Best Car Concepts, Designs and Random Automotive Weirdness from 2021 by Rain Noe

I'm not sure if automotive design is evolving, or just getting weirder for the sake of being weird. While engineers are busy trying to develop autonomous systems, car designers mostly seem preoccupied with developing loud forms that will cut through the signal noise of our attention economy. Here's what jumped out at us in 2021:

Audi revealed their shape-shifting Skysphere concept, a sort of telescoping car that can increase or decrease its wheelbase.

West Coast Customs realized Rolls-Royce's "Floating" concept car, their interpretation of the 103EX. (The client is allegedly Justin Bieber.)

Toyota unveiled their eye-popping X Prologue concept, which kind of looks like a murderous rollerskate.

The unlikely pairing of Mercedes and Geely yielded the Smart Concept #1, a design that I found stood out in this market for actually demonstrating restraint.

Speaking of unlikely pairings, Pininfarina designed a car for Foxconn, whose new car division is called Foxtron. I can't call the results good.

We saw a shameless electric VW Beetle knockoff in the Ora Punk Cat, a Chinese car targeted at women.

Another tiny car that caught our eye is German EV startup Adaptive City Mobility's City One, which kind of looks like it was designed by Samsonite.

Speaking of tiny cars, we learned of a strange-to-us vehicle category in China: Ultra-narrow low-speed EVs. It's apparently a vehicle commonly used for a single grandparent to transport a single child to school.

We got a glimpse of Rolls-Royce's bananas Coachbuild Program, where rich clients are embedded within the design team to help develop their own bespoke vehicles. That's gotta be fun for the designers….

We learned that prior to Virgil Abloh's untimely death, the designer had been collaborating with Mercedes-Benz on an off-road electric Maybach.

EV startup Arrival designed a car specifically for ridesharing, implementing the input of actual Uber drivers.

Looking towards the future, Toyota unveiled no less than 15 concept EVs at a single event.

Looking towards the future but with an eye on the past, EV startup Alpha revealed their forthcoming models that look like modern updates to 1960s/'70s European or Japanese coupes:

Looking towards the past, Jaguar announced they're bringing back the 1953 C-Type (for eight lucky kajillionaires, anyway).

This year we learned that the Microlino, a micro-car that you enter through the front of the vehicle, is actually going into production (but won't be for sale in America).

I guess some car designers are getting bored with side doors? Following the Microlino announcement, we learned about this Pininfarina concept car that you enter through the back of the vehicle.

This year we also saw lots of experimentation with automotive UI. Mercedes developed this "Hyperscreen" that takes up the entire dashboard.

Rolls-Royce made the rather bizarre UI decision to replace the tachometer with a counterclockwise "Power Reserve" gauge. Check out how it works:

Speaking of dashboards, we looked at some wild ones from the 1980s.

How 'bout those yoke steering wheels? Surprisingly, this guy gave a positive review of Tesla's yoke, finding it "way easier to turn:"

Audi came up with a strange idea for their A6 E-Tron concept: It can use its headlights to project a videogame you can play while the car charges.

The Dacia Sandero can save you a few Euros by not having to charge you for an infotainment screen. Instead you plug your smartphone into the dash, and that's the screen, connected by Bluetooth.

Cognitive dissonance: We were incredulous to learn that Mini's Countryman has stock turn signals that point the wrong way.

This year we also ran across a bunch of random car stuff. For instance, if you've ever wondered what an inside-out car would look like, here you go.

Another thing you've probably never wondered, but here's what it looks like when you move a car's driving components to the back seat.

Dutch designer Niek Pulles catalogs cars that look like sneakers.

Here's a "Predator Prius," for hunting things other than parking spaces.

A Detroit Institute of Art exhibition showed us how different car renderings used to be.

"Ford Nucleon Atomic Powered Vehicle, Rear Side View," 1956, Albert L. Mueller, American; gouache, pastel, prismacolor, brown-line print on vellum. Collection of Robert L. Edwards and Julie Hyde-Edwards.

"'71 Barracuda Front End Facelift Concept," 1968, Donald Hood, American; crayon, gouache, ink, felt marker, prismacolor, pastel on vellum. Collection of Robert L. Edwards and Julie Hyde-Edwards.

