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Fast Company: Improving the Everyday: 8 Useful Objects That Need Fixing

For Students 2nd - 8th
Some designers offer their ideas about everyday objects that they think need to be improved, things like plastic furniture, the shopping cart, the clothesline, and a hammer and nail.
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Article
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Oxo: Behind the Design of the New Oxo Pop Containers

For Students 2nd - 8th
This article describes the process by which an engineer at OXO looked at design, size, and variety when he redesigned OXO's line of POP containers.
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Website
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Cool Things: Reinvented Products

For Students 2nd - 8th
A collection of articles on products that have been reinvented to improve their designs.
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Business Insider: 16 Everyday Objects That Are Perfectly Designed

For Teachers 2nd - 5th
An industrial designer shares his examples of products that are designed so well that it would be pointless to tinker any further with them. Teachers should be aware that one product is a handgun. Many of the others are examples of...
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Wired: 4 Super Cheap but Brilliant Everyday Objects, Curated by a Design Genius

For Students 2nd - 8th
Designer Sam Hecht calls himself "a little bit of a magpie." He collects unusual low-cost, functional products that he finds beautiful, clever, and well-made. This page features a slideshow of fourteen of the objects in his collection,...
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Medium: 35 Quotes on Design That Will Fuel Up Your Creativity

For Students 2nd - 8th
A collection of quotes on design and creativity that can inspire students and ignite discussions about what design is and how creativity goes into the design of everyday objects.
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Article
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Mental Floss: 11 Museums Devoted to Everyday Objects

For Students 2nd - 5th
These 11 museums are dedicated to items you use but probably never think about. Things like toilets, pencils, locks, and scissors. The variety of designs and the creativity that went into them are truly impressive.