Awesome Art & Design

Kinekt is releasing a limited edition version of its cool moving necklace in time for Valentine’s Day. Aside from being smaller than the original, you have the option of adding a diamond on the pendant’s backside. Available with an 18″ or a 20″ chain.

This big-handed, battery-operated wall clock by Taichung designer Yenwen Tseng looks like a giant house fly that’s landed on your wall no matter what time of day it is. Giant fly swatter not included.

Loris & Livia refire off-the-shelf 250ml Duralex Picardie tumblers in a kiln to give them playfully warped forms that make each glass unique. Available in clear, amber and blue. The clear glasses are also available in 90ml size.

Ceramicist Eric Landon and Tortus Copenhagen give us a new perspective on throwing clay, by mounting their camera directly on a potter’s wheel, letting us see a work this work of art come together from the clay’s point of view.

Artist Andrei Muntian handmakes amazing wooden cutting boards by layering together precisely cut pieces of contrasting woods. Watch as he creates one of his trippy 3D illusion cutting boards. More on Instructables, and buy his work at MTM Wood.

While we’d all love to have perfect ice cubes in our drinks, it’s not always feasible. Nate Cotterman’s glassware has a cube or sphere built in that resembles a crystal-clear block of ice. The highball gets a pair of cubes. While they don’t improve cooling, they don’t melt either.

Artist Mike Stinnett loves to make walking canes that are decorated with realistic animal figures, often snakes and other reptiles. Here, he makes a cane with a copperhead wrapped around it. We love how he’s casually sitting for most of it. You can purchase Mike’s wares here.

Artist Paul Kaptein loves to make hand-carved wooden sculptures that appear to have been artificially distorted, often to bizarre effect. They aim to capture in physical form of potential, possibilities, and the gap between what is and what could be.

Disney and Marvel illustrator Brian Kesinger have been posting increasingly spot-on sketches of characters in Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the style of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes. Check out his Instagram, DeviantArt and Etsy pages for more of his work.

For her series Micro Matter, graphic designer and artist Rosa je Jong creates intricate models of buildings and trees using an X-Acto and tweezers, then sets them gingerly into test tubes and vials. More on Instagram and Dribble. Sculptures start at €120 (~$130 USD).

Matthew Stevenson used real subway lines to make alternate world map prints for six NES games: Metroid, Maniac Mansion, Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy and the first two Zelda games. He’s also selling them as high res digital files.

The Slow Mo Guys loaded up a drill bit with several colors of wet paint, then captured the ensuing spatter with their high-speed camera at up to 2500fps. The spiraling paint drops are cool, and they could probably sell the artwork they created at a fancy gallery now.

It sounds like a power-wielding device from the Marvel cinematic universe, but the Infinity Cube just looks cool and doesn’t do anything. This intricate desk plaything is made of numerous layers of real carbon fiber. A 1.5″ cube is made of over 70 layers of the durable woven material.

In this series of all too short clips from Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson’s Anomalisa, we go inside some of the tricks of the trade the film’s animators used to bring their tiny stop-motion world to life. Now we want to see how they made every little detail.

Ceramicist Kevin “Turkey” Merck creates amazing handcrafted mugs that look like heads. His latest creation is the Slow Joe Zombie Mug, a gruesome head of the undead complete with rotting flesh and exposed bone. At over $200 each, they’re not cheap, but he sells every one.

Studio Smack envisions a future in which advertising goes beyond billboards, banner ads, and product placement, and brands devise a technology to invade our dreams with not so subtle promotions for their products. For some reason, we’re craving a can of Coke now.

Artist Sebastian Errazuriz created a series of beautiful wall shelves and tables that incorporate fallen tree branches from the forests of South America. The only additions are paint, glass shelves, and the occasional bit of steel to provide added support.

The Internet allows artists to reach billions of people, but it also emphasizes quantifiers of talent or success: views, likes, follows. Adam Westbrook uses Vincent Van Gogh’s drive to remind us that – artist or not – if you love what you’re doing, then that’s more than enough.

Get a look at the inner workings of a steam engine with this impressive model built entirely from glass, by master glassblower Michal Zahradník. A couple of the engines have been made, then auctioned off on eBay. Keep an eye out here for future auctions.

Businessman Angelo Mastropietro was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2007, and it led to him being paralyzed for a brief time. His condition led him to do a bit of soul-searching. He ended up almost single-handedly turning a 700-year-old cave into a home.

Staghead creates jewelry that melds natural materials with precious metals. Each handmade ring is created using locally-reclaimed or ethically collected exotic hardwoods, set into silver, gold, or titanium. Elk antler, jade, turquoise, and copper are also available.

“There’s a rawness to it, a sort of desperation. And that reminds you that this has been made by someone.” Like vinyl records, handmade animation refuses to die despite the abundance of modern alternatives. Monocle looks at some of the new students of this old school.

For more than a year now, prop maker Michael Gump has been wearing a different disguise every day. Some of his ideas end up being one-dimensional, but his willingness to experiment and keep on making something new is a testament to his creativity and sense of humor.