Cupcakes has been touring the coasts selling Tshirts from a tricked out ice cream truck. With limited edition tees packaged in ice cream containers, Haute street wear has never looked so cool.

1. Controversy over the TangiBot, a fork of MakerBot’s Industries open source Replicator 3D printer.

2. Great presentation by the co-founder of Dribbble about the exclusive design site’s start. Most interesting part is how they recruited super star designers to set the tone for the community. Having Dan C(SS)ederholm and sweet Tshirts help (see slides 19-20).

3. MIT students develop an auto-positioning router. Users just need to put it in rough position and the AI takes care of the rest.

4. A story about the advent of drones made the top of the Drudge Report. As with the 3D printed firearm we’ll see some interesting political alignments and arguments arise out of these new technologies going mainstream.

There is no better proof that we are living in a golden age of design than the fact that a simple cardboard box can be an object d’art. Over the past 18 months “Subscription Ecommerce” has become a popular segment of the online shopping market and brought forth a renaissance in the craft of corrugation. For those unfamiliar with the term, subscription ecommerce is basically a “fruit-of-the-month club” where you get cosmetics, shoes, or other goods mailed to you every month instead of grapefruit. The model has exploded based on some early success like BirchBox and StyleMint and is spreading into a variety of other product categories.

Luxury subscriptions bring a bit of random fun into the life of the customer and provide a steady revenue stream for the merchant, but also create a new set of challenges like creating a brand image with few touch points. With these services the brand is paramount. As a customer you are paying people to choose products for you, sight unseen. With no physical store to set the mood, retailers can only rely on their websites and shipper boxes to build the brand. Packaging is now a major part of the “value add” and is the primary way to assure customers that they have made a smart decision trusting the taste/style of a given marchant. Fortunately for customers, this has made getting a package in the mail even more fun.

Because of their market dominance and reputation for low prices, Amazon hasn’t really done much to dress up their up their boxes in over 10 years. They have a dominant position in the industry and a reputation for operations and delivery so a simple box fits their brand well.

Photo Credit

Alternatively, Zappos was one of the first major ecommerce merchants to set their boxes apart with a distinct color and brand identity. When you see their distinctive box on your stoop, you know exactly what’s waiting for you. This fits with Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh’s desire to build a brand around customer service and their white box has become a symbol that represents this goal.

Photo Credit

BirchBox

BirchBox is the biggest success so far in the subscription ecommerce market and they  have taken a cue from Zappos by staking out a brand position with the color of their shipper box. However, corrugated cardboard gets damaged and doesn’t create a sense of an upscale cosmetics brand so BirchBox also created a more refined, foil stamped inner box. This adds cost, but is necessary to make the experience feel worthwhile. They have also customized the box for partners like Cynthia Rowley in the past.

Photo Credit

Bluum

Bluum, a subscription service for new moms, follows BirchBox’s style with a differentiated outer/inner package. Bluum also invests in a nice baby blue wrapping paper to help make the “out-of’the-box” experience as pleasurable as possible. Just as Godiva and Apple spend money to have their mall stores reflect their brands, ecommerce companies especially subscription based ones, will need to invest in presentation.

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LoveWithFood

LoveWithFood (subscription food samples) doesn’t do much with their design, but the bold red color helps it stand out from the rest, unless you compare it to Bluum. Because there has been so little innovation in mail order packaging design, there is an opportunity for startups to stake out a color identity for their packaging the Tiffany has with its distinct blue green boxes.

Photo Credit

BabbaCo

This will create very real trademark issues. While Bluum and LoveWithFood are in different product categories, BabbaCo a service that mails new craft kits for kids out every month has staked out a bold green color position…

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KiwiCrate

…Unfortunately, so did their direct competitor KiwiCrate. Kiwi Crate and BabbaCo have essentially the same offering, monthly crafts for kids, but also share a color scheme that is confusingly similar. Their target user group of children under 6 years of age would be unlikely to recognize a difference between the “green boxes”. There is a bit of a land grab for colors in these markets and this highlights the limited real estate on the color wheel.

Photo Credit

Citrus Lane

Clever designers can use the nature of their materials to the benefit of the brand. Citrus Lane sends parents ecologically friendly baby toys and supplies.  Instead of a full color box they opted instead for a bright yellow stripe on an otherwise unadorned, natural paper fiber box. This design choice reflects the brand promise that you are getting natural products.

Photo Credit

Foodzie

Monthly gourmet food vendor Foodzie does a nice job reflecting their organic/small producer ethos with a package designed around imperfections from grungy type, crude printing, and unadorned cardboard. Once the box is opened though the presentation takes on a much more polished feel. Each mailer comes with a booklet that explains the origins of the food samples.

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Lollihop

Lollihop takes a similar approach to Foodzie, by providing background about the gourmet food samples they ship, but also add in thematic extras, like a package around Christmas that had little silver bells attached to the lid.

Photo Credit

StyleMint

Sometimes the best package isn’t a box. Because StyleMint is focused on shipping Tshirts they can eschew the box and instead wrap the small, light garments in brown paper packaging (tied up with string) saving on shipping while lending a cool, artisinal vibe to the product.
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Alula Editions

Alula Editions mails fiber arts on a monthly basis and packages them in exquisite envelopes that look almost as nice as the artwork inside. Each package is nicely finished with a ribbon and clearly communicates a brand image that exists outside of the individual contents.

