Pokémon has always sold us a very specific fantasy: a compact sphere you can throw into tall grass, watch shimmy three times, and hear that satisfying click. The wiggle is practically cultural shorthand at this point. So when maker Kiara’s Workshop decided to skip the wiggle entirely and build the far stranger, far older Arceus ball instead, the resulting creation landed somewhere between prop design, mechanical engineering, and sheer stubbornness. The kind of project that sounds manageable until you’re three failed prototypes deep.

For context: the Arceus ball comes from Pokémon Legends: Arceus, a game set in a much earlier era of the Pokémon world. This isn’t the sleek, mass-produced Pokéball most of us grew up clicking in handheld games. It’s a more primitive artifact, made from Apricorns and Tumblestones in the game’s lore, with an aesthetic that leans ancient and earthy rather than factory-fresh. And its in-game behavior is notably different too. Instead of the classic wiggle sequence, the Arceus ball shoots into the air during a catch and releases a burst of smoke. It’s more dramatic, more theatrical, and a far more interesting design brief.

Designer: Kiara’s Workshop

Kiara’s Workshop had already built functional Pokéballs before, putting out a V1 and V2 that earned a loyal following and a comment section full of people asking when she’d make more. The V3 of the standard Pokéball was still on her list when she decided to take a detour and come back to Pokéballs a different way. The Arceus ball seemed like the simpler bet. It doesn’t have the same intricate mechanical catch sequence as the modern version, so how hard could it be? The answer, as it turned out, was very hard. The build required research, iteration, and a willingness to start over.

Getting a physical object to jump on cue and simultaneously release smoke on command is not exactly a weekend project. The ancient aesthetic of the ball adds another layer of complexity: it can’t look like it came out of a clean resin mold. It needs texture, weight, and a certain handmade quality that actually complicates production rather than simplifying it. Every element Kiara worked through pointed back to how much thought went into the original game design, even for something that appears on screen for only a few seconds at a time.

Here’s the thing about maker culture that doesn’t get enough attention: it forces a kind of reverse-engineering that’s deeply respectful of the original design, whether that original designer was a game developer or a prop team. When you have to physically build something that only existed as a rendered animation, you start noticing all the decisions that went into it. Kiara’s build is less about having a cool collectible on a shelf (though it would absolutely win any shelf) and more about understanding how design translates, or refuses to translate, between worlds. That’s a genuinely underrated form of design criticism.

Pokémon as a franchise has always been smart about its own mythology. The progression from handcrafted Apricorn balls to industrially manufactured ones mirrors real-world design evolution, from artisanal craft to mass production. What Kiara’s Workshop did was reverse that arc entirely, going from the pixel back to the physical, from the streamlined modern version to the awkward, jumping, smoke-releasing ancient one. It’s a move that requires understanding both the fiction and the fabrication. The result is genuinely impressive, not because it’s a perfect replica, but because it functions on its own terms. It jumps. It smokes. It exists in a way it never was supposed to.

Plenty of makers are building Pokéballs right now, probably on multiple continents simultaneously. But most are going for the one everyone recognizes. Choosing the Arceus ball, with all its mechanical demands and its ancient visual language, says something about what excites Kiara’s Workshop: not the familiar, but the forgotten. And for anyone who’s ever quietly preferred the stranger corners of a franchise over its most iconic pieces, that’s a choice worth appreciating.

The post A Maker Spent Months Building a Pokéball That Jumps and Shoots Smoke first appeared on Yanko Design.

Gaming mice have always had a specialization problem. The ones built for MMOs come loaded with thumb buttons that feel excessive the moment you switch to a shooter. FPS mice are clean and fast but leave MOBA players reaching for keyboard shortcuts that shouldn’t need to be there. Buying two mice for two genres has been the practical answer, which is also the least satisfying one.

The Razer Naga V3 Pro addresses that directly. It ships with three magnetic side plates that swap out in seconds, each designed for a different genre of play. The 12-button grid suits MMOs, the six-button layout covers MOBAs and battle royale games, and the two-button plate clears the side for FPS use. One mouse, three configurations, and the same right-handed ergonomic shape throughout all of them.

