Awesome Design

Polka-dot, paisley, zig-zag, tartan, and camouflage are few popular patterns that have curious names and colorful backstories. In this video from Name Explain, host and language expert Patrick Foote explores the origins of these names and how they reflected the culture and trends of their times.

We’ve all heard the saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but some design traits are regarded as universally appealing. John Mauriello of Design Theory explores this idea and whether true rules of beauty exist or if other things like symmetry, balance, and context bias us in terms of aesthetic appreciation. Plus: Is the Golden Ratio really a big deal?

Sit back and relax with Taschen’s 1000 Chairs. This compendium is a must-have for anyone interested in modern design. The 664-page art book is packed with photos, historical information, and creator biographies about iconic chairs by Mackintosh, Eames, Ponti, and many other design greats. Expect designs from the 1800s through the early 21st century.

In this video from Tokyo Lens, host Norm Nakamura takes us inside one of the most unusual apartment buildings on the planet. Looking unassuming from the exterior, the concrete high-rise’s circular atrium features two metal staircases that lead to its apartments. The contrast between the efficient rental units and the luxury condo units is striking.

For the art collector, avid outdoors person, or architecture nerd in your life, a piece from Motawi Tileworks is a cool way to enhance a collection. The tiles are handmade with care and sold in various sizes. The array of rich art styles ranges from Charley Harper modernist whimsy to delicate decadence in a dedicated collection for the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

(PG-13: Language) Typewriters have taken many forms over the centuries. After a failed attempt to build a 3D-printed typewriter that works like a real one, Toast ended up engineering a novel design with a rotary type wheel. It prints by stamping its letters against carbon paper onto a small piece of paper. The model is available for download on his Gumroad page.

This incredible book is a 1,264-page tribute to one of the first and most important digital type foundries. Edited by Rudy VanderLans, it compiles nearly 40 years of inventive type specimens, design insights, and print ephemera from the trailblazing Emigre font studio. An essential addition to an design lover’s collection.

Typical LED and LCD screens on watches and clocks use seven segments to create Arabic numerals from 0 to 9. Pekero came up with a design concept for a 38-segment display that can show Chinese and Japanese numbers and some letters as well. At the end, they show how it might look on a watch, and you can check out an SVG file here.

This compendium from Phaidon combines and updates the three-volume Phaidon Design Classics into a single 592-page hardcover book. A must-own for appreciators of industrial design, the book showcases the most iconic and influential products and objects from the 17th to the 21st century.

For hundreds of years, pianos have largely remained unchanged. Whipsaw Design Lab shakes things up with its innovative Ravenchord piano. Shaped like a bird’s wing, the piano’s visible strings are arranged around a spiral-shaped frame while its keys sit atop the structure. It uses solenoids to activate dampers hidden at the center of its spiral.

This unique rocking chair from South Korean artist Muddycap has a design that makes it look like it’s in motion all of the time. Its jagged edges create the illusion of movement, much like pond ripples. Like Muddycap’s other wild chair designs, it only exists as a 3D model, but we’d love to see it put into production.

This innovative small house created by Boxabl unpacks and assembles in as little as an hour. In addition to the tiny home shown in this video, the company is developing temporary cabins for festivals, townhouses, and even a modular two-story house with a roof deck. The 361 square foot Boxable Casita can be reserved for pre-order now.

Love colors and design? Hues and Cues is a great party game that challenges you to pinpoint a specific color based on one- or two-word clues from other players. The closer you get to guessing the exact color from the 480-hue grid, the more points you earn. It’s a fun, family-friendly game for 3 to 10 players.

Despite advancements in 3D visualization tech, architects sometimes still need to show physical models of buildings. MonsterKook is an expert at making this type of miniature, and his YouTube channel is filled with these tiny houses, including this impressive creation featuring structural walls he made by filling foamboard forms with cement.

This stainless steel stencil is ideal for sketching out user interface and user experience concepts. It features common icons for things like menus, arrows, buttons, and sliders, as well as social media. Its top edge includes a pixel ruler and column guides as well.

This unique bridge allows pedestrians to cross a river or canal, and lets ships pass underneath by rolling over to increase its clearance. It uses a hand-cranked cable system to flip the bridge along a rippled track. The concept was turned into a real bridge by Thomas Randall-Page.