The Chess Set That Plays By Touch, Ships Flat, Wastes Nothing There’s something deeply satisfying about watching a designer solve multiple problems at once. William Young’s Jigsaw Chess Set is one of those rare designs that...

Samsung Freestyle+ Turns a Friendly Cylinder into an AI-Assisted Portable Screen The first Freestyle tried to make projection feel as casual as dropping a speaker on a table, but still needed some fiddling with focus, keystone,...

Best Tech Gadgets of 2025: 10 Innovations You Need to See Technology moves fast, but 2025 feels like a distinct era. This year brought gadgets that challenged convention rather than followed it. From keyboards that fold...

The Art of Stepping Away: Photography from a Weekend in Big Sur abduzeedo January 01, 2026 Experience the quiet magic of Big Sur via photography. A personal journey of disconnecting from the digital world to find clarity among the redwoods and the Pacific coast through the lens of the Ricoh GR3x and Sony A7III. To close out the final days of the year, I felt the familiar pull to step away—to trade the glow of the screen for the soft, dappled light of the forest. This time, the compass pointed toward Big Sur. There is a mythic quality to this stretch of Central California. It is a place that feels less like a destination and more like a piece of fiction, famously immortalized by voices like Jack Kerouac. Tucked between the ancient silence of the redwood groves and the rhythmic power of the Pacific, it remains a sanctuary only reachable via the winding, romantic ribbon of Highway 1. The Luxury of No Signal In Big Sur, "disconnecting" isn't a disciplined choice; it’s a gift given to you by the landscape. Without satellite internet, the digital world simply ceases to exist. There is a profound humility in that silence. Living out of a van, you quickly realize how little you actually need. Your schedule is no longer dictated by notifications, but by the sun and the tide. The only "to-do" list that remains is to simply be present with your family and the natural world. The Small Things We spent two days embracing the slow rhythm of the coast. We walked through muddy terrain, surrendered to the early darkness of winter, and woke with the rising sun to the sound of a rushing river. There is a specific kind of meditation found in cooking over an open fire—the weight of a cast iron pan, the whistle of a kettle, the steam of a fresh coffee in the cold morning air. It was a stark, necessary reminder: life is fleeting. Beyond the pursuit of a career or the gravity of material things, there is a deep, quiet wealth found in these small moments. It was exactly the recharge I needed to step into the new year with a clearer heart. Photography As always, I brought a few tools along to capture the atmosphere. These frames were taken with the Ricoh GR3X HDF and the Sony A7III (paired with the Tamron 28-200mm). I hope these images transport you there for a moment, and perhaps inspire you to find your own clearing in the trees. For more photography check out https://unsplash.com/@abduzeedo 

This Upside-Down Boat Blocking a Mountain Trail Is Actually An Architecture Award-Winning Chapel Picture yourself hiking through the Italian mountains and suddenly there’s a wooden boat blocking the trail. Except it’s upside down. And it’s not actually a...

A New Year Is Not a Reset Button. It’s a Blank Margin. ibby January 01, 2026 A reflective New Year’s message for creatives about reset, renewal, and the courage to take the leap. An invitation to start fresh and forge a new path. The start of a new year doesn’t arrive with answers. It arrives with space. Space to pause. Space to look again. Space to question what we’ve been carrying forward out of habit rather than intention. For creatives, designers, and builders, the idea of a “fresh start” is rarely about erasing what came before. It’s about refining it. Editing the noise. Choosing what stays, what evolves, and what finally gets left behind. A new year is less about reinvention and more about alignment. About returning to the work, the ideas, and the curiosities that once felt instinctive. The ones that didn’t need permission or validation. The ones that felt honest. Sometimes progress looks like a clean line and careful steps. Other times, it looks like a cannonball into cold water. A moment of commitment where hesitation disappears, the surface breaks, and you accept the shock because staying still felt worse. That leap matters. Not because it’s loud, but because it’s decisive. This is a moment to reset your pace. To refresh your process. To make room for experiments that may not scale, trends that may not stick, and ideas that may only matter to you. Often, those are the ones that shape everything else. Progress doesn’t always come from bold declarations or dramatic pivots. Sometimes it comes from quiet consistency. From choosing to show up again. From trusting that small, intentional steps can still lead somewhere meaningful. So as the year opens, consider this an invitation. To forge a new path if the old one no longer fits. To redraw the map if necessary. To move forward with clarity instead of urgency. The page is open. The water is cold. The jump is yours. Happy New Year from all of us at Abduzeedo.  

