Tooling: Anytime, Any Shape, Anywhere

Design doesn't happen in a vacuum. It doesn't happen on a computer screen or in a magazine or on DVD either. Design happens when you get your part in your hands. When you get physical and really start to work it, that's how you massage your design until it pops. To do that, designers need to understand how their parts are tooled up in order to keep them from breaking during use. Rapid prototyping is a good way to soak your ideas in a little water before completely diving into the pool. Here are the guys that I use when I need flexible, fast tooling.

You might not have ever heard of EOS, so let's look at their ad in Time Compression magazine. Ads are a great way to learn about what a company is all about. Think the possible, it says. I think the impossible, you're telling yourself! Look at that gorgeous part. If you're not convinced yet, let's dive a little deeper. Any shape, anytime, anywhere. That pretty much says it all. If you read further, EOS can even handle tools with undercuts (if you have them).

Thonet Bone-ay

With their reputation for bulging hips and flexing bone lines, car exteriors usually steal the show when it comes to design. However, once in awhile an interior detail will surprise and delight us. Thonet and Volvo worked together to bring a beautiful handmade gear shifter to the automaker's Geneva C70.

I've got to give it to them, Thonet beat me to the punch on this one. I've been working with one auto manufacturer, to remain nameless for now, to create interiors that make a stronger anthropomorphic connection with drivers. It's a great concept to use hard, steamed wood on a gear shifter, since women and men alike love how it will give just a little when you grip it tightly. I'd love to get my hands around one of these and feel the warmth of the wood. We're considering wood for our project, but I think silicone could have some really nice applications too.

Materials can make or break a design, but form is of equal importance here. You might be asking yourself, is that a penis or a vagina? The truth is it's both, acknowledging our circle of life and the need for coexistence. The designer has truly done something innovative, massaging the form until it is universally sexual. With the aluminum shaft running through the center, I even wonder if he's making a statement about human evolution in an even bigger way...

(MocoLoco loves this dick! Thanks for the pics.)

Origins: Do You Macho?

Let me tell you the story of Macho. The year was 1973. I was an excited but inexperienced apprentice, working for the visionary designer Raymond Bloewy. Faberge approached us about developing a new fragrance. We sat down with Faberge's vice president to discuss the project. "With notes of geranium and lavendar, it must be elegant, for the high end market," he begins. "Certainly, it must be simple. The design should neither be too soft nor too hard. With base notes of moss and musk to round things out, it must be iconic, a symbol of power."

Since the brief was vague and uninspiring, Mr. Bloewy poured himself a scotch and put me to work on the project. I know this was my opportunity to impress him, but I was equally confused about what Faberge would want. As I stroked my french curve, I was struck with inspiration. Across the room was Bloewy's admin Jan, who we used to call a "secretary" back then, bending down to file some invoices. Her slip was showing. With a glimmer in my eye and blood in the tip of his penis, I grabbed the rapidograph and got to work.

This was one of the first anthropomorphic designs I had ever created. During course work at Cranbrook, I had experimented with the idea but my professors were skeptical of any anti-Bauhaus sentiment.
I worked late into the night, eyes heavy and legs sore. I stopped once to do some research, browsing a lingerie catalog we kept around the office for inspiration. Stepping back from the drawing board, I shook out the last few drops of white gouache I had in me, feeling exhausted, hungry, and satisfied. I'd created an instant classic. I showed my sketch to Bloewy. "Hmm..." he started, scratching his chin. "What better to communicate heft, rigidity, and power than a guilded T? This bottle was obviously inspired from the traditional post-and-lintel construction that early architecture was founded upon. Bravo, young man. This metaphor has suited you well."

After the first sketch was approved, Bloewy added more generous radii to make the bottle smoother and removed some of the vein-inspired details (what he was calling "streamlining") I included originally. In a way, it only became more phallic, so I was pleased with the refinements. In 1976, Macho launched with great success. A year later, it was even awarded a FIFI.

Currently, I'm in talks with Faberge to release a modern version of Macho. How do you improve upon perfection?

The Crossover

This lovely rocket UI is a lesson in innovating proportions. I hope the car designers out there are paying special attention. Sure, a couple buttons and a screen could look like this, but that would be boring and expected. I love how the designer oversized the head to communicate powerful and elegance. If this were a car, it would be a student concept for a Bugatti. To be really disruptive, he's given this interface a huge, three testicled ballsack, a detail that reinforces the power-and-elegance design theme. The designer must be a real contemporary; his image board no doubt included by The Blob.

Here's car styling lesson #2 for the day. You might think the term Crossover is just marketing's innovative new name for SUV, but the traditional definition is a vehicle that combines the features and proportions of two cars to make a brand new one with new advantages. The red rocket pictured here is another kind of crossover. Borrowing features from the male penis and the archetypical butt plug, this is a whole new class of anthropomorphism. It has the thrust you want combined with the smooth ride you need.

Jimmy - keep spotting dicks but don't get your dick spotted. Thanks for the pic!

Rhymes with Venus

Gillette's designers are clever guys. First, they innovated the shit out of the razor business by adding blades over and over. More recently, they made a razor with floppy vagina lips so that women would know to buy it. If you're like me, you're wondering how the razor category is going to innovate next.

As we all know, ladies love the cock. And so Gillette exploits this basic female desire by making their package look like a package. Someone give Gillette's cognitive psychologists a bonus, this direction was no doubt ballsy but the numbers don't lie. Cleverly inverted, the blister pack looks remarkably like the complete phallic archetype - balls, shaft, head. Good design occurs when all extraneous details have been removed, and they nailed with this one on the head.

Thanks for the pics, Jimmy!

Picasso Dick

Did you ever see the light drawings that Pablo Picasso did? The guy was a genius artist who inspired many artists and designers who came after him. One of those people must have been the freelancer that the Art of Storage hired to design this hook. It's so...gestural, right? I love how fluid the form is, and the upward thrust of the top part works especially well. The metal is strong but still a little flexible, so it's easy to slide a coat over top of it even in a rush.

The hook is called the Bach, which I assume is either for Catherine or Sebastian. Turns out, JS Bach had his share of sex too, but that's something that only old white liberals know about. On a side note, I had my first orgasm "hanging my coat" to pictures of Daisy Duke...

Relax, it's just a penis

Wow, this is an absolutely beautiful spa design. Everything about it is great, except the ceiling looks a little skeety. It's the Kaya Kalp, the Royal Spa at ITC Mugal, part of the Starwood family of hotels. Check out the coverage of the spa in HD magazine, fittingly entitled, "Fruit of the Room." If it couldn't get any better, the architects are based in Bangcock. For some reason I'm hungry for mushrooms, hmm...