Awesome Art & Design

Fueled by his lifelong fascination for stone architecture, historian Matthew Simmonds trained to become a stone carver. Some of his sculptures are miniatures of classical structures carved out of single chunks of marble.

While there are digital filters to make images look like paintings, Pixeli.st does it so much better, where real live human artists will handmake an oil painting of your digital image. Simply upload your image and they’ll do the rest.

(SPOILERS) Graphic designer Michael Tyznik’s transit maps for A Song of Ice and Fire‘s Westeros, as well as the whole Known World. The destinations, connections and status of certain lines allude to events in the series.

Lighten up your coffee with this clever glass creamer which looks like one of those restaurant coffee pots. And before you complain that the orange top means “decaf”, just remember that half-and-half has no caffeine either.

Winner of Oregon Manifest’s 2014 Bike Design Project, the Denny bicycle has a handlebar that doubles as a bike lock, a front carrying shelf, and a removable battery for its assistive motor, brake light, front light and turn signals.

Another impressive performance from Enra, combining projected animations with live action – in this case precisely matching the timing of Yusaku Mochizuki’s diabolo juggling with the digital images on screen.

For those beloved TA readers who are animal owners and have sarcastic senses of humor, may we present Bad Tags – pet tags that are quite the opposite of cute. Available in a variety of politically incorrect and amusing sayings.

Sandy’s CanCars takes the art of aluminum can sculpture to a whole new level. His intricate cars are handmade from dozens of cans, along with balsa and custom metal parts. The models sell for thousands, Sandy sells DIY plans for just $10.

Oscar-nominated stop-motion filmmaker PES is raising funds for his next short film. Submarine Sandwich will feature old sports equipment as delicatessen. Pledge rewards include HD copies of his cooking short films, t-shirts and toys.

The Barisieur is Joshua Renouf’s concept for a coffee lover’s alarm clock. When the alarm goes off, an electric heater and stainless steel balls boil the water, which will then drip onto coffee grounds. Why does this not exist already?

Huzi’s red oak plywood coffee table doubles as a compact ping pong table. Its surface is coated with a chalkboard surface is great for doodling or keeping score. Measures 29.9″ x 14.2″ x 16.14″ and includes two paddles, a ball and an eraser.

To atone for exposing you to Call of Duty‘s verbal atrocities, we present James Earl Jones – the voice of Darth Vader and Mufasa – reading Walt Whitman’s A Song of Myself. Read along here.  Recorded in 1973 at 92nd Street Y.

Designer Eric Brunt’s concept snowshoe automatically expands and contracts its surface, providing for a more natural walk than traditional flat snowshoes, and adapting to variable snow conditions and terrain.

Graphic designer and animator Guy Trefler’s graduation project. His thesis was that nothing is original, so he made this video using images he found on Google Images. If Andy Warhol and Terry Gilliam had a child, it would be Trefler.

Like Laurin Döpfner, Simon Gerbaud became obsessed with destroying objects neatly, exposing their insides and cross-sections bit by bit until all that’s left is dust, only to play the footage back to make the objects whole.

If ThinkGeek’s officially licensed Death Star rug seemed puny to you, check out Totem’s 6′ x 6′ version. Limited to 5 units, the rug was handmade in Nepal out of wool and bamboo. It’s going to vaporize your money though.

For SDCC, Mondo and DC released 7″ vinyls containing the opening and ending credit themes of Batman: The Animated Series. The record and its sleeve comes in five different villain themes, including a badass Man-Bat design.

To help preserve the diversity of stone fruit, artist Sam Van Aken has produced these very special trees capable of growing peaches, nectarines, cherries, apricots and even almonds, by grafting numerous trees together. More here.

Designed and produced in Belgium, B-And-Bee are honeycomb-style sleeping cells for festivals and other large outdoor gatherings. The cells are waterproof and have enough room for two people to sleep in.

Located in Berlin, Germany, this innovative apartment building does away with traditional garage spaces – offering drive-in elevators which bring your vehicle directly outside your living space for ease of access. (Thanks Joe!)

To promote its upcoming line of Star Wars-themed cars, Hot Wheels made a life-size version of the Darth Vader car. It has a 526hp LS3 engine and makes Vader’s heavy breathing sound. Check it out at the San Diego Comic-Con.

Urban artist Shaun Hughes makes hobo nickels – bas reliefs carved on nickels and other coins. His sculptures often feature skulls, but he also uses pop culture references from time to time. You can find some of his pieces on eBay.

Established by Mehdi Ghadyanloo and backed by the government of Tehran, Blue Sky Painters turns drab buliding facades in Iran’s capital into murals with eye-catching illusions or drawings that interact with their surroundings.