"Rendering of Proposed 1967 Cadillac Eldorado Design," 1964, Wayne Kady, American; watercolor, gouache, and ink on paper. From the Collections of The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Michigan.

Incredibly, this year Klein Vision's flying car flew from one city to another, landed, turned back into a car, and drove downtown.

Rather than flying through the air, these racecars use it to power the built-in air jacks they have for speedy pit stops.

This year we learned an industrial design student's solar car was actually prototyped a few years ago.

Lastly, we didn't travel much this year, but we did manage to land one sit-down interview with an auto designer, and it was a great one: Jaguar Land Rover CCO Gerry McGovern spoke with us on modernism, evolution and what design students should be learning.

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Best Bicycle Concepts, Developments and Accessories of 2021 by Rain Noe

This year we saw plenty of bicycle and bike-accessory news, from crazy concepts to practical modifications. Our favorites are the ones that are both crazy and practical, like the Cercle Bicycle, a thesis project by Industrial Design student Berhard Sobotta.

Probably not as practical, but certainly eye-catching, is designer Stephan Henrich's "infinity"-wheeled bicycle concept.

Also not practical, but we just had to watch it: This maniac replaced his bicycle wheels with sawmill blades, for frozen lake riding.

Speaking of metal wheels, a startup is rolling out METL bicycle tires made from shape memory alloy. They've licensed the tech out to NASA for their Mars Rover tires.

Same guy who made the sawmill blade wheels also made these DIY airless bicycle tires out of PVC.

From Germany comes the Convercycle, a bicycle that transforms to cargo bike length.

If you've already got a cargo bike, CargoDrive lets you replace your bike's front wheel for e-bike cargo capacity.

If you want to haul cargo with a regular bike, check out the Ein, a "weightless" bike trailer that uses electric motor to cancel out its own weight.

The Trailerduck might do the Ein one better. It's a self-powered, auto-following bike trailer that can haul 600 pounds.

Bicycle as workbench? That's just one of the configurations of the Cake Ösa, a utility e-bike.

Gocycle's G4 fast-folding e-bike drew plenty of eyeballs this year.

Biking in cold weather? Polar Plugs are heated handlebar inserts.

If you're looking for a more comfortable grip, a startup called Personomic says their custom-fit silicone bike grips offer better support and less pain.

And speaking of less pain, this company in New Zealand offers more comfortable handlebars made from shock-absorbing bamboo.

If it's a more comfortable saddle you're seeking, Specialized says their S-Works Romin EVO saddle, which is made from a carbon-fiber shell and a 3D-printed rubber-like polymer, is designed to compress in all the right places.

In "A Product Designer vs. a Graphic Designer's Approach to a Bike Safety Device," we felt the graphic designer had the better solution.

"The neon-colored $2 bike safety trick." --Annalisa van den Bergh

We ran a "Yea or Nay?" on this bike turn signal that activates when you look to the side.

A startup called Oonee says they can end bike theft by providing free storage pods in public spaces.

We took a look at the world's longest indoor mountain bike trail.

During the pandemic, we were fascinated to learn that for safety, kids in Barcelona bike to school in massive mobs called a "bike bus."

And for the opposite of safety, we also stumbled across these grown men downhill racing on tiny children's bicycles.

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Fantastic Industrial Design Student Work: Mina Kasirifar's FLIP Furniture by Rain Noe

After earning her B.A. in Industrial Design from Iran's University of Tehran, Mina Kasirifar immigrated to the U.S. to pursue a Masters degree in I.D. at San Francisco State University. For one of her final student projects, undertaken during the pandemic, Kasirifar tackled a timely subject: How could parents in lockdown keep children engaged indoors, as staring into a screen can only last for so long?

Kasirifar subsequently developed FLIP, an object that "merges the concept of toy and furniture," she writes, "to invent a space-efficient product with joyful experiences and new interactive possibilities that kids won't quickly get bored of."

"FLIP aims to enhance kids' indoor activity by providing input for vestibular and proprioceptive senses. These sense relate to balance, movement, and coordination."

"The two vestibular and proprioceptive inputs are usually provided outdoors, such as in sensory gyms, parks, and activity classes. This means children have limited opportunities to satisfy these two physically related senses at home. Sensory products for home use have shortcomings too. Many of them are either single-function pieces with a limited and pre-defined use scenario or are space-consuming installations that are not affordable to many parents who live in small homes."

