Co.Design

Why you should buy your grandparents a 3D printer

3D printers aren’t just for DIY doodlers. They can help seniors and others with limited mobility manufacture cheap gadgets for doing routine tasks like opening jars and putting on socks.

How Uber and Jump redesigned the electric bike from scratch

“These are the smartest light electric vehicles that have ever been built,” says its creator. Is it enough to help Uber win bike sharing?

These next-generation small businesses only exist on Instagram

These scrappy entrepreneurs let customers order bread, furniture, and much more, all through DMs.

Turn your Christmas tree into a crazy animated light show with this app

This study abroad program is for professional designers, and it’s free

InVision introduces a cultural exchange program in which designers can travel to cities such as Sydney, Copenhagen, and Singapore without spending a dime.

Ministry of Supply will tailor this sweater to your body while you wait

The collaboration with MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab points to the future of customizable fashion.

Your next Ikea furniture may be made of potato peels

Feed the hungry with potato chips and build fully recyclable furniture at the same time? Ikea, get your Swedish hands all over this.

This stunning visualization proves America is a nation of immigrants

A wonderful graphic shows how everyone in this country, except Native Americans, is from somewhere else.

How we fixed the world’s worst logo

Design like nobody’s watching.

Lyft’s plan to win the transportation wars: Put designers in charge

The stakes have never been higher for Lyft, which unveiled a new design-focused strategy that aims to reshape the way people get around.

Stories from inside the $9 billion Instagram economy

Instagram originally launched as an app for “fast, beautiful photo sharing.” Our new series looks at the way it’s quietly transformed business itself in the eight years since.

The 2-year-old Instagram influencers who make more than you

The platform’s young stars can rake in five-figure sums for a photo. It’s about “building brand awareness and affinity through generations,” says one expert.

This AI can see in total darkness

It can even image tissue inside of your body.

The letters opticians use on eye charts is now an elegant typeface

It’s been around for more than a century, yet it’s always been incomplete–until now.

People keep attacking Waymo’s autonomous cars

So is it everyday troublemaking, or is this a meaningful protest to automation?

How to design the ultimate Bullet Journal for 2019 (no art skills required)

Bullet Journal creator Ryder Carroll shares three key insights for perfecting the Bullet Journal method. You’ll never feel more organized.

Did a slave make your sneakers? The answer is: probably

Prada, Hermes, and Louis Vuitton fared poorly on a new report about forced labor. Meanwhile Adidas, Lululemon, and Gap had the most slavery-free supply chains.

The supertall skyscrapers boom is out of control

We’re gonna need a bigger earth.

Porch piracy has ruined online shopping, but there’s a simple fix

Stolen packages represent one of the biggest service-design challenges facing today’s retail companies. These researchers have an idea for a fix–but it would require a big change to how we shop online.