Designer: Razer

The side button system itself isn’t new to the Naga line, but the V3 Pro brings the rest of the hardware up to the same level as what’s inside Razer’s top-tier esports mice. The Focus Pro 50K Optical Sensor Gen-3 powers tracking with up to 50,000 DPI and 390 IPS, the same sensor found in Razer’s dedicated competitive mice. Gen-4 optical switches handle clicks with a rated life of 100 million actuations and are designed to eliminate the bounce clicks that can misfire at the worst moments.

The scroll wheel also gets a meaningful upgrade here. The HyperScroll Tilt Wheel Gen-2 offers four distinct modes: Free-Spin for fast document scrolling, Tactile for click-by-click precision, Precision Tactile for finer steps, and Smart-Reel for automatic switching between modes. In an MMO, cycling through inventory with Free-Spin feels different from navigating a skill tree in Tactile mode, and having that level of control in the wheel itself is something most mice don’t bother offering.

Battery life holds up across both wireless modes. On HyperSpeed 2.4 GHz, the Naga V3 Pro runs for up to 155 hours; switch to Bluetooth and that extends to 280 hours. The mouse body weighs 112 g without a side plate, with the 12-button plate adding 20 g, the six-button adding 17 g, and the two-button adding 15 g. That last configuration brings the total down to where FPS players tend to want it, and the weight difference is noticeable enough in practice.

Up to 23 programmable buttons are available depending on the active plate, down from 23 to just two when the FPS plate is on. The pinky rest is also a button, lockable from the underside when not wanted, which adds one more control point without requiring any reach. Double-injection molded legends on the side buttons ensure the labels don’t wear off under daily use.

What the Naga V3 Pro argues, quietly but consistently, is that genre-specific peripherals don’t have to mean genre-specific hardware purchases. The plates snap off and on without tools, the transition between configurations takes less time than a loading screen, and the underlying hardware is good enough that nothing feels like a compromise.

The post The $180 Razer Mouse That Makes a Second Gaming Mouse Pointless first appeared on Yanko Design.

Somewhere in your house right now, there is a perfectly good iPad/Android Pad doing absolutely nothing. Maybe it is the one you replaced two years ago when the new model came out, or the one your kid borrowed and never gave back, now sitting on a nightstand charging for no reason. It has a great screen, solid processing power, and more capability than most factory-installed car infotainment systems from the last decade. The problem was never the tablet. The problem was always that nobody made a convincing way to put it in a car and have it behave like an actual car display, CarPlay and all. HERMIX NANO is a credit-card-thin wireless bridge device that finally does exactly that.

Roughly the shape and size of an iPod Classic, the HERMIX NANO is a compact wireless hub that sits in your car, pairs to your phone, and turns your mounted tablet or phone into a fully functional smart car infotainment display. It supports wireless CarPlay for iPhone and wireless Android Auto for Android, designed for vehicles without a built-in display, or for drivers tired of slow and outdated factory systems. Plug in the included 1080p backup camera and the tablet automatically switches to a reverse view the moment you shift into reverse, no manual tapping required. Who knew that a $74 device could transform your existing car and tablet into a new car experience that you’d otherwise pay tens of thousands of dollars for.

Designer: Hong Kong Hermes Technology Limited

Click Here to Buy Now: $74 $99 (25% off). Hurry, only a few left! Raised over $68,000.

Mounting an old tablet PC to your dashboard and opening Google Maps already works, technically. But a tablet stuck in a car still behaves like an iPad or Android Pad, which means you are dealing with a regular tablet interface, regular apps, regular notifications, and a screen layout that was never designed around driving. HERMIX NANO changes the operating system experience entirely by turning that tablet into a proper CarPlay or Android Auto display, with the simplified app grid, large touch targets, voice-first controls, and glanceable navigation layout people already know from newer cars. That shift is the whole point. Instead of juggling a tablet UI meant for the couch, you get a driving interface built around quick inputs, cleaner menus, easier media control, and maps that make sense when your eyes need to get back on the road in about half a second.

