design

One look at the Italian Cromatica Bluetooth speakers and...whoa. Think of this lamp-speaker hybrid like a mood ring for your home. You choose the color illumination that suits you, choose your music, then lie back and chill. Or, clean yo…

Last year, I fell in love with the A Color Story app for photo editing, and named it my cool pick of the week on our Spawned podcast . Just this weekend, they launched A Design Kit , their equally fun, friendly, and really wonderful app …

Leave it to my twelve-year-old-daughter to be way ahead of me on the Instagram design tricks -- in this case, how to make an ombre text overlay in Instagram stories. I fell instantly in love. Now we're not the types (ha) to spend hours m…

I admit, my decorating skills are limited, and I'm always worried about painting a room only to discover I really don't like it, so I was intrigued to hear about Modsy , a website that uses your input and photos to help transform a room …

It's amazing how far home tech design has come, even since we started this site six years ago. What once may have looked sleek and amazing -- a baby monitor, a humidifier, even a lawnmower -- now looks clunky and dated compared to what's…

There are times when the brightness of my iPhone flashlight is helpful -- like, when I'm helping my kids look for their forgotten shoes outside in the dark, or I can't read a darn menu in a restaurant. Then, there are times when a little…

It's springtime! Bring on the warmer weather, chirping birds, flower blooms, lighter layers, and the fabulously stylish wearable fitness trackers that look more and more like cool jewels. Why should you be stepping into the sunny skies w…

A few years ago, you could spot someone wearing a big, black, rubber band-looking fitness tracker a mile away. I'm so happy that fashion has integrated its way very nicely when it comes to wearable tech , and I'm especially thankful for …

I tend to browse lots of places looking for cool fonts that I may never use. (When it comes to typefaces I'm more of a collector than a designer; kind of like having lots of books at home you haven't yet opened. But I digress.) I've just…

Think for a minute about how far we've come in games design from the days of Asteroids and Space Invaders. Now, there are some stunningly beautiful mobile games for both iOS and Android that change the way we think about gaming apps. Hey…

I dug these end tables right away when I saw them on Design Milk -- vaguely mid-century lines, clean design, nice contrast between the natural wooden legs and the black or white top. Basically, my furniture style to a tee. Then I took a …

Getting our kids on board with STEM early in the game seems like a great way to go. And just because it's summer doesn't mean that gentle parent-ly nudge in the right direction has to take a break. An easy way to get kids hyped about thi…

Yes, it's an ABC app. But unlike other ABC apps we've covered here, I don't know that the new ABCiné app (as in cinéma) from Spanish design studio Atipo for Meikme is going to help kids with the alphabet as much as it will help adults --…

School's out (finally). Time to really sink into summer's sun and fun. But for many parents, summer also means tackling this gnawing question, how are we going to keep these children entertained? Well, for your tech-head kid, we're happy…

We've found cool iPad cases made out of everything from felt to leather to industrial strength NASA mystery metals. But maybe never one made out of paper. That's the Papernomad iPad and iPhone cases . It's not just they're sustainably ma…

I usually stay away from licensed characters when decorating my kids' rooms, but I might have to make an exception for this awesome pixel duvet cover from Society6, featuring a lineup of cool pixelated superheroes . We've raved before ab…

With 8 bit making a comeback (thanks, Minecraft ) and pixels starting to appear everywhere as a "new" art technique, it's not surprising to see them make their way from our desktops to our countertops and beyond. I'm seeing them on all s…

I recently learned a tip: Waking up and beginning your day looking at Facebook and Twitter can start you off on the wrong foot. Between the political fighting, the depressing news, the spam and the trolling...yeah. Not necessarily the fi…

Usually when I check out a new tech product, it's me in a conference room (or sometimes alone) listening to someone wax poetic about its features. But nope, not LG. They recently announced their phenomenal new LG Ultra HD TV 4K and LG OL…

Remember the old days when a Bluetooth speaker was just some ugly but fascinating little thing that was cool simply because it used Bluetooth in the first place? No more. We're starting to see designer audio collaborations like the Novog…

I am one of those (awful, judgy) people who will unfollow people on Instagram if their feed is filled with too many type-heavy, horribly designed promotions or ads or OMG LOOK AT MY CUTE BEHBEH proclamations over family photos that might…

Kickstarter at MoMA brings together two of our favorite things -- awesome Kickstarter-fueled innovations and the MoMA Design Store. They've gathered a collection of successful Kickstarter products in honor of NYCxDESIGN, and it's a cool …

Ever walk into a friend's finely decorated home and think: Yeah, I'm not leaving this place. Nope. Moving. In. Or, if you're not working the stowaway angle, you basically press them for intel on how you, too, can get skilled at creating …

As much as I love real live, hold them in your hands, save them forever and ever Valentine's Day cards, there are a few reasons I love the digital Valentine eCards from Paperless Post. First, these are not those awful ecards you remember…