Kasirifar's design intent was to combine the features of several existing objects:

To zero in on the form, she 3D-printed function-exploring mockups:

She then refined the model and the demonstrated use cases that could be gained by flipping the object onto different sides.

Kasirifar points out that the illustration above isn't the totality of the possibilities for use cases. After conducting user tests, she found that "kids explored and enjoyed the product in many new ways that were not part of the initial product instruction."

Features:

- FLIP provides active seating, creative movements, and wiggling to help children stay focused during other activities.

- This product can be used for the sole purpose of enjoying it or while engaging in other tasks like reading, writing, or using a screen.

- Handles increase safety, enhance ergonomy, and provide ease of use when riding flipping, or lifting the product.

- FLIP's design purpose is to be a product that's always available for kids in their room to enjoy with the need to stock it somewhere after use.

- Children can independently switch between the different functions without involving parents to install, attach, fold, and unfold.

- The ends of the rocking curves are flattened to create a hard stop that prevents the chair from collapsing forward or backward with excessive swings.

Kasirifar's project won the 2021 West District Graduate Student Merit Award from the IDSA. Congratulations Mina!

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The STIK precision knife from Veiss makes your old X-Acto knife obsolete by Core Jr

Frustrated with the limitations of current craft knives, many of which use a design that has been in production for almost 100 years, the design team at Veiss Innovation set out to develop a better solution. Over three years they created dozens of prototypes, focusing on materials, blade retention during use, blade storage, and safety. The result is the STIK Precision Knife, a new tool designed with solid metal components, engineering-grade resins and featuring several innovative features. The new knife is now available for preorder on Kickstarter.

The first significant enhancement included in the STIK knife design is the patent pending blade retention mechanism. Typical craft knives use a clamping force to hold the blade into the knife. It's easy to insert the blade incorrectly, resulting in frustrations ranging from loose blades to the blade falling out altogether while in use. The Veiss design corrects this problem by using a mechanism with multiplanar motion to grab and lock the blade in place. Removing an inserted blade from the STIK knife requires ten times the force over current clamping mechanisms, ensuring that the blade will never come out of the STIK knife while in use.

The patent pending locking mechanism makes the STIK a superior craft knife to others on the market.

In addition to the superior blade locking mechanism, the STIK has storage for up to 6 extra blades housed in the barrel of the knife. This allows the user to always have blades on hand and keeps the focus where it belongs - on the project. This integrated storage and organizational feature has been a pleasant surprise to users who have tested the STIK. During the development phase, prototypes were tested with Architectural and Industrial Design students from a leading university in the US. The feedback gathered consistently highlighted the blade storage mechanism within the STIK as the feature most beneficial in their day-to-day use.

The STIK integrated storage holds up to 6 spare blades so you can stay focused on your projects

A major flaw with most craft knives in the market is they either do not include a safety cap or the cap does not securely fit. Most precision knives allow the cap to easily and unexpectedly slide off, leaving the blade dangerously exposed in a bag or pocket. A sharp knife loose in a designer's bag can damage the bag, its contents, or the owner's fingers when reaching into the bag. The locking cap on the STIK knife allows users to carry the knife in pockets and reach in with confidence that the cap is securely in place. Additionally, the locking cap is designed to snap onto the back-end of the knife, keeping it with the knife where it belongs.

The patent pending safety cap is designed to stay where it belongs.

The Veiss STIK design enhances productivity and improves safety while keeping an emphasis on durability and reliability. The ergonomic design reduces strain on the hands and allows for smarter, faster, and safer cutting. The blade retention mechanism on the knife reduces frustration allowing you to keep your focus where it belongs – on your work. The blade storage feature in the knife saves time and ensures that you always have a sharp blade available. The safety cap is designed to never fall off and never be lost. The STIK leverages premium materials with professionals in mind, producing a new standard in precision cutting.

The Kickstarter campaign for pre-ordering launched on *** INSERT DATE HERE *** and is live until *** INSERT DATE HERE ***.

Veiss Innovation L.L.C (www.veissgear.com) is a product development firm in North Carolina focused on the development of professional products. The Veiss team is comprised of industrial designers, marketers, and engineers with over 80 years of product design experience. Veiss Innovation L.L.C.'s mission is to deliver tools worthy of the professionals' skill.

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