Fresh produce

Official blog of Fresh Design Works, aka Ben Talbot Freelance Designer

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Cofa Engineering

Steve at Cofa was pivotal in developing the plywood bike. Heres a meet-the-maker video with Steve, filmed for Bespoked.

Source: Bespoked

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MIT Media Lab Knotty Objects: Phone from m ss ng p eces on Vimeo.

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Colin Furze is at it again... (I couldn't NOT share this). 

Joking and danger of serious burning aside, it’s actually pretty clever. It’s not a marketable product as such, but interesting nonetheless. Much quicker than slicing bread and then putting it in the toaster, and the bit with the butter... brilliant!

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Always good to see another designer at work. The racecar is pretty special too. The good stuff starts at around 0:30

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Another great BBC documentary every designer should watch...

Even if you're top of your game and know everything, I'm sure theres something useful you could learn from watching this. If there's one thing the BBC do well, it's a good documentary.

I particularly enjoyed the part about how foam is made, and the segment on plywood, which is close to my heart.

Link: Everyday Miracles: The Genius of Sofas, Stockings and Scanners

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Speaking of the Herman Miller, here are the Eames chairs I found in the spring and refurbished. Just need to track down some replacement castors for one.

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Spotted these Fibreglass replacement chairs for, would you believe it, lifeguard high-chairs. They do bare a striking resemblance to the fibreglass chairs designed by the Eames' for Herman Miller.

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Bristol needs a big Maker-space like this! 

For those of you unfamiliar with the idea, basically instead of sculpting perfect abs, you create anything you want out of whatever you want. It's like a gym, except instead of running machines and weights benches, there are 3D-Printers, metal working facilities, carpentry facilities, power tools, and all kinds of cool equipment.

It works just like a gym too: you pay a monthly membership for access to facilities. Whether your an inventor, or just want to build your own TV stand for your home.

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Fantastic interview with Jony Ive about the state of design

...theres too many good quotes to pick just one, so if you're a designer, have a read. Frome design education and graduates, to the development process, spending large sums of money to find that a product won't work, and on other companies ripping off their designs.

I like Sir. Ive, much more that Mr Jobs. I think more people like Ive is what Apple, and the rest of the design world really need.

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Ice wheeled bicycle?! Colin Furze, you lunatic! Brilliant!

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Recent 3D printing customer project...

The light pictured above was 3D printed in natural PLA in one shot, including mountings for light fixtures. It's current configuration is as an occasional lamp, but would also lend itself well to being a light shade.

If you're interested in having something 3D printed, give us a call.

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"FreshDW.uk" what do you think?

I've always felt that FreshDesignWorks.co.uk was a bit of a mouthful, took longer to type, and wasn't very snappy; so the when the new '.uk' domains arrived I felt it was the perfect opportunity to update things.

Everything is just about transfered over now, but don't worry, you will always be able to reach us at the old addresses. However, the details we give out from now on, and all our branding has now changed.

What do you think?

Ben

[freshdesignworks]

Plywood bike brackets arrived!

Last week the brackets arrived from our fabricator for the wooden bike project that we have been working on. We should have the first frame built soon, followed by a complete bike for testing. Watch this space.

Take a look at the rest of the project on our website here

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We love lamp...

Biggest print yet. So big, it almost broke the printer. The things we do for our customers.

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Brilliantly simple design...

We love really clever yet simple solutions to problems that have proven difficult to solve in the past, and the Finn is one such example.

Plenty bike mounts for phones exist already, but none of them work this well on ANY smartphone, nor are they this simple to fit, or this cheap (£10).

The biggest concern is that it won't be stable enough but they have tested it on BMXs and downhill mountain bikes without any problems.

Paired with a waterproof case or one of Sony's waterproof phone, you've got something pretty special.

Watch this video to see how it works.

Source: Finn Via: Gizmodo

[freshdesignworks]

David 3D Printer uses granules instead of filament…

Most FDM (extrusion) based 3D printers use material in filament form as a cheaper way feed and extrude plastic. This filament is made from granules, but the problem is that turning these granules into filament of a uniform thickness (+ or - 0.02mm) approximately triples the price for good filament.

The David 3D printer cuts out this middleman making the material a lot cheaper. It also means that you don’t have to worry about the quality of the material as much, or if it is a uniform thickness with no bubbles. I’ve used cheap filament and its a complete waste of money.

Earlybird prices start at $2,745 (£1,645 + shipping + import tax), so it’s a not the cheapest but is probably the next milestone in consumer grade 3D printing technology as its one less thing to go wrong in FDM printers.

Source: Sculptify Via:TechCrunch

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Ben & Jerry's manufactured using Ben & Jerry's waste...

Fear not, this isn't the latest food quality/content related scandal. In actual fact, Ben and Jerry's use waste ingredients (dairy/sugars/fruit/etc) and waste water from the magical ice cream manufacturing process to produce clean renewable energy.

They do this by putting all that waste into a Biodigester which uses microbes and bacteria to literally digest the waste and produce gas, which, in turn, is used to fuel turbines.

Last year, 16 million pints of their ice cream were produced with the help of what B&J have nicknames 'The Chunkinator' or BIOPAQ®AFR Biodigester if you're looking to buy one.

Source: Motherboard