Setup involves installing the device, connecting the power, and downloading the HERMIX NANO app, and the whole process requires no tools, no rewiring, and no dashboard modification of any kind. You power on the HERMIX NANO, find it in the app, connect via Bluetooth, pair your phone, and you are done. After that first pairing, the connection happens automatically every time you get in the car. iPhone users get wireless CarPlay with Siri, navigation, music, calls, and every app Apple has approved for CarPlay, while Android users get wireless Android Auto with Google Assistant, Google Maps, Waze, Spotify, and the rest. Whether you are on Android or iOS, the Hermix Nano app is available free on Google Play and the App Store, and unlocks all features immediately.

The HERMIX NANO also packs a 1080p HD backup camera that mounts to the rear of your car – the moment you shift into reverse, HERMIX NANO automatically wakes the camera up, with no manual operation needed, instantly turning the tablet into an HD large-screen rearview mirror that gives a clear view of every blind spot (again, something your existing iPad or Android Pad wouldn’t do). A backup camera that routes to a full tablet screen is a meaningfully better experience than one squeezed onto the three-inch display of a typical aftermarket head unit. Shift back out of reverse and the infotainment interface returns immediately, with no settings menu and no manual switching. The result is a clearer view of blind spots and greater confidence when parking. For anyone navigating tight urban lots daily, this alone is a compelling reason to pay attention.

On the tablet version of the HERMIX NANO app, a dedicated split-screen feature unlocks a more flexible display experience, with multiple customizable modes including HUD Mode. HUD mode gives a simplified navigation view for distraction-free driving, Mini Map mode delivers a real-time compact navigation display, and Family Album mode showcases selected photos and videos for a personalized in-car screen experience. The HERMIX NANO features five customizable physical buttons on the device body, allowing you to personalize controls based on your driving habits. Easily access frequently used functions such as volume adjustment, track switching, phone calls, and map launch. A long press of the “OK” button allows manual rear camera activation, providing safer and more convenient control while driving.That last one is genuinely useful if you want to check what is behind you while parallel parking without actually putting the car in reverse. The display also auto-rotates based on how the device is mounted, whether portrait or landscape, adapting instantly with no manual setup required.

For global compatibility, the system supports left-hand drive and right-hand drive modes, letting users switch the UI layout according to their vehicle setup for optimal visibility and comfort. The HERMIX NANO interface automatically switches between Light and Dark Mode according to surrounding brightness, providing optimal visibility and a comfortable viewing experience during both daytime and nighttime driving.Firmware updates push wirelessly through the app, meaning the device can improve over time without any physical servicing. By combining automotive-grade hardware, seamless wireless connectivity, and deeply integrated software, HERMIX built a compact smart hub that transforms devices people already own into a complete in-car smart experience. The obvious audience is anyone driving a vehicle more than five years old, but it is equally relevant for drivers whose factory systems simply never matched the software quality of modern CarPlay and Android Auto.

The HERMIX NANO is priced at $99 retail, with early pricing at $74 for a single kit that includes the device, a 1080p HD rearview camera, a USB-Type C cable, a Type C-to-C cable, and a user manual. A two-pack runs $138 and a three-pack $178 at early pricing, and a tablet car holder add-on is available separately for $9. Shipping is estimated to begin in October 2026, covering the US, Canada, the EU, the UK, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and most other major markets. The Hermix Nano app is already live and free on both the App Store and Google Play.

Click Here to Buy Now: $74 $99 (25% off). Hurry, only a few left! Raised over $68,000.

The post This tiny $74 device turns an old tablet into a smart dashboard for cars that never had one first appeared on Yanko Design.

Sony has a pattern with these limited edition consoles now. Announce a big first party or Marvel game, dress up a PS5 to match, sell it alongside a matching controller. Ghost of Yotei got the black and gold treatment last time around, and it was fine, if a little safe. Wolverine is where that formula gets an upgrade.

This time Sony gave us two console designs instead of one. Battle Yellow is unapologetic, claw gouges and a screaming Wolverine face on a bright yellow panel. Adamantium is the plot twist, the same claw motif but stripped down to brushed metal that looks closer to a premium appliance than a video game tie in. Two designs, two totally different personalities, and somehow neither one feels like the compromise pick.