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Quarterly

Quarterly is a subscription service where you receive “Wonderful Things” from interesting people. The interesting people are largely designers and hence the package is nicely minimal on the outside to reveal a bold and striking wrapping paper on the inside. The contents vary month to month, but they always seem cool.

Photo Credit

Shoe Dazzle

ShoeDazzle has a natural box style to use, but have created over the top feminine pink/flower graphics to tightly target a specific type of shopper. Their brand feels as real as any retailer.

Photo Credit

Stylist Pick

Stylist Pick ships cool clothing items every month and they emphasize it with a sleek, glossy, black shoe box. The items inside all come from different producers, but have been blessed with coolness by this slick package.

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Trunk Club

Trunk Club sends men several articles of clothing each month, which they can try them on, send back what they dislike, and pay for the rest. This design artfully takes advantage of the brown paper texture and incorporates the handle in a cute way that makes it feel just a little more like a trunk than a cardboard box. Even the random postage stickers and hand written notes added in transit help build the brand value for Trunk Club. The handle puts the design over the top.

Photo Credit

Virginia Postrel wrote a great book called the Substance of Style arguing how changes in technology and culture were increasing the aesthetic sensitivity of the population. She pointed out that an average consumer, shopping at Target, could choose between no fewer than six designer toilet brushes. She wrote that book back in 2003, but almost 10 years later, trends in technology, commerce, and culture only seem to be accelerating this phenomena. If the lowly cardboard shipper box can become an artwork, is there anything that can’t given the right market forces?

CutLaserCut is a service bureau that offers laser cutting for creative professionals. They’ve done work for Google and Braun, but also reserve time for experimentation. Like any good alpha geeks they wanted to see how far they could push their tools and decided to use their industrial laser cutter to cook a pancake. While it might seem like a frivolous use of such a powerful tool it is important to remember how early we are in the development of home manufacturing. It is hard to make a direct comparison between desktop computing and bench top manufacturing, but imagine if we stopped imagining new uses for computers in 1977.

Also, consider that laser cut pancakes could be bigger than 3D printing. Before you dismiss me as crazy a company called Provocraft turned industrial CNC vinyl cutters into a consumer tech franchise called Cricut that generates ~$250MM a year in revenue. That is ~$100MM more annual revenue than Stratasys or 3D Systems (the two largest 3D printer manufacturers) generate in a year. Provocraft is a quiet company in Utah, that never gets written about in the New York Times or Economist think pieces, but is selling more digital fabrication equipment to every day users than any other company in the world.

To show how these things can come full circle, Cricut turned industrial vinyl/paper cutters into a kitchen friendly tool called the “Cricut Cake” that can digitally cut out fondant for cake decorating and sells it for under $400. It will take a lot of innovation to bring a laser cutter down to that cost, but it is easy to see how it could happen conceptually. Just as Pinterest flew under the radar of the tech cognescenti, Cricut is huge in the suburbs, but not so much in hacker spaces.

Photo Credit

This pancake project is also just cool looking on a purely aesthetic level. The spiral design is neat and you can imagine how all sorts of fun customizations would be possible from illustrative decorative designs to CPC (Cost per Cake) advertising. Disneyworld restaurants are already famous for Mickey Mouse pancakes, now your local molecular gastronomy restaurant can offer brunch emblazoned with Durer etchings.

Tim O’Reilly has a saying that to see what is coming in the future, you should pay attention to the “Alpha Geeks” and that hobbyists will create the future for fun before the capitalists do. This project seems like a perfect embodiment of that statement. I have no doubt that these tools will revolutionize the kitchen as well as the factory and the team at CutLaserCut is giving us a sneak preview of how it will happen.

Thanks to Andrew Sliwinski for the tip!

Skier Jonny Mosely tweeted this picture of a sign that helped joggers equate their physical exertion to caloric intake. Depressingly you have to log 4.5 miles of running to work off one slice of pizza. It’s an unfortunate calculation, but it is certainly better to have the information.

What if the same principle was applied to amusement gluttony? If you read Clay Shirky’s excellent book “The Cognitive Surplus” you’ll learn that the time American’s spend watching TV every year would be sufficient to complete 3-4 new projects with the size and importance of Wikipedia. To put it another way, we could have 3-4 new excellent resources that make the world a better place OR we can have season 19 of Two and a Half Men”.

What if there was a “Nutrition Facts Label” or simple rules of thumb people could use to measure investment in learning a skill vs. watching TV. For example:

- The time you spend watching “Friends” (8 seasons x 24 episodes X 30 min) you could have mastered 20 new recipes.

- The average American watches 4.2 hours of TV a day. If you cut that in half, you could speak passable Italian in a year. You could speak fluently in 2.

- Cutting out a single one hour cable news program a week saves 52 hours, enough time to make a quilt or hope chest that will last for 50+ years.

Junk food and TV have a lot in common. Both are plentiful and very enjoyable in the short term. It is easy to add calories or lose hours without some kind of sign posts. Even with those numbers it is helpful to have tools like the sign above to be reminded of context. Maybe its time for a “DIY Nutrition Facts Label”?