Japanese Designer Creates Free Template for an Anti-Virus Face Shield: Download, and Then Use a Printer, Paper & Scissors

A few years ago we fea­tured the Japan­ese art of chindōgu, or the inven­tion of amus­ing­ly “use­less” inven­tions. The chindōgu canon includes such simul­ta­ne­ous­ly sen­si­ble and non­sen­si­cal objects as minia­ture toe­cap umbrel­las (to keep one’s shoes dry in the rain) and chop­sticks fit­ted with minia­ture fans (to cool down ramen noo­dles before con­sump­tion). Today we present a Japan­ese inven­tion that may at first glance look chindōgu-like, but would nev­er qual­i­fy due to its sim­plic­i­ty and sheer use­ful­ness: an anti-virus face shield that any­one can make in three easy steps. After you’ve down­loaded the tem­plate, all you need is a print­er, paper, scis­sors, and some kind of clear plas­tic sheet.

“Health­care work­ers around the world are putting their lives on the line to fight COVID-19 but their bat­tle con­tin­ues to be fought uphill as a short­age of med­ical sup­plies threat­ens to dis­rupt an already over­whelmed sys­tem,” writes Spoon & Tam­ago’s John­ny Wald­man. We’ve all read of the lack of neces­si­ties like face masks and ven­ti­la­tors in some of the most afflict­ed coun­tries, and in such places hav­ing access to face shields could make a real dif­fer­ence in the num­ber of lives saved.

“Face shields are typ­i­cal­ly made with mul­ti­ple parts and would be dif­fi­cult to cre­ate and assem­ble at home,” Wald­man notes. “But Toku­jin Yoshioka’s bril­liant idea sim­pli­fies the design great­ly, allow­ing it to be held in place with ordi­nary eye­wear.” Best known as an artist and design­er, Yosh­io­ka has made his name cre­at­ing strik­ing sculp­tures, instal­la­tions, works of archi­tec­ture, and many oth­er objects besides.

Yosh­io­ka even designed the torch for the 2020 Sum­mer Olympics in Tokyo, shaped like a Japan­ese cher­ry blos­som and made with the same alu­minum extru­sion tech­nol­o­gy used to man­u­fac­ture the coun­try’s equal­ly icon­ic bul­let trains. Clear­ly the coro­n­avirus-caused post­pone­ment of the games has­n’t got Yosh­io­ka too down to con­tin­ue pur­su­ing his call­ing. “I am grate­ful to the brave and ded­i­cat­ed health­care work­ers for fight­ing the con­ta­gious dis­ease,” he writes in the note accom­pa­ny­ing the video at the top of the post that shows you how to make and wear his face shield. As you can see, it’s made to be worn with glass­es, so the non-bespec­ta­cled will need to stick with oth­er forms of pro­tec­tion against the virus — or take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to order some fash­ion­able frames of the kind that all the best design­ers seem to be wear­ing these days.

via Spoon and Tam­a­go

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch “Coro­n­avirus Out­break: What You Need to Know,” and the 24-Lec­ture Course “An Intro­duc­tion to Infec­tious Dis­eases,” Both Free from The Great Cours­es

Inter­ac­tive Web Site Tracks the Glob­al Spread of the Coro­n­avirus: Cre­at­ed and Sup­port­ed by Johns Hop­kins

Why Fight­ing the Coro­n­avirus Depends on You

The 10 Com­mand­ments of Chindōgu, the Japan­ese Art of Cre­at­ing Unusu­al­ly Use­less Inven­tions

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.