Designer: Jock for Sony & Marvel

Battle Yellow is the flagship of the two, sold as a full PS5 Digital Edition bundle for $649.99 with a matching DualSense controller and a code for the game. The artwork comes from Jock, the Scottish comic artist who worked on Wolverine’s key art, and you can actually tell. The claw slashes and the inked portrait have that loose, hand drawn energy comics get right and games usually flatten out. It is a rare case of licensed hardware art that does not look like clip art stapled onto a console.

Adamantium skips the yellow entirely and goes for brushed silver, but only as a console cover for PS5 Pro owners plus a standalone controller, no full bundle here. That is honestly the smarter buy for anyone who wants the Wolverine tie in without turning their entertainment center into a comic shop display. Same claw details, completely different mood. It reads expensive in a way the yellow version was never trying to.Adamantium skips the yellow entirely and goes for brushed silver, but only as a console cover for PS5 Pro owners plus a standalone controller, no full bundle here. That is honestly the smarter buy for anyone who wants the Wolverine tie in without turning their entertainment center into a comic shop display. Same claw details, completely different mood. It reads expensive in a way the yellow version was never trying to.

Here is where it gets less fun. This entire lineup drops during Sony’s second PS5 price hike in under a year, with the standard console now sitting a hundred dollars above where it started. So a $649.99 bundle for a digital only console, no disc drive option at all, lands at a moment when PS5 pricing is already a sore subject for a lot of players. The comments under every Wolverine reveal video prove that. People are annoyed about the missing disc drive way more than they are annoyed about yellow paint.

I get why Sony leans into these drops even now, maybe especially now. A great design distracts from a rough price conversation better than any spec sheet does, and Jock’s artwork is genuinely good enough to pull that off. But good design and good timing are not the same thing, and this lineup is proof you can nail one without fully nailing the other.

The post Sony’s Wolverine PS5 Comes in Two Very Different Designs, and Only One Feels Worth the Price first appeared on Yanko Design.

The business card holder is one of those objects the design world quietly decided was finished. A flat rectangle of leather or metal, room enough for thirty cards, something to close it. The category works. Nobody expected it to raise a new question about what it is actually for.

The Oblica, handmade in Kyoto by Sudaku – a workshop with experience in the kind of precision pattern construction most leathermakers route around – starts from a different premise.

At rest in the breast pocket of a blazer, it shows nothing but a single diagonal edge of Italian leather above the pocket line. No hardware visible. No snap exposed. The silhouette reads, convincingly, as a folded pocket square. That is not an incidental resemblance. It is what the object was built to be.

Click Here to Buy Now: $160

Getting there required solving a problem that most card holders don’t have. Rectangle-based designs absorb variation without consequence – a few millimeters off in any direction and the object still functions. The Oblica’s diagonal cannot absorb variation. The same millimeter that determines whether the form reads correctly as a pocket square profile also determines whether the internal tiers present cards legibly, whether the snap closes where it should, and whether the finished object measures exactly 5mm thick. Every part of that system affects every other part. Getting them to solve each other, rather than compete, required adjusting the pattern, the proportions, the card tier geometry, and the snap placement in concert – which is precisely the kind of construction complexity Sudaku was built to handle.

The exterior is Italian leather. The interior is Japanese pig suede, chosen for its texture rather than its appearance – it protects card edges from the friction of daily use without adding anything to the 5mm profile. Both materials are doing specific work.

Sudaku describes the intent plainly: “The craftsmanship isn’t there to make Oblica feel handmade. It’s there to make an unconventional idea feel completely natural.”

The distinction matters. Most objects in this category use craft as a quality signal – stitching you can see, grain you can name. The Oblica uses it differently. The Kyoto construction is what allows a diagonal silhouette to function correctly, which is a different kind of argument for handwork than visible stitching, and a more demanding one.

Open it, and the internal logic makes immediate sense. Two staggered diagonal tiers expose the top edge of every card at once. With more than thirty cards in the holder, every one is visible and selectable before you reach for it. The moment of presenting a card is the moment the whole object exists to support. What had quietly completed the jacket a moment before opens to reveal the card inside, already organized, already ready.

