It's been an absolute crap year for many of us. So I'm ending it with a roundup of 52 unexpected, surprising or clever design solutions I saw this year, the ones that really made me smile. Well, and at least two that made me cringe, take a guess. Enjoy!

Image: Mattes. "Stagecoach being transferred to a railway car with a simple Portainer. This is an example of early Intermodal freight transport by the French Mail 1844. The picture is exhibited in Deutsches Museum Verkehrszentrum, Munich, Germany."

Designey Ceramic Alternatives to Wood Stoves and Fireplaces

Designey Toilets from France

DoCoMo's Silent, Safe Balloon-Based Camera Drones

Ex-Toy-Designer of Transforming Robots Creates Electric Scooter That Transforms for Easy Storage

Expensive Solution for Short Driveway on Busy Road: Install a Turntable

Fantastic Industrial Design Thesis Project: The Cercle Bicycle Camper

From Spain, a Creative and Eco-Friendly Way to Beat the Heat

German Robotics Enthusiast's Solution to a Broken Clock

Improvised Design from a Prison Cell: Illustrated "Prisoners' Inventions" Book

Improvised Objects and Solutions, from Redneck Engineering

Japanese Company Purposely Designs Dull, Boring Toys

Kid Imagines Rubik's Cube Made From Tiny Screens. Dad Invents it

Making Knobs from Plastic Bottles, a Random Object and Some Heat

Pencils That Visually Indicate Their Line Weight

Pop-Up Prison Design with Open Cubicles and Touchscreens

Products Designed for Shabbat Let You Perform Certain Tasks Without Technically Performing Them

Qarnot's "Computing Heater" Uses Cloud Computing to Heat Individual Spaces

Rony: A Dual-Headed Flashlight Provides Better UX, for Bike or Hikes

Silicone Straws that "Unzip" for Easy Cleaning

Smart Design for a Gate That Automatically Opens and Closes, No Power Needed

Sony's Tetris-Like Packaging Solves a Shipping Dilemma

Swiss Mile's Incredible Four-Legged/Wheeled Robot Can Do it All

The Bora X Pure Downward-Extracting Induction Cookto

The Landscaper's Equivalent of a Standing Desk

The Luno Front Cab Air Mattress Fills the Ga

The Pocket Piano: A Full-Size Keyboard Made from Magnetically-Connecting Segments

The Trailerduck: A Self-Powered, Auto-Following Bike Trailer

There are Sinks Designed Just for Vomiting Into

These German Swarm 'Bots Unload Packages by Intentionally Crashing Into the Loading Platforms

Transforming Unrecyclable Potato Chip Bags Into Sleeping Bags for the Homeless

Vintage Radiators with Built-In Plate Warmers

What the Amish Use as a Light Switch

Wheelchair of the Future? The Ascento Pro, an Amazing Two-Wheeled Robot

Who Knew? They Make Silent Tape Guns

Wife Complains of the Views, so Husband Builds Rotating House

Window-Based Clotheslines That Slide In and Out on a Track

That's it for me, folks. Have a great New Year's!

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Given the importance of in-person studio time, product and industrial design students must have found lockdown difficult. But you wouldn't know it by looking at some of the standout projects we saw this year.

Out of the dozens of student projects we covered in 2021, these seven below really stood out. The students tackled real-world problems, and asked the right questions. They didn't rely on magical hypothetical apps in their designs, but instead manipulated physical materials to enable their objects to achieve the desired outcomes. None of these projects are designed for Instagram.

Most of the projects considered the overall system they would operate within, and most of the projects really showed their research and developmental work; click on the links below for more details.

The Roadfix Device by Luca Grosso, Silvana Migliozzi, Alessio Puleo, Zöe Schnegg and Xueyan Niu

Politecnico di Milan Concept Design Laboratory, Italy

The students thought through the physical UX of a pothole-fixing device, as well as the economic system that would allow municipalities to sustain it.

Peter Morgan's 6:1 Toaster Concept

National College of Art and Design, Ireland

Morgan asked "How much of our appliances are actually essential?" and designed a toaster with "a distributed feature set: where the features of the design are completed by other objects the user possesses."

Karen Kong's Adjustable Sesura Chair

University of New South Wales, Australia

Kong's elegant seating designed for orchestra members has improved adjustment mechanisms to suit a variety of instrument-based seating postures. It also stacks to take up less space than the incumbent design.

Mina Kasirifar's FLIP Furniture

San Francisco State University

Kasirifar's chair designed to seat, stimulate and engage children can be flipped into a variety of configurations, "merging the concept of toy and furniture."

Sophie Williamson's Beta Guard for Vineyard Protection

University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Williamson designed a less expensive, more sustainable way of protecting vineyards from pests than the incumbent system.

Wang Yuwei and Wu Xuanqi's "Rotate" Ergonomic Restaurant Cart

National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Taiwan

Wang and Wu's clean-up cart makes things easier on the body for the worker with improved ergonomics and a transforming configuration that offers better maneuverability in tight spaces.

Jade Echard Transforms Oyster Shells Into Durable Material

Central Saint Martins, UK

By developing a practical method to transform a food waste material into something useful, Echard came up with a system that considers the environment, the supply chain and the economy.

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Industrial Design Resource Blog

Friday, 31 December 2021

52 Outside-of-the-Box Design Solutions Spotted in 2021 by Rain Noe

Best Product and Industrial Design Student Work Spotted in 2021 by Rain Noe