Steve Turbek

A designer focused on beautiful solutions to complex problems. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Artforum, Wired, Web Techniques, BoxesandArrows.com, SFMOMA, & Eyebeam.
steve (at) turbek.com LinkedIn @SteveTurbek

A poster-sized calendar with a bubble to pop every day! Available at Amazon.com

Parquet Flooring Table

Using leftover flooring as parque tiles to make hexagons. Seemed like a good idea in the beginning.

Dovetail Bench

Seat plates angle inward for comfort. Japanese-inspired joinery.

All-felt stool

Felt is soft, but surprisingly stiff when folded! Tied with string, this is a functional stool weighing just 8 pounds.

"John Deere Green" Table

Using a simple bent metal curve to define a curve. Paint came from a happy accident at the shop.

Classic Arcade Game Table

A family friendly cabinet for the classic RetroPie MAME project. The joysticks fold in and the screen is hidden under the mirrored glass.

Re-Pete Coffee Table

This coffee table system can make tables with leg patterns composed from 3 to 10 legs.

Apple TV Remote grip

The AppleTV remote has many design flaws, including not being obvious which way to hold it and being hard to pick up if your hands are not so young. This prototype grip clips onto the remote, giving a clear front and back and raising it off the surface. 3D printing file is free to download

"White Knight" chain guard

Inspired by a cyclist friend who wears white jeans, this prototype chain guard for single speed bikes keeps your pants clean. The pattern of circles enables the atachment brackets to fit any sprocket.

Razorfish Conference Table

Conferencing tables designed for the Razorfish conference rooms. With rollerblade wheel feet, they are easily reconfigured into multiple shapes. An aircraft fuel tank stopper can be opened to run laptop cables neatly through the leg.

"Happy Feet" interactive scultupure

(Shown at Art Bots 2003) Happy Feet is an installation of 5 pairs of elegant footwear. Each shoe is mechanically articulated, enabling it to tap. The shoes are then free to dance, to create chorus line patterns, to interact with the audience. When unattended, the articulated shoes to tap rhythms. When a person steps on the foot pads, the shoes copy their steps.

Flat Pack Bench

Inspired by dinner parties with friends, this flat pack bench that could be assembled without tools. The sitter's weight locks the wooden rods in place.

Fastener-less Shelving

Non-parallel metal tubes keep the shelves in place without screws. The organic forms were derived from the stresses on the supports.

Carved Plywood Chair

An organic-form chair from sheet plywood. Seat hollowed out for comfort.

Curved Plywood Bar

Custom designed and built, the curved plywood front opens dramatically to show contents.

Folding Table

Based on a traditional Shaker design, the table folds into a sideboard.

Molded Plywood Bench

Springy and strong, the plywood forms can be used for home or public seating. The single repeated element can create concave or convex curves by altering the spacing of the aluminum connectors.

Ergonomic Cane Concept

Prototype of injection molded frame over aluminum core, with neoprene cuff, adjustable along molded ribs.

Pepto Bismol Bottle Concept

The amusing shape also served a purpose - the goose neck top delivers a measured dose.

Pratt Student Mailboxes

Competition-winning entry for Pratt Architecture student mailboxes. Hand made polypropolene.

Timberframe Pavilion

Designed and built in the summer of 1992-3, this structure combines traditional timberframe joints with unusual geometry.

Magic is powerful, but as we all know, it also has a dark side. Could today's trend toward magical user experiences like gestures and voice spell doom for users?

Designers unique skill set can go beyond designing the UI of an existing product idea. Their tools and techniques can be adapted to define the product itself though early testing.

Remote controls are a great way to engage non-designers. These three examples show the difference between Engineering simplicity, Conceptual simplicity, and Aesthetic simplicity.

Submission to solvingsol.com, the Sol LeWitt tribute in code.

Submission to solvingsol.com, the Sol LeWitt tribute in code.

How enterprise designers can use their special abilities to shape product strategy

How can design help real people use data in their lives?

Experiment to generate amoeba like creatures using bezier curves in javascript / HTML canvas

A fun little puzzle iPhone game.

Formerly an iPhone app, it now works in Safari / Chrome. For desktop, use the arrow keys to steer.
Notes about the development of the Invisible Maze game

Getting the best of both worlds

UX team organization can make or break a company's design strategy

In a world of limited resources, code beats pictures. (published at BoxesAndArrows.com)

How good are you at reading charts? Which chart is the best? I created a small game to test chart skills and get some hard numbers on how well each chart works, including styles. Everyone says that pie charts are bad. But how bad? Let's find out.

When Bad Usability is Good User Experience

Having run a couple of marathons, I designed and coded some interactive charts to analyze the New York Marathon overall runner population and look up an individual runner.

There are no dumb users, but people are not just users.

by Ben Kleinman, Stephen Turbek
Timezone dataviz to highlight the best times to call global offices