The Italian leather develops a patina over years of regular use. Not surface damage – genuine character. The edges deepen, the surface softens in the places it’s handled most, and the specific wear pattern of how you reach for it becomes part of the object. The cards inside will change considerably more often than the leather that holds them.

At $160, the Oblica sits well above the practical end of the category — what the Oblica offers that neither end of the market does is a design argument: a specific reason the object is the shape it is, made in this city, from these two materials, in this workshop. That argument is legible in the finished object in a way that most card holders at any price cannot manage. Five units are currently available through YD Select.

The Case for the Breast Pocket

The trouser pocket was always the obvious place for a business card holder, which is probably why every card holder ended up there. The Oblica makes the case that the breast pocket was always the more considered answer – and that a diagonal edge above the pocket line, reading as a pocket square until it needs to be something else, was always the more resolved solution. That it took three months of iterative construction work in Kyoto to arrive at something that looks this inevitable is not a surprise. It is the kind of result that follows from treating a finished problem as an unfinished one.

The post A $160 Japanese Everyday Carry Card Holder Designed to Disappear Into the Breast Pocket of a Blazer first appeared on Yanko Design.

Most benches exist to give you somewhere to sit and catch your breath. They are humble, taken-for-granted objects, placed at intervals on a trail to mark the rhythm of a hike, to offer a moment of stillness in an otherwise demanding landscape. Nobody really thinks about them. And that’s exactly the kind of object Italian designer Francesco Faccin loves to rethink.

Pancalpina is Faccin’s latest project, commissioned by Trentino Sviluppo for the alpine landscape of Trentino in northeastern Italy. From the outside, it reads as a traditional wooden bench, crafted from solid larch with stainless steel components that can handle whatever the mountains throw at it. Sit on it, take in the view, rest your legs. Nothing unusual. But hidden inside the bench’s belly is a complete survival kit: thermal blankets, a shovel, a torch, and a tent that deploys using the bench’s own structure as its frame.

Designer: Francesco Faccin

This is not a product born from a design brief looking for novelty. It’s a response to a real and recurring problem in alpine environments: people caught off guard by sudden weather changes, injuries, or simple miscalculation of distance and daylight. Faccin’s answer isn’t to build more formal infrastructure, which would disrupt the wild, sparsely touched nature of the terrain. Instead, he embedded emergency capacity into an object that already belongs there.

The philosophy behind Pancalpina is important to understand because it’s what separates it from a clever gadget. The alpine environment, as Faccin has noted, is one of the few remaining areas of genuinely wild nature in Europe. Refuges, bivouacs, and trail markers already exist as artificial landmarks in these spaces, helping hikers orient themselves and find safety. Pancalpina slips into that existing language. It doesn’t announce itself as a technological intervention. It just looks like a bench.

And yet the moment you need it, the object transforms. The tent isn’t designed for a comfortable night out. It’s designed for the specific, unglamorous situation of waiting for rescue or riding out a night of rain or sudden snowfall when you have no other option. Faccin is precise about this distinction: Pancalpina is not a bivouac for extended stays. It’s a minimal shelter, built for survival in the time between crisis and help arriving.

That restraint is actually the most interesting design decision here. A lesser designer might have overcomplicated the solution, packed the bench with sensors and GPS alerts and solar charging panels. Faccin kept it elemental. Wood, steel, blankets, a shovel, a tent. Materials and tools that don’t require a signal to function, because when you actually need them, there might not be one.

Faccin himself trained under Enzo Mari, one of Italy’s most rigorous design thinkers, and that influence shows in how he approaches objects with genuine seriousness of purpose. His work has been recognised with a Compasso d’Oro honourable mention, and he teaches product design at the Free University of Bolzano, which puts him, fittingly, right at the edge of alpine territory. He’s not designing Pancalpina from a studio purely for aesthetic effect. He’s designing it because he understands that environment.

What strikes me about this project is how it reframes the idea of public infrastructure. We tend to think of safety in the mountains as a function of signage, emergency apps, or rescue services. Pancalpina asks: what if the bench itself carried some of that responsibility? Not in a dramatic or high-tech way, but quietly, modestly, in the way that good design tends to do its best work.

