Awesome Art & Design

For many pedestrians, the don’t walk sign is merely a suggestion. Carmaker Smart found a way to make people stop. It set up motion capture booths where people danced, and turned them into eye-catching signs. Making of here.

Desks with treadmills are nothing new, but if you also want to become a metaphor for some poor bloke’s career or perhaps the human condition in general, then replicate Robb Godshaw and Will Doenlen’s hamster wheel standing desk.

(NSFW: Language, Crude humor) One person has figured out a way to get us to look at fine art – by imagining what their subjects’ text messages would be like. Apparently most of them are drunk, horny or both.

After almost a year of tweaking, Dirk Loechel has released the final major version of his enormous spaceship size comparison chart. It’s by no means definitive, but at least Dirk included the International Space Station for scale.

Fernando Livschitz, who brought us the trippy Inception Park 1 & 2, digitally composited footage of traffic passing through a busy intersection, replicating cars, vans, bikes and pedestrians to make it appear impossibly crowded.

Dutch photographer Rene Mesman and creative house Souverein Weesp created these hilarious, yet somehow natural looking images of birds sporting various coiffures. Genetic engineers, get to work! (Thanks Metin!)

Roxy Paine’s collection of highly-detailed wooden sculptures based on machinery – the literal and the intangible ones. They rebel against control and uniformity, concepts that have become associated with machines. More here.

Kinetic sculptor David Bynoe created this cable-driven machine which can create crop-circle like drawings using sand as its medium. The machine was built for the Telus Spark Science Centre in Alberta, Canada.

Rishi Kaneria pays tribute to the use of color in Pixar’s animated films by identifying scenes which predominantly align with the colors of the spectrum, then playing them in order of hue. They seem to like green a bit more than other colors.

WIRED recently went inside the Crayola factory for a brief tour of the colorful and messy process which turns raw wax into about 12 million crayons every day. Sesame Street covered the same ground 30+ years ago, with fewer robots.

82-year-old Montana artist Gary Tallman gathers firewood each spring and stacks it into intricate mosaics based on size, shape and color. He seems to especially love owls. Head to Bored Panda to check out more work from other wood pile artists.

Remember when skate videos came on tape? 5BORO NYC remembers. It has skateboard decks with prints that emulate the logos of VHS tape brands. Best of all, they’re not sold off as art and slapped with insane price tags.

Start your morning off with a bang with this ceramic mug that gets its form through the wonders of 3D printing. Designed by Augusto, it’s available in one of several gloss colors or matte black. I like my coffee like my gunpowder… black.

Calm the Ham’s third print in her Filmography series features 115 guns from film and television, from Dirty Harry to Star Wars. The illustration is also available on a t-shirt, as well as in an expanded book version.

While it looks like ordinary spraypaint, D.E.P. works just like dry-erase markers, letting you create temporary graffiti on whiteboards or windows. It erases easily with a paper towel. Too bad it’s only available in black at this point.

Middle of Beyond pokes fun at traditional tiger rugs with its tongue-in-cheek, animal-friendly, rug hand-tufted from acrylic fibers. Measures 72″ x 44″ with a 7mm pile. If cats aren’t your thing, then maybe Sasquatches are.

Artist Rianna of DuctTapeDesigns creates awesome supehero and pop culture images using colored duct tape as her primary medium. Dexter and Iron Man are our faves. Wonder if she’ll ever use scented duct tape.

Designer Andre Levy takes everyday coins and hand-paints them with images of pop culture icons from cartoon and movie characters to historical figures. Too bad the Magneto coin isn’t actually magnetic.

Michelle Sugar Art worked through the night to create the world’s first cake billboard. Made for Mr. Kipling, the billboard measured 20′ x 10′ and contained 13,360 cakes, many of which were eaten by passersby. More here.

MotoArt has created what could be the greatest conference table ever made. Not only does its circular shape encourage dialog, but the 12-foot-wide table is made from the General Electric engine nacelle of a Boeing 747 jet plane.

If Greg Klassen’s glass and wood furniture evoke rivers and lakes, Ben Young’s glass and concrete sculptures evoke oceans. Ben cuts and crafts each sculpture by hand, layer by layer. He also makes pure glass sculptures.

(NSFW: Language) Maddox presents counterarguments to the outrage about Milo Manara’s now infamous comic book cover for Spider-Woman #1, the Hawkeye Initiative and sexualization in general. More here.

Automotive prints for car nuts, by a car nut. Martin Miskolci’s Petrolified features minimalist illustrations of famous cars. The page for each print comes with a brief history of the illustrated car, making browsing a pleasure.