Ruthless Ideas · a working archive
Ruthless Ideas is a design practice that turns everyday annoyances into objects — sketch, model, print, and then either use it or admit it failed.
Most ideas die as ideas. Not because they were bad, but because nobody made the next thing. Here the next thing gets made: the sketch becomes a solid, the solid becomes a print, and the print either works or explains why it didn't. Ruthless means the edit, not the attitude — kill the weak ones early and spend the time on whatever survives. This room holds what survived, and says plainly what didn't.
- 128ideas startedOne folder each, numbered in the order they were had.
- 119modelledGot as far as a real solid in CAD.
- 57renderedFinished well enough to photograph on white.
- 17printedExist as a physical object somebody has held.
- 1in productionMade to order, and sold to somebody who is not a friend.
This is the shape of the practice, not a failure report. Ideas are meant to stop here — the routine only works because nothing waits for the previous thing to succeed. The number worth looking at is the drop from 57 to 17: that gap is where a design stops being a picture.
Objects
8 on show
The Elephant Cover
Opens a drink can without a fingernail, then covers the hole.
2026In production
The Pathfinder
A thumb slider that runs a closed loop, so it never reaches an end.
2025Prototype · printed
The Magnet Tray
Stores loose disc magnets in sorted stacks instead of one clinging lump.
2025Prototype · in use
The Pen Hub
Lays every pen out flat in its own socket instead of burying them in a cup.
2025Prototype · in use
The Orb
A lamp shade rebuilt as a perforated ring that lets light through instead of blocking it.
2025Prototype · printed
The Adjustable Clamp Head
Replaces a C-clamp's flat pad with a vee that grips round stock instead of sliding off it.
2025Digital · not yet printed
The Pan Handle
A dustpan that carries its own broom, so the pair cannot be separated.
2024Digital · not yet printed
Iced Slatez
A desk pad with a mousing surface on one side and a cooling surface on the other.
2026Concept · waitlist live
Programs
5 on show
Refind
Brings back the things you saved in a chat and then forgot you had.
2026Live
Jimpa
An assistant that sits on a small business's website and answers for it.
2026Live
Boston
Takes an idea seriously and helps the person with it work out what to do next.
2026Live
API Key Exposed
Scans a live website for secret keys left in public, and tells you exactly how to remove them.
2026Live · domain not connected
Ruthless Games
Eight handheld toys from the nineties, rebuilt in a browser and wired into one another.
2026Live · three of eight built
Everything else
The Vault holds 134 more, catalogued but not written up.
A museum is edited. These are the records for the objects that have a plate and a number but no panel yet — filterable by what they are and what state they reached.