Awesome Art & Design

A fantastic concept design for a cassette player with a slick and minimal playback mechanism. Sure, the sound quality of cassettes leaves a lot to be desired, but the sheer novelty of such a player might make us dig out our old ’80s mix tapes once again.

Nike is teasing a bold twist to the Air Jordan 1 with a peek at a pair of unreleased sample shoes. The Homage to Home looks like two shoes stitched into one. The outer side rocks the red and black aka Banned colors, while the inner side has the classic white and red.

Steel weapons are badass, but they’re not safe or kid-friendly, and they could get you in trouble at conventions or other public places. Foam swords are cheaper to make and easier to shape, but how do you make them rigid? Odin Makes has one answer: graphite golf clubs.

Camera maker Red is confident enough to take pre-orders for its mysterious “holographic” Hydrogen smartphone with barely any information about the gadget. Until now. MKBHD got his hands on three Hydrogen prototypes, and he came away impressed.

While you can buy an off-the-shelf wooden mouse these days, we much prefer handcrafted items, like the one that ThisWoodwork made from scratch, using an existing plastic mouse as a rough form for creating a sweet pointing device, complete with a wooden scroll wheel.

The FA-5 penlight was made exclusively for astronauts in the Apollo and shuttle missions. It proved particularly useful in the infamous Apollo 13. Barbolight’s replica retains the flashlight’s brass alloy construction but adds LEDs and water resistance up to 300ft.

Art by Rens says what we’re looking at is a real-time render of an environment that was produced using the Unreal Engine and Nvidia’s VXGI lighting system and off-the shelf graphics cards. It’s so realistic that you’ll question its veracity. But this reality is 100% digital.

M.C. Escher’s impossible cube worked its magic by toying with perspective on a flat sheet of paper. Pierpaolo Andraghetti decided to turn it into a digital model to see how it would work in three dimensions. It’s looks like it’s feasible to print a 3D model of it too.

The classic Spirograph is a childhood favorite drawing toy, but its plastic discs are easy to crack. This special edition includes nine drawing wheels and a gear wheel made from sturdy die-cast metal, as well as sticky Spiro-Putty to eliminate holes in your paper.

Mercedes-Benz’s parent company Daimler worked with Bosch to create a parking system with cars that park and retrieve themselves. The cars and the car park are equipped with sensors that guide the car to a free space. Drivers use an app to summon their rides.

To celebrate the launch of Legend of Korra: Turf Wars, Allen Pan of Sufficiently Advanced made one of the coolest – and hottest – gizmos we’ve ever seen: a flamethrower that spits fire when you throw a punch. Insure your fists, then find out how to make them here.

MS Paint is dead, long live MS Paint! With the arrival of Paint 3D, Microsoft will no longer update or support its predecessor. Lazy Game Reviews traces the origins and evolution of the beloved application, which started as a clone of a Mac program.

A few years ago, Patrick Soriano made a replica of Thor’s hammer Mjölnir for a costume party, but he ended up using it as a headphone stand. He recently made a newer version that has an integrated USB hub, a headphone jack, a bottle opener and small shelves.

The YARA Birkeland will be the world’s first autonomous and zero-emission container ship. It will be manned when it launches in 2018, but is expected to launch, sail and dock on its own by 2020. It will reduce YARA’s diesel truck haulage by up to 40,000 trips a year.

Italian furniture maker Ozzio shows off a dining/conference table that can be expanded in both length and width, using a clever series of sliding and hinged leaves that hide beneath its wooden surface. You might want to mute the audio and play your own music though.

Unlike other LEGO space shuttles, KingsKnight’s proposal is a 1:110 model, the same scale as the recently released LEGO Apollo Saturn V set. The design includes the tank and boosters, the Canadarm, a satellite, swappable decals, and seven microfigures.

The late 19th century saw an exponential leap in poster making, thanks in no small part to cheap mass-produced lithography equipment. Minneapolis College of Art and Design shares some prime examples from the “Golden Age of the Poster.”

Etsy store GamerGram makes metallic prints that are so shiny you have to see how the light hits them to fully appreciate their beauty. Right now they’re focused on video game art and geeky fan-submitted artwork, but they’re looking for artists to diversify their prints.

Pop Chart Lab’s 24″ x 36″ print features 200 different gamepads, joysticks and more, arranged according to their type. The chart also includes handheld video game systems from the Game Boy to the Switch.

Northern Ireland’s tourism body is making an incredible 252 foot-long hand-woven, hand-embroidered tapestry that recaps Game of Thrones. It’s currently on display online and at the Ulster Museum in Belfast, and will be updated as the show progresses.

Singapore-based Autobahn Motors turned its showroom into a 15-story luxury car vending machine. Even though it’s more of a marketing and space-saving stunt, the delivery system actually works, and is controlled through a mobile app.

Mondo’s upcoming art book is a back catalog of its highly sought-after movie posters. The book includes prints of Olly Moss’ posters for the Star Wars trilogy, Francesco Francavilla’s Clash of the Titans piece, Laurent Durieux’s subtle Jaws poster and many more.

Made by the ever imaginative sculptor Johnson Tsang, the Open Mind Series are ceramic busts depicting physical manifestations of concepts bursting forth from one’s mind. His previous series, Lucid Dream, has a similar conceptual approach.