The name, too, is worth noting. Panca is Italian for bench, and alpina for alpine. It’s compound, direct, and a little poetic. The kind of name that feels inevitable once you hear it. If Pancalpina ever moves beyond prototype to wider installation across Italian alpine trails, it would represent one of the more genuinely thoughtful examples of public design in recent memory. Not because it’s revolutionary, but because it understood exactly what it needed to be, and nothing more.

The post Wooden Bench Hides a Full Survival Kit Inside first appeared on Yanko Design.

A Bluetooth speaker usually asks you to choose between sound and atmosphere. JBL’s new Pulse 6 is designed to make that choice feel unnecessary. Wrapped in a transparent cylindrical body, it turns music into a moving field of light, while a newly illuminated handle adds another glowing element to the object.

Launched today, the Pulse 6 portable speaker builds on JBL’s signature see-through aesthetic, surrounding its audio hardware with a 360-degree lighting system that responds to whatever is playing. Sixteen lighting patterns are available through the JBL One app, where the visual experience can be adjusted alongside basic EQ controls. When the music stops, the speaker can still remain a focal point of the room. A double-tap activates its ambient light, while the volume control doubles as a convenience to adjust brightness.

Designer: JBL

That idea of the speaker as an environmental object extends into Sunset Mode. Rather than simply switching off, the Pulse 6 can gradually fade its illumination and stop playback after a timer of up to 60 minutes, making it particularly suited to winding down at night. There is substance beneath all that glow. The 40W system combines a 30W RMS woofer with a 10W RMS tweeter, covering a 42Hz–20kHz frequency range. JBL’s AI Sound Boost continuously analyzes the audio and adjusts the output to help keep distortion under control as the volume climbs. For wired listening, a built-in DAC enables lossless audio through USB-C when connected to a Mac or Windows PC.

The wireless side is equally current, with Bluetooth 6.0 and support for SBC, AAC, and LC3 codecs. Auracast allows compatible JBL speakers to be connected for a larger synchronized listening setup, turning several individual glowing objects into one shared light-and-sound environment. Despite its sculptural appearance, the Pulse 6 is meant to leave the living room. The IP68 rating makes it dustproof and capable of surviving submersion in water, while the 34Wh battery delivers up to 12 hours of playback. Playtime Boost can extend that by another two hours, although USB-C charging at 15W takes around 4.5 hours for a full recharge. At 1.49kg and 131.7 x 264.1 x 106.4mm, it remains portable enough to carry from one setting to another.

JBL is initially launching the Pulse 6 in China for 2,499 yuan (roughly $370), with availability expected to expand gradually to other regions. The dual functionality and the striking aesthetics have sold me on the portable speaker, as it stands out from any other option on the market.

The post JBL Pulse 6 portable speaker is also an ambient lamp designed to set the mood anywhere, anytime first appeared on Yanko Design.

The plastic bottles in your recycling bin have a surprisingly glamorous potential future. Roca’s Stonex material comes from recycled PET resin, and the expanded Ohtake collection is probably the most design-forward version of that material the brand has produced yet. The new bathtub is compact, inspired by Japanese Ofuro soaking culture, and built in Stonex that is warm to the touch and resistant to the kind of wear and discoloration that makes bathroom surfaces look rough after a few years. From recycling bin to Red Dot winner. That’s a reasonable arc.

Rodrigo Ohtake designed the expansion, pulling forward a collection his father, the legendary Brazilian architect Ruy Ohtake, built with Roca. The two new basins came out of hand-sculpted clay models, which explains why they carry the shape of a calla lily rather than the usual flat-plane geometry bathroom design defaults to when nobody’s paying close attention. The bathtub accessories, a side shelf and an entry step that pulls double duty as a stool, arrive in soy resin. Roca built the whole expansion around the idea that sustainable material choices and strong design can be the same choice, resolved at the same time. Looking at the finished pieces, that idea lands.

