Awesome Art & Design

Zac Freeman collects junk, found objects and trash which he combines to create portraits. Up close, the pieces look like crap cobbled together; when viewed from afar, the work is quite compelling.

The animators at Kompost created this video for Airpushers (the funk duo behind Black Eyed Peas). It’s the simplest of concepts, executed with the utmost of artistry. The song is pretty catchy too.

A short film created for Paul Rand‘s posthumous induction into the One Club Hall of Fame. Rand is responsible for many iconic logos, including the IBM, Westinghouse, ABC, and the classic UPS logo.

A few examples of incredible paintings, engravings, carvings, and even sculptures made of leaves. The carvings in particular are jaw-dropping. More here, here and here.

Yeah it’s a sappy video about love, but hey, we’re men, not rocks. We do deal with this stuff. Watch it with your dearest and think back to the early days, when all that mattered was the two of you.

If Nickelodeon and Pixar remade Johnny English, they’d probably come up with something like the beautifully wacky Salesman Pete created by Marc Bouyer, Anthony Vivien and Max Loubaresse.

When we first saw the works of Alexa Meade, we thought they were paintings on canvas. On closer inspection, we realized they were models covered with paint. Minds officially blown. More pics here.

When we first hit ‘Play’ on this video, we thought it was one of those awful commercials for Mucinex. But 40 seconds in, we realized we were in for a real treat, and some awesome animation.

David Alvarez used over 14,000 individual dice, carefully arranged to form a halftone-like effect to produce these massive 8-foot by 5-foot portraits of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. Snake Eyes!

Freaking Aweso.me is a new art line created by The Awesomer founder Sion Lee. Their first piece is this awesome zombie poster, loaded up with 978 references to undead movies, books, and games.

A short film by Ken Turner worth watching over and over. TiM is without question a work of metafiction, a Tim Burton-style stop motion about a boy whose ambition is to become like Tim Burton.

London-based Laurie Lipton has developed her own peculiar drawing technique building up tone with thousands of fine cross-hatching lines like an egg tempera painting. Insane, haunting, and inspired.

79-year old Philip Warren started making matchstick versions of the Royal Navy’s ships when he was just 17, way back in 1948. So far he’s made 432 ships. More pics here and here.

We often assume Pixar can do no wrong, but every once in a while they get all human on us and fail. newt was in the works for a while, and never made it to the screen. More concept art here.

Andy Helms makes good use of the spaceships in Star Wars in his series of posters. Although judging by these posters alone, you’d think that the movies were all about strength in numbers.

Chewbacca plays Winnie in James Hance’s mash-up of Winnie the Pooh and Star Wars. Han Solo is Christopher Robin and R2D2 is Piglet. Guess who (or what) plays Eeyore. More art here.

The animators at Yum Yum London created this short film which starts out with a simple enough premise, but comes with a highly unexpected ending. Good for a laugh when you need one.

Whether you’re into Supreme Beings or Darwin, this light-hearted 8-bit style animation by Marieke Ottrand is meant to entertain. We don’t remember this game on our Atari 2600s.

Postertext creates book posters that you can admire and actually read. Each poster has an image silhouetted against the actual text of a book or story. Check back weekly for new posters.

TASCHEN’s beautiful 320-page hardcover book chronicles some of the most original and creative graffiti and urban art around the world. Get a sneak preview of the book here.

British designer Elliott Mariess utilizes plastic forks, spoons and other similar recycled materials to create his amazingly frightening skeletal art, collectively dubbed as Waste. (Thanks Mudit!)

Au Yeung Ping Chi’s papercraft items are burned at grave sites to be “delivered” to the dead. For those who died young, Au Yeung makes effigies of gadgets and designer shwag.

Just because there’s a giant washing machine robot hovering over crowds of screaming masses running from flaming buildings doesn’t mean that it necessarily means them harm… or does it?