Striking a balance between simplicity and intricacy, husband and wife design duo John and Svetlana (Lana) Briscella seamlessly merge their talents in Aminimal, a multifaceted studio that pushes the dimensions of industrial design. Aptly named, Aminimal aims to artfully spin the belief that minimal design comes from constrained concepts....

Austrian designer Andreas Scheiger celebrates the "craft of etching, engraving and letter design" with a nod to both science and the graphic design of the Victorian era. Scheiger believes that letters are "full of life" and, in an effort to explore "the means of communication by dissecting and rearranging...

Weaving a story into very stitch, Gentleman Arthur creates handcrafted, art deco-inspired neckties with an authorial vibe. Using an intensive labor-of-love woodblock printing process, Gentleman Arthur produces a limited run of ties imbued with aesthetically faded patterns reminiscent of what co-founder and designer, Samuel Wagner, likens to "the worn...

Gaming meets Chopin with Playground Sessions, a downloadable software that teaches piano through its breakthrough "Play to Learn" approach. Riffing on the strumming-to-scoring simulation of Guitar Hero, Playground Sessions enables users to practice "in an interactive environment with real-time feedback," backed by an interconnected keyboard and hit music library....

Slandered as a deviant and provocateur in some circles and worshipped as a cult figure in others, the work of director Ed Wood left a legacy of infamy. Although best-known for his abysmally applauded oeuvre, Plan 9 From Outer Space, which earned Wood the Golden Turkey Award for Worst...

Nostalgia is a thing of the future with The Amazing Type-Writer iOS app produced by Devin Chalmers at Doormouse Manufacturing. Mimicking the old-time clickety-clack of a Remington, The Amazing Type-Writer runs on "micro-swingarms" and the "latest in mobile pneumatic tubes technology." With the app's moveable carriage, users can hack...

Giving mythical tales a modern makeover, designer David Benqué has created The Infinite Adventure Machine, a story-generating program that merges fairytale narration with digital computing. Modeled after the 31 functions of folktales identified by the philosopher Vladimir Propp, The Infinite Adventure Machine generates timed visual cues and synopses for...

Promising "unexpected access to the invisible," what exactly the Nevada Museum of Art's current show Landscape Futures proposes isn't immediately clear. On first blush, the work looks like the usual collection of forward-thinking designs. But here there's a catch. The exhibit's range of large-scale installations, experiments and devices all...

With the High & Dry dish rack, Black + Blum's architectural artistry transcends humdrum household ware into a harmonious form and function showpiece. Intent on turning "something quite mundane into something spectacular," creative partners, Dan Black and Martin Blum, designed a sturdy, sculptural rack with fragile glassware as the...

Among the dystopian visions of a Matrix-style digital future, interaction designer John Kestner comes as a welcome voice, "enhancing the successful physical interfaces between humans and objects." The graduate and research affiliate of M.I.T. Media Lab, along with fellow grad David Carr, runs Supermechanical, a studio devoted to relating...

Digital design prodigy Mike Matas combines the ease of navigating the physical world to create lifelike interfaces that feel so unobtrusive you hardly notice you're using complex technology. Motivated by the desire to do things on a computer more like in reality, Matas set out to create virtual interfaces...

A young blonde woman holds up her hands against the frantic flapping of grey pigeons encircling her. Another female character, this one in a red skirt, floats listlessly in a dark pool of blue water, her discarded pair of yellow heels resting nearby. Invoking intrigue and suspense with her...

In a corporate world of sales and strategies, marketing maverick Ivy Ross opts instead to chart success with an approach that has pioneered paradigm shifts in advertising. From spearheading covert creative operations for Mattel to stirring up merchandising mojo for Gap's iconic 'Black Magic, Black Pants' ad campaign, Ross...

Boasting a list of innovations of sci-fi proportions, designer and researcher Marcelo Coelho paints a future that is both accessible and immediate. Referencing daily materials and human behavior, Coelho creates objects that feel technologically tailored and socially integrated. After completing his BFA in Computation Arts at Montreal's Concordia University,...

Rafael de Cárdenas' signature blend of saturated colors and stark geometry turns classic architecture into a common language of striking patterns and eye-popping hues. "Graphics lend themselves to a very immediate reception, which I'm very drawn to," he recently told Cool Hunting. With an impressive roster of diverse projects...

Engaged in the timeless debate of form over function, Brooklyn-based furniture designer Paul Loebach seamlessly reconciles the two pillars of design through his distinct approach to craftsmanship. "The forms of our material environment carry a collective meaning, just like a spoken language," explains Loebach, continuing that his goal is...

A slice of life shrinks even smaller with the miniature design line, Terada Mokei. Architect-turned-modeler Naoki Terada's Architectural Model Accessories Series is a monochrome microcosmic representation of everyday life. Terada adopted a 1/100 scale ratio for the series, promoting a metric-based "global standard" that adorably scales down the largeness...

Japanese artist Iori Tomita takes a colorful approach to highlighting the complex compositions of marine life creatures with his collection entitled “New World Transparent Specimens." Tomita was first introduced to the creation of transparent specimens for the scientific purpose of examining minuscule bone structure as an undergraduate student majoring...

Not content with just simple macabre, jewelry designer Joji Kojima's heavily-bejeweled creations layer on baroque references and over-the-top fetishism, with the kind of craftsmanship usually reserved for more conservative luxury brands. His glitzy output spans gold-chained rabbit muzzles and hats made of crystallized teeth. Born in California, Kojima studied...

Transforming Japanese letters into a playful creatures, Bandai's line of shape-shifting animals inform while entertaining. Called Mojibakeru (Moji is the Japanese word for "character" and bakeru means "to change"), the collection of six plastic toys represent 犬(dog), 虎(tiger), 魚(fish), 馬(horse), 鳥(bird) and 龍(dragon). Each character is available in black,...