Japanese design studio nendo just launched the My Football Kit project that aims to popularize soccer (or football depending on where you live) in hopes of bringing more players to the sport. Throughout impoverished communities around the world, soccer balls are not easy to come by, and if they are acquired, the children do not have access to air pumps or any way to fix the damage that happens over time. In order to give children a chance to play and enjoy the beloved sport, nendo designed a non-inflatable soccer ball that mimics the feel of kicking a regular ball, with a design that’s based on the structure of the traditional Japanese woven bamboo ball. Nendo partnered with global ball manufacturer Molten to create My Football Kit, a set of 54 pieces that assembly together like a puzzle to form a soccer ball.

There are three types of components … Read the rest

Many laptop users find their built-in touchpads a necessary compromise for the sake of portability at the cost of ergonomic and functional control. Touch technology specialists Sensel is aiming to improve the situation by adding a nuanced level of control and manipulation to the humble laptop touchpad with the announcement of a new modular touch and haptic feedback solution.

“Until now, touch and haptic technologies have been designed separately, resulting in challenging integrations for manufacturers and inconsistent performance for end-customers,” says Sensel CEO and Co-founder Ilya Rosenberg. Sensel’s approach to the touchpad integrates these two existing tactile technologies with a high resolution capacitive touch grid pad merged with a “Force Field Technology” engineered to register the amount of force applied per finger and converts it into both force and shape data. A direct drive haptics system is the third and final element, providing a degree of force feedback, opening the … Read the rest

This week’s DMTV Milkshake guest is Harry Nuriev, founder and principal designer of Crosby Studios.

Harry Nuriev’s Crosby Studios is a Moscow-born design house with a New York name: Nuriev settled on it during a post-graduation trip to Manhattan. It’s also proven to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as Nuriev now runs offices both in Russia and, since 2017, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Heralded as a leading arbiter of a new sense of vibrant minimalism, Nuriev today celebrates the launch of Crosby Street Home, a virtual space showcasing his home goods and loungewear. Using gaming software and AR technology, customers can explore a virtual apartment and download 3D models to visualize objects within their own homes.

Crosby Studios Home Virtual Showroom

Though the color palette is deeply restricted — witness the primacy of Nuriev’s trademark royal blue — the textures are rich and varied, as seen on his velour dining … Read the rest

The following post is brought to you by Olive Pro. Our partners are hand-picked by the Design Milk team because they represent the best in design.

The ubiquity of mobile audio devices today means we’re treated to a plethora of options when it comes to earbuds and headphones. Yet across the board most wearable audio shares similar form factors, many delivering marginally varying degrees of in/on ear performance. But Olive Union Founder and CEO Owen Song’s impetus for designing the Olive Pro stands out for the higher motive behind its design – one that could benefit the lives of any of the 466-million people affected by hearing loss globally.

“When my uncle first needed hearing assistance, everything from design and pricing to technology and maintenance turned him away,” says Song, “Our third generation Olive Pro was built for him and others suffering from some level of hearing loss.”

While … Read the rest

The complex and smoky agave-based Mexican spirit of mezcal is commonly found bottled in glass, resplendent with design elements referencing the agave derived spirit’s rich traditional past. Which makes OAX Original’s newly released trio of matte ceramic mezcal bottles stand out from the increasingly crowded shelves dedicated to the traditional Mexican spirit – an intriguing alternative design inspired by the country’s rich architectural history.

Designers Laura Giraudo and Roberto Bernasconi, co-founders of interdisciplinary design studio Bardo Industries, bestow the newly launched, premium small batch mezcales each with a color coded ceramic bottle capped in cork, each intended to communicate the characteristics of the spirits within: the smokiest – Arroqueño – bottled in black,  the flowery, herbal and lighter Tobalá in white, and the oldest, most complex Tepeztate in pink.

Giraudo and Bernasconi cite Mexico’s vernacular architectural history as inspiration, one spanning from the era of monolithic pre-Hispanic architecture to … Read the rest

For Michael Upton, what started as a love of screen printing as a child grew into a design career based around the art of printing and editions. An artist and designer, Michael is the founder of Upton, a Southern California-based design studio created on the belief that everyone should have the means to live with beauty every day. Producing work that lies in the realm of fine art and home décor, Michael aims to fill a void he identified in the art world for accessible, quality work. Upton currently produces prints on canvas, prints on paper and sculpture – many of which are handmade in the Upton studio in Vista, California. Pulling inspiration from the modernists and materials of the past, their pieces are influenced by architecture, cooking, music and history. While Michael enjoys the process-oriented aspect of design, he explains that his art also relies heavily on feeling, … Read the rest