Awesome Art & Design

During the opening ceremony for China’s 2019 Nanchang Flight Convention, a veritable army of 800 illuminated drones took to the sky, arranging themselves to conjure images of a propeller plane, a jumbo jet, and a fighter jet, among other images to kick off the air show.

The myth of Sisyphus sees a man being rolling a massive boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down before the top, then repeat the task endlessly, reminding us that the journey is more important than the destination. Now, your toilet paper can experience that journey, thanks to Artori Design’s playful, diagonal bathroom shelf.

Jawbreaker candies are known for their toughness, so Burls Art decided to work with them much like any other building material, sawing and sanding them, then coating them in resin to create a truly sweet “flying V” guitar like no other.

Filmmaker Christoph Gelep takes us on a exhilarating visit to the city of Osaka, a vibrant place that at once is at once living in a neon-lit, cyberpunk present, while still embracing Japanese traditions. The juxtaposition of frenetic hyperlapse footage and close shots of of its residents is a perfect reflection of its culture.

This stand gives artists the ideal work surface for Apple’s tablets. The 20º angle and flush borders improve ergonomics and comfort for your wrist and arm. It has fold-out legs, a charging port, and a pencil cradle. They’re molded to each 2015 to 2019 iPad model for a perfect fit, and 2018+ iPad Pros hold in place magnetically.

Fans of Nintendo’s classic 8-bit game will love this hand-drawn animation, which lovingly replicates World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. Kisaragi Hutae 6 combined paper cutouts and line drawings in his notebook to create this awesome little stop-motion short.

Induku’s miniature chess sets are laser cut from baltic birch plywood, and make a great stocking stuffer of bonus gift. Once you pop the pieces out, they hold in place in the cutouts on the board. The set can also be personalized with an engraving up to 40 characters.

Husband and wife design team Gareth Smith & Jenny Lee’s typographic short film plays a clever visual trick, simulating the physics of what might happen if all of the letters on advertising signage started to break loose from their appropriate locations, and came to rest in totally haphazard ways.

Artist and designer Love Hultén shows off another one of his amazing custom builds. This time, he took a modern Korg Minilogue analog synthesizer, and built a Commodore SX-64-inspired portable wooden enclosure to house its electronics, then outfitted with cool orange knobs, and a matching keyboard in retro shades of tan and brown.

In this vintage 1959 newsreel from British Pathé, we go inside a UK factory where they transformed gold bars into incredibly thin sheets of gold leaf. According to the narrator, a single gold bar could cover 9000 square feet with the leaf it produced. We’ve got tendonitis just watching the guys doing the hand-hammering process.

FLUX, the guys behind the Delta 3D printer have a new product in the works – a desktop CO2 laser engraver and cutter that won’t break the bank. It’s designed for ease of use, yet is as capable as pro models, with on-board camera alignment and water cooling, along with optional autofocus and rotary capabilities for curved objects.

Artist Bert Hickman creates amazing organic works of art by firing a multimillion volt electron beam into acrylic. The powerful electrical jolt creates lightning bolt patterns inside the plastic. In addition to flat art, he also makes cubes, spheres, and even guitar bodies.

This mini pagoda from 1Man1Garage was inspired by classic Japanese architecture. It’s made from laser-cut birch, and comes flat-packed for you to assemble yourself. Load it with a tea light, and it’ll cast nifty shadows on your wall and tabletop. Measures 7″(h) x 6″(w) x 6″(d).

This beautifully-crafted desktop sculpture features a precision laser-etched map of the Milky Way, using data captured by the ESA’s Gaia mission. Its 5068 stars look particularly stellar when set on the LED-illuminated base, which projects its light into the heart of our galaxy. Measures 3″ in diameter, and runs on AAA batteries.

Director Dimitri Basil’s music video for the Joywave track Obsession is both a tribute to and a loving parody of vintage movie title sequences, featuring an array of convincing, but fake opening credits for spaghetti westerns, exploitation flicks, B-movies, and much more. Quentin Tarantino would be proud.

While we’ve always thought any sculpture of Iron Man should be cast out of a hunk of Iron, we’re gonna make an exception for this which we recently spotted from Woodart Vietnam. We’re not sure what sort of red wood the artist used, but the shiny details of Tony Stark’s Mark L armor were added with gold leaf.

Science and math-based design company Nervous System presents a duo of generative art puzzles inspired by spiral-shelled creatures. Both the 117-piece Ammonite and 307-piece Nautilus puzzles are laser cut from birch plywood, and incorporate a handful of unique pieces that resemble other living organisms.

Since 2015, animator Henning M. Lederer has been bringing to life various vintage books, each of which featured bold geometric images on its cover. After you watch the latest clip, be sure to go back and watch Part 1 and Part 2.

When shooting photos underwater, there’s often a hazy blue-green layer that gives everything a murky look. Engineer and oceanographer Derya Akkaynak has developed an algorithm which digitally removes that tinge, allowing images to appear sharper and more brilliant than ever. Read more on Scientific American.

A talented group of students from Supinfocom Rubika co-directed this charming and uniquely-styled animated short about a plush kitty who needs to get his anger issues under control, and who might just do it after he makes an unexpected new friend in the woods.

Modern Awesome Labs’ unique playing cards are printed with a special ink that reacts to body heat. Simply swipe your fingertips over the surface of the cards, and the images on their fronts transform to new shades. After you put them down, they reset to their original color after about 30 seconds.

Ready to see something really amazing? Watch as artist Sara Sandoval takes a roll of “Hello My Name Is” stickers, and doodles what looks like a random squiggle onto each one. But as it all comes together, the name badges reveal a detailed portrait of Slim Shady himself.

Kousheek Chakraborty and Satya Schiavina of Technovation show off a nifty design for a longboard with an quarter iso-grid cardboard center sandwiched between two layers of acrylic. While it looks reasonably stable for slow cruising, we’re not sure you’d want to do tricks on it. Check out the full build log on Instructables.