Awesome Art & Design

Artist Iris Scott doesn’t believe in paintbrushes. Instead, she creates detailed and vibrant images using only her gloved fingers. Her works include people, animals, landscapes, water, and urban scenes. Find more of her art on her website, and canvas prints are available here.

Headed by blacksmith Aaron Cergol, Cergol Forge makes axes, knives and other hand tools. It’s most famous for its beautiful hammers, which often have forged, carved or burned details. In addition to its in-stock pieces, the shop accepts custom orders.

A trio of classical musicians teamed up with interactive artists Ouchhh on this innovative performance art work for Ars Electronica, using sensors to measure data from its cellist’s Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta and Gamma brainwave activity to generate real-time visuals influenced by emotion, focus, auditory, and other neural response.

Serve a meal on the most technical dinner plates ever. Dobreff Design’s square plates are handmade with real carbon fiber, sandwiched under glass to make them smooth and food safe. They look great, but aren’t very practical, as they’re expensive, handwash only, and not dishwasher or microwave safe.

Go on a fascinating journey through Zildjian’s Norwell, MA factory, home of the world’s most sought after cymbals. Watch as metal castings are flattened, trimmed, hammered, milled, and gradually worked into the ideal shape for producing the perfect sound. We love that they didn’t cover up the factory sounds with music.

What starts out as a few styrofoam spheres, aluminum foil, and some hunks of clay serves as the casting form for an incredibly detailed monster sculpture, courtesy of artist Nick Brown of LoreCraft. The finished piece has even got spikes and teeth that glow under black light.

Travel to an exotic planet where a creature finds itself banished, and while exiled, it stumbles onto something unexpected which could help it take revenge on those who sent it away. From the illustration style to its orange color palette, to its concise storytelling, Frederic Siegel’s animated short makes for some intense viewing.

Drew Tetz created these awesome business cards which display an animation when played on a turntable under bright light and viewed through a camera, like a phenakistoscope. Be sure to check out Drew’s laser-cut turntable animations too.

Animator Raphael Vangelis pays tribute to all the lost time spent watching spinning circles, hourglasses, beachballs, and progress bars on our computer screens, by replicating the idea with stop-motion animation and 3D printing. The behind the scenes video equally enthralling.

Master doodle artist Lei Melendres‘ creative coloring book sends you on a mission to explore weird and creepy scenes filled with hundreds of wacky characters and hard to find objects. Once you find your objectives, simply color them in, then move on to the next challenge.

The Titans of CNC: Academy rightfully brag about their electronic machining equipment and skills by transforming a hefty 218 pound billet of aerospace grade titanium into a stunning sculpture of a lion’s head. In the end, they milled away over 100 pounds of material to reveal the metal king of the jungle.

(Gore) Directed by a team of students from computer graphics animation school MoPA, this intense short film envisions a dark undersea world where creatures have evolved and adapted in strange and fascinating ways after pollution ruins their habitat. Making of here.

Ohio artist Melissa Crisp creates these incredibly cool steel fire pits which feature intricately cut scenes of nature. Each one creates a dramatic silhouette when a fire is lit. They’re built for wood, but can be converted to burn gas. We especially love the Phoenix Rising design.

Coin Cut Art makes these amazing and intricate jigsaw puzzles by painstakingly hand-sawing currency into dozens of puzzle pieces. The pieces are so tiny, you’ll need tweezers (and endless patience) to assemble them for sure.

Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? Ophidiophobics look away, but everyone else check out this sweet poster provides a scientifically-accurate catalog of every known snake species in the US and Canada. Available as an 18″ x 24″ OR 36″ X 48″ print.

vsual. offers this series of abstract prints, each of which features a timeline of color throughout a visually notable film. Choose from horizontal line, concentric circle, or varying width line designs, and movies like 28 Days Later, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and 12 Angry Men. The ones based on animated films are particularly vibrant.

The perfect gift for music lovers of all types. Each of its cards features an image of a famous musician by artist Rik Lee. Pop = Hearts; Rock ‘n’ Roll = Spades; Folk & Country = Diamonds; Soul, Blues & R&B = Clubs. There’s also a version for art lovers by Rebecca Clarke.

An artist from Nghệ Nhân Âu Lạc Woodart Vietnam goes Super Saiyan on a block of wood, carving an impressive sculpture of Dragon Ball’s spiky-haired protagonist Goku. His weapons of choice? A chainsaw, an angle grinder, chisels, and a Dremel rotary tool.

Ascetic Design’s unique desk clock uses LED-illuminated acrylic panels to display the current time. It offers 7 display modes, and you can choose from digital, binary, or word style panels in a variety of etched typefaces. The 8-piece set comes with a display stand for the panels.

Digital illustrator Robson Lami likes to take cartoon characters and reimagine them as if they were living, breathing people. He’s taken on Rick Sanchez, Popeye, Woody, the Powerpuff Girls, Sonic the Hedgehog and many more, and they’re almost always incredibly creepy.

After making bowls out of a variety of materials, Peter Brown’s viewers have been asking him to make a cereal bowl made of cereal. He finally gave in to their requests. The process is simple, but it takes a lot of time and skill. The end result is beautiful, but it’s questionable if it’s food-safe.

IDIDTHAT creates whimsical and functional art by reclaiming vintage objects. They have lots of cool stuff in their Etsy shop, but our favorites are these old rotary phones from the 1950s and 1960 which have been converted to desk lamps. Their coiled cords can be bent into various positions, and their LED light source is nice and bright.

After reading Adam Savage’s book Every Tool’s a Hammer, maker Peter Brown was inspired to try and use the book itself as a hammer. To turn it into a useful tool, he had to coat each and every page of the book with resin to harden it into a sturdy laminate known as Micarta – often used for knife scales.