Tue, 01/25/2011 | Co.Design: business + innovation + design

January 25 2011

Infographic of the Day

Infographic: How Foursquare Grew 3400% in One Year

It's been a wild year for Foursquare: A couple years ago, they were nothing more than a odd fad among certain tech-obsessed urbanites. Did you ever think people would get kicks from checking in to locations using their smartphones, the human equivalent of dogs peeing on lampposts? Maybe we're not so different than neighbhorhood mutts checking their pee-mail. We're social creatures. Thus the Foursquare 'splosion.

A Collapsible Sofa Made of 8,000 Chopsticks

SOFA_XXXX is a broke college student's dream: It's a chair that expands into a couch, so it's like getting two pieces of furniture for the price of one. The kicker: It's made out of chopsticks -- a whopping 8,000 of 'em. Suddenly, those egg-crate bookshelves look downright bourgeois.

Wanted: Tristram Shandy Gets a Stunning Graphic Makeover

Before McSweeney's and Everything Is Illuminated and even Pale Fire, there was Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman -- THE modern proto-hypertext and a novel that's been begging lo these many years to be turned into graphic-design porn.

Can the Paperclip Get Any Better? Yes, With 3-D Printing

[bunch of weird facts about paperclips here] [bunch of weird facts about paperclips here] [bunch of...Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there. I was just 3D-printing this blog post. What's that, you say? 3D-printing a blog post makes no practical sense? Says frickin' who?

A Simple Concrete Bridge That Could Save America’s Wildlife

Jurors in the first-ever international competition to design a wildlife-safety bridge announced a winner on Sunday: Landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA) and the construction firm HNTB for a foliage-covered pre-cast concrete span that, in the architects? telling, could rise over roads anywhere cars and animals collide, whether the highways of West Virginia or a major interstate in Colorado.

Creative Destinations: In Toronto’s Old Timey Distilleries, a Fresh Brew

For first-time travelers to Toronto, it's often Yorkville and West Queen West that get most of the love. But another part of downtown that's also worth a trip is the Distillery District, on the east side. This complex of Victorian-era stone and brick buildings, now a multi-use development, is already known for its restaurants and boutiques.

A Basket That’s a Wiggling Work of Kinetic Art [Video]

The incredible thing about Bidum is that it's a basket, and it swings, shimmies, and shakes like some sort of cross between a Slinky and a giant Koosh Ball. The more incredible thing is that it's a basket, and we're actually excited about it.

Once you see the videos, though, you'll get what all the fuss is about. Watch:

Infographic of the Day

Infographic of the Day: Does Buying a House Make Any Sense?

It used to be an iron law of personal finance that owning a home was the surest way to build lasting wealth. Then along came the financial crisis and the Great Recession, and, if we learned nothing else, we saw that home prices don't rise indefinitely, and can in fact be so wildly inflated that there's no prospect of ever getting back your purchase price. Looking back, if you lived in Las Vegas in 2007, it would have made a lot more sense to ignore that zero-down, all-interest mortgage offer for $1,000,000 and just keep renting a $1,500 condo on the Strip.

Infographic of the Day

Infographic of the Day: The Hilarious, Befuddling Charts Of The U.S. Congress

Innovation by Design

The Amazing Judges For Our 2013 Innovation By Design Awards

From the Editor

Thanks for stopping by Fast Company’s Co.Design. If you’ve been a reader for some time, you’ll notice that we’ve just unveiled a brand-new redesign. You can read about the thought process behind it here. Our content, of course, will be the same: Our focus is on highlighting the world’s best examples of design and innovation, working in concert.

We started this site with a few simple premises in mind. First, design is a window onto the world at large, and the culture we live in.

Continued