Awesome Art & Design

The latest intricately animated short from artist Jake Fried features at its center, a single main illustration of a man’s head, gradually worked and reworked as it experiences life and the world around it. Each image was created using ink and white-out.

“I am an artist, with the paperwork to prove.” In 2016, animator Rory Waudby Tolley got to be the Artist in Residence for an international law firm in London. But he didn’t know what kind of art the lawyers liked, so he asked them. This is what he ended up making.

Experimental band Hardcore Anal Hydrogen created a trippy and vibrant music video for their thrash metal track Jean-Pierre, created with the help of artificial intelligence tools like Deep Dream, Neutral Style Transfer, and DeepFlow. Read more about the project here.

Thingiverse member DanielMitchell has shared his 3D model for a triangular desktop bladeless fan. It uses a computer fan hidden in its base, and is easy to put together. Thingiverse has links to print shops if you don’t have access to a 3D printer.

If you ever find yourself passing through Stockholm, Sweden, consider spending a night at Jumbostay. Parked adjacent to Arlanda Airport, the retired Boeing 747 jumbo jet has been converted into a hotel, with rooms in its passenger cabin, cockpit, and engine nacelles.

Celebrate your love for animals by NOT cutting their heads off, and instead covering your walls with these lighthearted wooden art pieces by artist Tzachi Nevo of Urbanmasquerade. Each animal mask is made from layers of premium woods and is ready to hang.

Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a 3D printing method called Computed Axial Lithography. It projects 2D slices of a 3D model into a cylinder of resin, creating an object in one go. It’s much faster than other 3D printing methods, which deposit material layer by layer.

“What if I don’t want a hand? What if I want a tentacle?” The Guardian spoke with amputees as well as experts about the present and future of prosthetics and bionics. Research on technology such as brain-machine interfaces raise both possibilities and dilemmas.

All in Pixel created this animated masterpiece for The Verge’s Better Worlds‘ project. Based on a short story by Justina Ireland, it’s a science fiction tale about a woman determined to leave Earth for a more hopeful future on a colony only attainable for the wealthiest of people.

Artist Roman Booteen creates incredible hand-carved coins and Zippo lighters, featuring intricate designs. His most impressive works are the multi-layered coins, featuring mechanical movements which reveal new images. Note some images contain nudity.

Here’s something that all online shoe stores should have. Wannaby’s Wanna Kicks is an augmented reality app for iOS. It projects 3D models of commercially available sneakers on your feet. The models are sized to your feet and accurately change perspective when you move.

If you’ve been to Hong Kong, you know the city is packed with tall and skinny apartment buildings. Filmmaker Toby Harriman captured aerial images of these immense housing structures, leaving us to imagine the lives of the millions inside. Still photos and prints here.

ROKR’s bass wood replica of a classic film projector is one of the coolest flat-pack model kits we’ve ever seen. Not only does it look awesome, it actually can project a short loop of film that’s included with the kit. The hand-cranked projector isn’t bright, but it requires no batteries to operate.

You don’t have to speak a word of Spanish to get the fire and enthusiasm of artist Porfirio Jimenez, who creates wonderful pop art paintings using spray paint and stencils. He may have talent, but his real super power is not getting any paint on his white t-shirt.

Wacom’s entry-level Cintiq 16 has a 15.6″ 1080p non-touchscreen display. It has an anti-glare parallax coating to mimic the look and feel of paper. It comes with the Pro Pen 2, which has 8,192 levels of sensitivity, low activation force and tilt recognition.

Stuart Semple’s Culture Hustle is known for making the pinkest pink paint available. He sells it at an affordable price too. Now he’s helping make the blackest commercially available black paint, and wants everyone to get their hands on it as well.

“A straw used for just minutes exists for 450 years. By 2050, there will be more plastic in the sea than fish.” Artist Von Wong worked with Zero Waste Saigon, Starbucks Vietnam and dozens of volunteers to gather and turn 168,000 used straws into an art installation.

Pix-It-Up is a reusable magnetic puzzle that lets you create pixelated monochrome portraits out of a digital photo. Use the Pix-It-Up website to pixelate a photo and generate instructions. Then arrange the magnetic pieces over the steel frame to mimic the pixelated photo.

How much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black. This desktop curiosity is made using a carbon nanotube array to absorb 99.% of visible light, so when you look into it up close, it’s the darkest void you’ve ever seen. Available in 2.5cm and 4cm sizes.

Each of these 4″ cubes contains a length of electroluminescent wire that’s been bent into a unique, abstract shape. Thanks to the reflectivity of the box, the light’s pattern repeats itself, creating a great sense of depth. Runs on battery or USB power.

Director Eva Cvijanović’s award-winning stop-motion short film offers up a charming tale of a hedgehog who loves his home to no end, and a pack of hostile woodland predators who don’t understand the value of a happy and cozy place to call their own.

Based on two traditional board games from Scandinavia, this set is as much of a tabletop work of art as it is fun to play. It’s played with unique 4-sided dice, and its playing pieces are stored on a miniature Viking ship. Made from laser-engraved plywood and beech wood.

Fologram combines computer-aided design with the holographic capabilities of Microsoft’s HoloLens headset to help in assembling even complex objects. The hologram can overlay exactly where each piece of the build should go, as well as an outline of the finished product.