Designer: Rodrigo Ohtake for Roca

The two basins cover different ground despite sharing the same botanical reference. One reads as a shallow, elongated vessel, almost like a leaf mid-curl, with edges that lift just enough to feel deliberate. The other is deeper and rounder, with walls that rise more confidently from the counter surface. Both began as physical clay models rather than digital geometry, which is where those specific curves came from, and both land in a finish range that goes well past the usual white-and-off-white defaults: matt black, onyx, coffee, beige, and a terracotta that is available in Brazil and on request everywhere else. That terracotta option is the one worth tracking down.

The Stonex bathtub is where the Ofuro influence lands most visibly. Ofuro baths are traditionally compact and steep-sided, built for soaking upright in hot water rather than reclining across the full length of a Western tub, and the whole point is immersion rather than rinsing. Rodrigo’s version holds that compact discipline and adds an integrated seat that makes the cocoon feeling more literal. The soy resin step and shelf arrive as standard, so the full ritual setup is sorted from the start. Stonex retains ambient heat on contact rather than pulling it away, which is a material detail that matters considerably more than it sounds.

Rodrigo took over the studio his father founded after Ruy Ohtake died in 2021, and the two practices formally merged into OHTAKE in 2022. Ruy built over 420 projects in Brazil across five decades, with a design philosophy that ran consistently on organic forms and curves drawn from the natural world. Rodrigo’s grandmother, Tomie Ohtake, was a celebrated Japanese-Brazilian abstract artist whose visual instincts filtered into the family’s work long before any of this became a bathroom collection. That three-generation lineage between Japanese heritage, Brazilian modernism, and contemporary sustainable design practice sits quietly behind every decision in this expansion. Rodrigo has said he tries to look to the future rather than the past, which is probably the right instinct when the past is that substantial.

The full collection is available through Roca globally, with basin finishes running from matt black and onyx to coffee, beige, and white. The iF Design Award and Red Dot both went to the new basin and bathtub in 2025, alongside Best in Show at Expo Revestir in Brazil. Those are the right awards for this kind of work: they measure execution as much as intent. For a collection that started on a workbench with clay and ended up in recycled resin and soy, the pieces carry almost none of the burden of either that origin story or the family legacy behind them. They just look like they belong.

The post Roca’s New Bathtub and Basin Turn Recycled PET Bottles Into Sculptural Bathroom Design first appeared on Yanko Design.

Footwear has always been a quiet conversation between technology and design. But every so often, a shoe comes along that forces the conversation out loud. Adidas’ Climacool Laced is that shoe for this season, and whether or not you’re a sneakerhead, it deserves your attention.

The Climacool story started in 2024, when Adidas introduced the original Climacool as a single-piece 3D-printed shoe built around one ambitious idea: a shoe “made like nothing, feels like nothing, looks like nothing.” Bold claim. Bolder execution. The original concept was all about a lattice structure that could mold to the foot while letting air move freely around it, a complete departure from how sneakers are traditionally assembled. For the FW26 season, Adidas evolved that vision with the Climacool Laced, and the update is both practical and surprisingly elegant.

Designer: Adidas

The key addition, as the name makes clear, is laces. That might sound minor, but it’s actually a thoughtful design decision. The original Climacool’s slip-on format was a statement in itself, but laces open the shoe up to more foot shapes, more wearers, and more moments. It’s the kind of iteration that shows a brand actually listening rather than just launching. The lace-up construction is also paired with updated traction and that signature ghost stripe detail, rendered in monochromatic white or contrasting black depending on the colorway.

The construction process is still the headline. Each pair of Climacool Laced shoes is built using Digital Light Synthesis (DLS) 3D printing, a process that takes approximately 24 hours per shoe. DLS is not your average desktop 3D printer situation. It’s an advanced additive manufacturing technique that uses UV light to cure liquid resin layer by layer, producing structures with far more precision and flexibility than traditional methods. The result is the Climacool’s defining characteristic: a fully 3D-printed lattice upper that reads almost like a woven textile but behaves more like an engineering diagram.

That lattice is functional. Adidas engineered it to allow 360° airflow, with strategically placed mesh ventilation zones that keep feet cool during movement. The shoe also includes arch support and integrated heel pillows, features that might get lost in all the tech conversation but matter enormously for everyday wearability. This is not a shoe designed to live in a display case, even if it could pull off that assignment very convincingly.