This Hemp Room Divider Looks Like Art You Can Actually Use There’s something about a really good room divider that just makes sense. It’s like the furniture equivalent of a Swiss Army knife: part privacy screen,...

This LEGO Portal 2 Set Lets You Design/Build Your Own Test Chambers With 1,280 Pieces The Portal franchise has earned its place in gaming history through ingenious puzzle design, dark humor, and an aesthetic so iconic that a simple orange...

This Grand Piano Has a 20″ Touchscreen, and a Design Worthy Of A Supercar Showroom The grand piano has remained visually unchanged for generations, its familiar silhouette a fixture in concert halls and living rooms worldwide. Mohammad Limucci saw this...

This $418 French Strap Solves the Watch vs Smartwatch Problem Look, we all know someone who wears a beautiful vintage Rolex or Omega but keeps glancing at their phone every five minutes to check their...

Furniture That Dances: The Moon Series Reimagines Seating There’s something almost poetic about furniture that moves. Not in the literal sense, but in the way it invites you to play, rearrange, and reimagine...

For the past twenty years, the Safdie brothers have been fundamental in the world of cinema, with their pedigree growing with each film they release. Josh and Benny have gradually worked their way up from unknowns to big hitters behind the camera- be that working as a team, or more recently, branching out and directing […]

This Smart Jar Lid Uses UV Light to Keep Your Food Fresh Longer You know that moment when you open your fridge and discover that beautiful container of berries you bought three days ago has turned into a...

This Speaker Is Made From Sand (And It’s Actually Genius) When you think of high-end speakers, your mind probably goes to sleek black boxes, glossy wood finishes, or maybe some minimalist Scandinavian design. But what...

Homing Compass Lets a Single Red Arrow Always Point the Way Back Home There is a tension in families where someone loves to walk but sometimes forgets the way back, especially in the context of early dementia. Smartphones,...

MeTool’s pendant-sized EDC is one of the smallest and most versatile multitools you can get An everyday carry tool, colloquially EDC, is only useful and actually worth its weight in gold when the device is built to be convenient to...

This LEGO Campbell’s Soup Can Opens to Reveal Andy Warhol’s Entire Factory Studio In 1962, Andy Warhol turned a humble soup can into an art world phenomenon. Now, a LEGO Ideas submission is turning that same can into...

This $28 Power Bank Accidentally Recreated the iPhone 3G Design Cuktech just dropped their 10 Air magnetic power bank in China, and honestly, the most interesting thing about it has nothing to do with the...

DIY Spotify-to-Cassette Player Adds Analog Warmth to Digital Streaming Audio Most audio enthusiasts fall into one of two camps: the ones chasing perfect fidelity with lossless files and the ones who swear their vinyl sounds...

This fingertip-sized flashlight pushes rechargeable EDC to its absolute limit World’s smallest and world’s biggest are two phrases that never fail to grab attention, especially when they’re attached to something as utilitarian as a flashlight....

Happy birthday today, December 31, to Ahmed Muin Abu Amsha. If any song sums up 2025 and the threat to civilians from drone warfare, it’s his cover of “Sheel Sheel Ya Ajmal Sheel” tuned with the whine of the weapons buzzing overhead. On his birthday and New Year’s Eve, the artist offers a song with […] The post Ahmed Muin, Palestinian music teacher who turned drones into an anthem appeared first on CDM Create Digital Music.

This Desktop Board Fixes the Problem Phones Created We’ve all been there. You sit down to check your calendar, and thirty minutes later you’re three layers deep in Instagram stories wondering where your...

What's your New Year's Resolution? I mean, use more music software, obviously. Why, someone has some other goals? Let's get you started with Autodafe, who posted a handy guide to getting up and running with the JE-8086 reverse-engineered emulation of the Roland JP-8080 (and I've updated that guide, too). The post Autodafe has an explainer on getting JE-8086 up and running appeared first on CDM Create Digital Music.

Peak Pouch Turns 5,180 Tons of Park Waste Into Trash Bag Holders South Korea’s national parks removed trash bins to protect ecosystems and pushed a carry-in, carry-out policy. The unintended side effect is that visitors hide trash...

5 Red Dot Award Winning Designed to Change the World: Submission Closes January 16, 2026 The world’s most prestigious design competition is back, and this year it’s bigger and more exciting than ever. Starting September 15, 2025, the Red Dot...