Design – The Goods

Design

Meet Us at World Maker Faire

September 21, 2010

If you’ve ever wondered where you can shop UncommonGoods in person, wonder no more. This weekend, we’re putting together an uncommon living room at World Maker Faire, a gathering of makers, crafters and DIY folk at the NY Hall of Science.

We’ll be showcasing all our past YouGoods winners along with a great assortment of our newest and best in handmade, eco-friendly, DIY-friendly, and modern design.

So come sit down in a seatbelt chair. Scribble a note on a chalkboard pillow. Make faces at our Tengu USB-Powered character. Bring your kids– we’ll have plenty of toys.

And tell our CEO David Bolotsky about your product ideas. We’re looking for innovative and new product designs, and we want to hear from you, Makers! Stop by to share your ideas, and we just might help you bring your product to market.

UncommonGoods at World Maker Faire
NY Hall of Science, Queens, NY
Saturday, September 25: 10 – 7
Sunday, September 26: 10 – 6
*Product Pitch Hour: Sunday, 2-3 pm*

And once you’ve shared your ideas at World Maker Faire, come down to Times Square on Sunday at 6:00 P.M. for Love In Times Square, with our friends at IndieFlix. They’re showing a sneak peak of the new movie game– Film Festival in a Box– and they’re inviting you to play. Four award-winning short films will be screening on the Jumbotron at 47th St. Don’t miss it!

Maker Stories

Friday Giveaway: Hand-Forged Kitchen Tools

September 10, 2010

ETA 10:26 AM, Sept. 13: Hope everyone had a great weekend! Congratulations to Jennifer, our latest Friday giveaway winner. Her favorite pizza topping is the garlic dipping sauce– which is a great answer for almost every slice.

Stay tuned for future giveaways by subscribing to The Goods via RSS.

This week’s giveaway comes with a really awesome story.

After 20 years of working in a high-production industry, Al Stephens decided to become a blacksmith. He visited Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site in Illinois, and soon became a volunteer in the 19th century blacksmith shop where they had bellows, a coal forge, anvil, and vise. For the next few years, Al developed his skills by working with other blacksmiths who taught him the trade.

And by 2000, he and his wife Sylvia had started their own blacksmith shop. Today Al makes items like the pizza cutter and cheese slicer by hand, in his shop in rural northern Alabama.

Impressed? We certainly are!

This week we’re giving away two hand-forged kitchen tools available on our site– a cheese slicer and a pizza cutter— to one lucky reader.

Want to win? You know what to do! Leave a comment below telling us about your favorite pizza topping or type of cheese. Then leave a comment on our Facebook wall, and tweet @uncommongoods on Twitter to triple your chances. We’ll announce the random winner on Monday.

Want to learn more about the art of forging metal? Al Stephens suggests you go out there and try it! The Artist Blacksmith’s Association of North America has local affiliates all over the country. Find a group near you and attend the regular meetings. Al says, “One-on-one teaching is an excellent way to learn, hands-on style.”

And it certainly paid off for him! Happy Friday, everybody!

Design

And the Finalists Are…

August 26, 2010

Last night, a group of us met with the YouGoods guest judges at the Tribeca Grand in downtown Manhattan to pick our finalists among all the great entries we received.

And the finalists are:

The Grocery’minder by Francene Pisano Dudziec. With a wet-erase front, this bag is perfect for making your grocery list, checking it twice, and heading off to the market. . Judges thought the concept solved a basic problem; sure, everyone tries to be a good person and bring their reusable bag to the grocery store. But it’s hard to remember every time. With your grocery list stuck right on the front of your bag, the grocery’minder tote makes it hard to forget.

But the judges did have some questions.
1. Would you be more likely to use the grocery list if the bag were easily attachable to your refrigerator?
2. Are there enough blank spaces for you to fill in your personal shopping list?

If you’re a fan, you can vote for the grocery’minder tote through Sunday, August 29 at 11:59 PM ET.

The Double Wall Tea Cup by Endrit Hajno. The judges admired the basic concept of this tea cup made of glazed porcelain or ceramic. Each cup has an insulated double wall for keeping your drink warm, but not burning your hands. The bottom strip of color is notched, allowing you to tuck the string of your tea bag out of sight. While the judges expressed some reservations about how difficult it could be to make this cup and the choice of materials, they all agreed that with a little tweaking this tea cup had a lot of potential!

If you enjoy the idea of a Double Wall Tea Cup, vote for it through Sunday, August 29 at 11:59 PM.

And last but not least, regreet by Christy Eichers. regreet offers you a way to reuse old greeting cards without the stigma of seeming cheap. Judges thought of this entry as a great social concept. These greeting cards make “regifting” cool and give senders a way to reuse last year’s greeting cards. The designer even included a way for you to track your regreet-ed card’s journey using Google maps.

Judges were curious to know what the environmental impact is of using additional paper to regreet an old card. And judges also wondered if after seeing the idea of regreet, you wouldn’t just use your own scrap paper to reuse your stack of birthday and holiday cards. But everyone acknowledged it was a great way to inspire us all to be more sustainable during the holiday season.