Visually, the Climacool Laced occupies an interesting space. It’s undeniably futuristic but somehow not alienating. The all-white or off-white colorway with contrasting black laces has a restraint to it that most tech-forward shoes abandon in favor of maximalism. It looks like something designed by someone who trusts the material to do the talking. A pink colorway has also surfaced, which adds a playful dimension and signals that Adidas is leaning into a broader audience rather than keeping this in the realm of experimental footwear for the few.

The campaign behind the shoe features Kahleah Copper and Jalen Williams, both known for their off-court style, which positions the Climacool Laced firmly in lifestyle territory rather than performance. That framing matters. Adidas is making a clear argument that 3D-printed construction isn’t a niche technology story. It’s a mainstream design choice. And with the original Climacool retailing at $140, they’re pricing it to be worn, not collected.

My take? The Climacool Laced feels like proof that fashion and manufacturing are finally having a productive conversation. Too often, 3D-printed shoes land as concepts that never quite cross the threshold into something you’d actually reach for in the morning. The Climacool Laced crosses it. The lace addition alone takes it from art object to wardrobe player, and the 24-hour production process behind each pair gives it a quiet sense of craft that fast fashion simply can’t replicate.

We’re at a point where the most interesting footwear design isn’t happening on a sketch pad. It’s happening in a digital file, cured by light, one layer at a time. The Climacool Laced makes that shift feel not just inevitable, but genuinely exciting.

The post The Adidas Sneaker That Takes 24 Hours to Print and Seconds to Want first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Steam Deck modding community has taken Valve’s handheld gaming PC to some unexpected places. Modders have swapped in more RAM, loaded the hardware with terabytes of storage, and reshaped it in ways Valve never intended. Most of those efforts stay close to the original form factor, tweaking what’s already there without fundamentally changing what the device looks like or how compact it is.

The SteamBoy goes much further. Someone took the actual working internals of a Steam Deck LCD, pulled them out of the original shell, and rebuilt everything inside a 3D-printed chassis roughly the size of an original Game Boy. The form factor shifts from the Steam Deck’s wide, horizontal layout to a tall, vertical one, running entirely on genuine Steam Deck hardware without any custom-made components.

Designer: PhyFawkes

The parts at the heart of the build include the Steam Deck’s motherboard, battery, speakers, and all of the original button hardware. Getting these into a much smaller enclosure without custom-designed circuit boards is the notable achievement here. No bespoke PCBs were needed for the core assembly, which means everything is essentially the same Steam Deck hardware, just rearranged to fit a dramatically different shell.

The display is where things get more involved. Rather than reusing the original Steam Deck screen, the planned replacement is a 1200×1080 AMOLED panel at 90 Hz, originally made for VR headsets. Making it work requires a custom adapter PCB between the panel and the motherboard, which is still in progress. In the meantime, the current demo routes output through a television rather than displaying on the device itself.

What the demo does confirm is that the hardware runs. Plug it into a display and the Steam Deck’s full library is available, complete with its familiar interface, game compatibility, and controls. The face buttons, D-pad, and thumbsticks carry over from the original hardware, giving it the full input range of a Steam Deck inside a body that fits the silhouette and spirit of a Game Boy.

The tighter enclosure does come with trade-offs. Cramming full Steam Deck internals into a chassis this compact raises real concerns about thermal management, since the original design already runs warm under load. The shell is noticeably thicker than a vintage Game Boy as a result, a reasonable concession given what’s packed inside. Cooling and battery longevity under sustained use remain open questions for the build to address.

The SteamBoy is still a work in progress, somewhere between a proof of concept and a finished handheld. The screen situation alone involves a custom PCB that hasn’t been built yet, and getting it to a polished state requires further refinement of the enclosure and its internal arrangement. A teardown video documenting how everything fits together has since followed the original reveal, showing that the assembly is at least replicable.

There’s something telling about why a project like this resonates with people beyond the usual modding community. The Steam Deck is already a capable handheld gaming PC, but the idea of that same power in a Game Boy-sized body carries a different kind of appeal. It’s the same feeling that made the Game Boy endure for decades, distilled into something that can run a modern PC library.

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