Awesome Art & Design

This extraordinary arcade machine is the brainchild of artist Harold Sangouard aka Harow. The made-to-order game system has a cabinet carved from Calacatta marble, sculpted with classical artwork inspired by video games. Expect a one-year lead time for production and a cost of $100,000+. Shipping the weighty machine can’t be cheap either.

In this short video from Posy, he shows off a neat visual effect that takes ordinary footage and highlights solely the parts that move. The resulting footage is artful and reveals aspects of each scene that might otherwise be overlooked. Best of all, Posy shows us how easy it is to replicate the effect yourself.

CGP Grey’s Cortex brand created the Sidekick, a wide-format notepad that works hand-in-hand with your computer workspace. It sits between you and your keyboard and has a large, gridded area for sketching and a narrow space for to-do lists on the right. It’s made with 60 pages of premium Munken Lynx paper with a cover made from recycled coffee cups.

A little while back, Mark Rober engineered a tiny NERF gun using a compliant mechanism. The design has spawned numerous other builds, including this neat-looking blaster Matt Esltea made from wood. It’s not made from a single part like Rober’s NERF weapon, but it’s built with a similarly springy launching mechanism. It’s a beautiful build, but will it work?

Whether or not there was a true rivalry, the media loved to play up the competition between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Dog & Rabbit’s brilliantly executed short film plays out this battle through a series of slapstick collages animated using the dueling rock bands’ album art. Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python animations were clearly a source of inspiration.

Paperweights serve one basic function, but these Eye Paperweights by New York artist John Derian do double duty by keeping an eye on you, too. Derian’s 3.5” round glass domes start with reproduced images from his extensive collection of vintage ephemera. Right/left eyes are then hand-cut and decoupaged onto glass.

We’re absolutely wild about things that keep everything in its right place. Jason from Epic Upcycling shows off an amazing build – a custom rack for all of his woodworking tools. It’s an impressive piece of cabinetry, and he made it entirely from scrap wood he harvested from shelving units he used to have in his workshop.

MSCHF’s Gobstomper shoes are designed to be distressed. So, the mischief makers teamed up with Dremel to bundle the shoes with a rotary tool kit. The shoes come in a black-white-blue colorway, ready for you to wear away their four layers for your own personalized look. The limited purchase drawing ends at 2 pm EST 11.29.23.

We love how metal can be used over and over again. After one object has served out its life, it can often be melted down and turned into something new. In this clip by metalsmith Random Hands, he shows us how he took a rusty link from an old piece of ship’s chain and hand-forged it into a beautiful new samurai sword.

Artist M’Brick makes portraits from LEGO bricks. But rather than keeping things simple with 1×1 pixels, he uses a seemingly random assortment of parts to create depth and textures. The originals are hard to come by, but limited-edition prints are for sale at M’Brick’s Art Shop. His Frida Kahlo and Bruce Springsteen portraits are extraordinary.

Keep your Star Wars book collection organized with these AT-AT bookends from MokuShop. Each walker is hand-assembled from layers of laser-cut wood and painted in a shiny metallic silver. As a bonus, they include a Darth Vader figure with a leash for his Imperial pet. Just keep its legs away from Rebel snowspeeders.

Like most metals, steel is an easily recyclable material. In this video from Handyman Restoration, he shows us how he took a pile of steel nail clippers, forged them into a block which he hammered flat to form a fixed blade with a unique damascus pattern. It was interesting to see how he made the wooden handle too.

These unique dice from Aether Objects are made from cassette tapes. Each die has strips of vintage cassette tape preserved forever inside see-through resin. Their embossed numbers are painted with a vibrant yellow inspired by ’80s cassette graphics. Sold in a set of seven dice and packed in a cassette-style storage box.

America loves trucks, and truck people will love these benches with vintage truck tailgates. Texas-based Porras Custom Metal crafts these benches with a steel frame, a quilted bench seat, and cupholders. They make Chevy, Ford, GMC, Dodge, Jeep, and other custom designs. To order, send a DM on Instagram or call their shop at 832-273-2902.

Govee specializes in RGB LED light kits. Their curtain lights can display patterns on a grid of 520 teardrop-shaped light beads. The Govee mobile app includes more than 80 scene presets, music sync, and the ability to upload animated GIFs. They’re also rated IP65 waterproof so that you can use them outside. Chris Maher’s in-depth review shows them in action.

With rents as high as they are, you need to make the most of the space you have. Expand Furniture shows off its Compatto Rotating Office, a versatile piece of furniture that transforms a bedroom into an office. After folding its Murphy bed, it rotates to reveal a wall unit with shelves and a desk. They also make dining table and bookshelf versions.