If you love the regreet gift card set, vote for it now through August 29 at 11:59 PM.

If you like them all, don’t worry. You can vote for each entry once, through August 29. And feel free to leave a comment if you have a question or idea about the designs. We’ll announce the winner on Monday!

Special thanks to our guest judges: Becky Stern, editor at CRAFT and Make: Online, Debera Johnson, Academic Director of Sustainability at the Pratt Institute, Allan Chochinov, Editor-in-Chief at Core77, Coroflot.com and DesignDirectory.com, and Graham Hill, founder of Treehugger.com.

Design

Announcing the YouGoods Guest Judges

August 11, 2010

Update 8/12, 1:18 PM: Meet Allan Cochinov, Editor-in-Chief of Core 77.com and our fourth YouGoods judge.

Update 8/11, 5:52 PM: Meet Becky Stern, an editor at CRAFT and MAKE: Online, and our third YouGoods guest judge!

We only announced the YouGoods “Inventors Month” Design Challenge last week, but already, we’ve seen some really clever and sustainable product ideas. And there’s still a few more days to enter. In fact, we’re extending the entry deadline to August 23!

So be sure to submit your great ideas to the YouGoods Design Challenge today.

In other exciting YouGoods news… I’m thrilled to introduce two four of our guest judges.

Allan Cochinov is a partner of Core77, a New York-based design network serving a global community of designers and design enthusiasts. He is the editor-in-chief of Core77.com, the widely read design website, Coroflot.com design job and portfolio site, and DesignDirectory.com design firm database. He has been named on numerous design and utility patents, and has received awards from Communication Arts, The Art Directors Club, I.D. Magazine, and The One Club. He teaches in the graduate departments of Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and serves on the boards of the Designers Accord and Design Ignites Change.

The Uncommon Life

Care to Air Design Challenge

July 2, 2010

A few years ago, a neighbor moved out of our apartment building and gave us her washer/dryer. Instead of doing our laundry in the building’s basement, we could now do it at home. But there was one catch: our building prohibits the use of dryers. To solve that problem, we decided to keep the washer, pass on the dryer and become air (aka line) dryers with the help of a couple folding metal racks.

It’s a little more work, but I enjoy it, much in the way I like composting or cooking. It’s a welcome contrast from my digital existence and makes me feel a bit more grounded. It’s also a household chore that my sons can participate in (with only a limited amount of grousing).

Last year, I read an article about a non-profit called Project Laundry List that was fighting for people’s right to line dry their clothes. Apparently, some towns ban line drying for aesthetic reasons. Project Laundry List’s founder Alex Lee is an environmental activist who believes in the energy savings of line drying. It makes a lot of sense, since line drying gets the job done in 24 hours using zero fossil fuels.

In talking to Alex about his efforts, I learned about the current “Care to Air” design challenge being sponsored by Levi’s and Myoocreate. The Care to Air contest challenges people to design “the world’s most innovative, covetable, and sustainable air-drying solution for clothing.” Levi’s is offering up a $10,000 prize for the best design, and they are doing this in conjunction with their new product care labels that instruct customers to cold water wash, air dry and donate the jeans to Goodwill when they’re done with them. UncommonGoods was invited to participate in the design challenge and help judge the winning entries next month. Ultimately, we hope to be able to bring one of the designs to market. If you’ve got an idea, please visit Myoocreate to submit. Good luck!

Design

YouGoods: Buckle Up for the Seatbelt Chair

May 13, 2010

“I’m in the pursuit of happiness and I know
Everything that shine ain’t always gonna be gold
I’ll be fine once I get it, I’ll be good”

These are the Kid Cudi lyrics that Adam Barron — the winner of our YouGoods Vintage Vehicle Challenge — lives by. And with his spunky, take-charge attitude you better buckle your seatbelts because this guy isn’t planning on slowing down!

Made of steel and junkyard seatbelts (don’t worry, he washed them!), Adam’s winning design, the eye-catching Seatbelt Chair, was a project originally created for an industrial design course at the University of Cincinnati where he had to incorporate 3 of 5 Japanese design principles: humor, craftsmanship, compactness, asymmetry and simplicity.

As Adam tells us, the final product was a result of trial and error, “When I originally designed this chair, I designed the shape of the frame before I chose to use seat belts. My original plan was to make the chair out of large sheets of bent plywood, but based on time, money, material, and space restraints, I had to consider other options. I wouldn’t say that I had a eureka moment, I just started exploring different materials, and wanted to use a thin and minimal material that would let the ergonomic research that I did on my frame speak for itself. ”

Design

YouGoods: Vintage Vehicle Challenge Finalists

April 28, 2010

The second edition of the YouGoods contest was all about the automobile. We opened this Vintage Vehicle challenge up to anything made of recycled or reclaimed car parts – and we mean anything. The submissions we received were creative, funky and sometimes even a little hilarious. It was nearly impossible to narrow them down to five. But (after a few squabbles and lots of debate) we selected these remarkable and innovative finalists:

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