Span is a smart watch concept from Box Clever studio. It blends a tiny display with an elegant analog face. Check out the Span video to see some of the other features.

Oh how I wish someone would build this.

via Wired Design

If you’ve ever been in a Kidrobot store, you’ve seen Joe Ledbetter’s work. Joe documented the design process of his Chaos Bunnies set, from concept, through prototyping to package design and promotion in Make Magazine.

An impressive amount of work goes into designing these toys and Joe’s article shows this–in detail. Be sure to check out the video, which compresses this 9 month process into as many minutes.

Photo by Joe Ledbetter

Anyone who has found themselves in an industrial arts class has, most likely, been exposed to the tough love sort of teaching methodology espoused by Mr. Barkington:

… Well, I didn’t have a kindly grandfather teaching me: Instead I had a hard-ass I’ll call Mr. Barkington, who ran the Wood Shop class in my high school. And I thought he was a complete asshole.

Mr. Barkington and his methods are the subject of The Accidental Designer, Part 1 – Shop to Hell. As has been the case with all of the True Industrial Design Stories on Core77, it is a great read.

Image from Core77

Make Magazine has a great profile of Pat Delany, a self taught builder of low cost machine tools. He has mined much of his knowledge from 19th and early 20th century DIY publications. His work on these tools led him to the Appropriate Technology movement. In his words:

It’s strange, but at my advanced age I realize that machine tools are about all that I believe in. The lathe, shaper, and mill built the foundation of our current standard of living and there is no reason why a cheap and easy-to-build multipurpose tool could not help the 500 million people that need simple water pumps or the billion people who live on a dollar a day or less. Thanks for getting a crazy old man started.

Excellent work, Pat!

Photo: Make Magazine

I was witnessing this project first-hand during a recent visit to Montréal and I wanted to know more about it. Before I had the chance to look it up, this post from Atlantic Cities appeared in my feed–RSS is magical. To the observer on the street, Idée-O-rama, seems to stretch on for miles. If you are in Montréal, this is one more reason to take a stroll on Avenue Mont-Royal. If you aren’t in Montréal, there are several more pictures and a video on the project site.

Photos by Bernard Fougères

via Core77 :: Atlantic Cities