Portfolio / Core77 Design Week Delivery Truck

For years, Core77 has produced an online guide for Design Week in New York. And even though they have been exclusively online since their inception (way back in 1995), they announced an ambitious experiment for their 2014 guide by choosing a format that many had assumed was dead: print. For four days in May during NYCxDesign, Core77 writers were going to design, report, print and deliver a daily newspaper.

While they were busy setting up the presses and recruiting newsies, we were asked to fabricate a rather unusual part of the project: a C77 Design Daily Delivery Truck. Each day, the truck would be needed to pick up and deliver the newspapers hot off the presses to various locations throughout the city. And at each stop, while newsies with papers sped off on scooters and trikes delivering the daily paper, the truck could convert into a gathering spot and mobile reading room.

This project came with a number of challenges. First, since we were renting the truck, everything from the elements installed inside to the graphics applied outside would need to be temporary. Everything would also need to be safe and secure since the truck was going to be rumbling around on the streets of NYC carrying thousands of papers. While typically used to secure cargo during transit, we used the truck’s built-in E-track cargo system to secure everything from newspaper storage bins and displays to delivery trikes and the staircase needed to access the truck.

Given the compressed schedule and variety of elements needed, we used everything from the CNC router and laser cutter to grinders and lathes to fabricate all the components. The CNC router was used to create display cases out of acrylic and plywood in order to showcase each day’s newspaper. The laser cutter was used to produce small items like the laser-engraved weights holding down papers on the rack and the larger acrylic panels allowing a quick window into the storage bins to gauge the day’s deliveries. Our favorite element of the installation: the old-school newspaper holders making for easy reading of the broadsheets, while also displaying each day’s paper like a flag when the truck was opened up at each stop.

Images of the finished delivery truck on its route throughout New York City provided by Core77.