Art

The lovely Feòrag has pointed me in the direction of Eccentric Genius, a talented Canadian who crafts unusual contrivances for home and office. Wonderful things like mini trebuchets and guillotines and the delicious Victoriana of the Hypnodisk:

In the 1800’s, the European scientific community caught up with the rest of the world and noticed hypnosis. Entrepreneurial medical supply houses were quick to offer an optimistically comprehensive array of Scientifically Designed Aids to the Induction of Mesmerism, of which the Hypnotic Spiral is perhaps the most enduring.

Popular with evil criminal masterminds, the whirling hypnodisk was an always effective means of dealing with uncooperative adventurers, or perky junior reporters. Now you can have the same amazing powers in the privacy of your own home or office! The rotating spiral irresistably entrances the viewer, quickly reducing them to mindlessly obedient slaves under YOUR hypnotic control.

Make the mailroom guy quack like a duck! Turn your boss into a lap dancer! Brainwash wealthy relatives!

TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

Or not.

You know you want one, so while you’re there, look deep into the Hypnodisk and get me one too

Kong has added a very cool piece of artwork to his gallery.
Go, check out The KLam Xperiment

Moscow artist Aristarkh Chernyshev‘s TeleBlaster is pure retro 60’s futuristic design.
Aside from looking like a pretty lump of exploded red plastic, it also allows the user to tweak the signal processing. Users can load different effects algorithms from a flash-card or from the manufacturer web site.

TeleBlaster allows mixing users’ videofeed with a TV broadcast, and therefore gives unlimited possibilities for creativity: television becomes, literally, a Lego set from which users/watcher creates his/her own worlds.

Besides that, with TeleBlaster you can generate video effects synchronous to sound. This option turns it into a specialized multimedia entertainment centre.

You can pick one up from Electroboutique for US$1,499. I shudder to think what the packaging is like

Now that Firefox has become more popular, we’re starting to see some fully themed skins, with non-native buttons, scrollbars etc. Since it’s hard to pick them from the crowd at Moz upate, here are my favourites (the links point to the Win32 versions, but you’re smart enough to find them for your OS du jour, ja?).

Read more

Using design as a medium for exploring everyday rituals from drinking tea to watching television, the British designer Onkar Singh Kular has developed a series of conceptual products since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2002.
He created a set of mugs in each of 128 Pantone shades of brown so that each family member or co-worker can choose the mug corresponding to their favourite colour of tea. Whenever a relative or colleague makes tea for them, they will be able to tell from the colour of the mug exactly how strong it should be and how much milk to add — via BoingBoing

I’m always a sucker for shiny things and Bent Fabrication‘s shiny metal art objects make me very happy.
If you must inflict drooling, shitting, hideous little yard apes on the world, at least you can distract people from the horrible creatures with a shiny, metal, cartoon plane-like pram — via BoingBoing

Just a quick link, I’m working half days as I am doing some life drawing classes in the mornings this week. I waltz into work at 2pm and there’s a tonne of work sitting in my email. Sigh!
I like Adam Polselli’s 2005 Color Forecast. I love the purple palette, we can only hope that designers choose purple this year.

Anybody who’s ever worn glasses and knows what a bridge piercing is, has probably contemplated combining the two at some point in time. The difference with James and Oliver is that they got their fingers out and did it. For a prototype, the end result is quite a nifty and practical item — via Warren Ellis

A Polish conceptual artist has come up with some clever but rather unsettling Lego concentration camp boxed sets. Our concerned American readers should note that these are handmade art objects and not official retail items (although plenty of people have expressed interest in buying a set, according to the site).

Blogging time has been non existent to scant of late, but here are some interesting links:
Web Design in 2005 is worth a look indeed. I’m not however looking forward to a wash of brown.
Donald Trump, Art Director: Not The Real Thing is a good read.
The 6 Myths Of Creativity. No one ever suspects the accountant!
And happy belated birthday to the Xplane Xblog.

Out of its natural habitat, the giant squid Architeuthis dux is something of a flop. They’re so heavy, they collapse under their own weight. You lose the lovely cylindrical mantle and arms, says Steve O’Shea, squid expert at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. So the Kiwis plan to have the squid plastinated by German anatomist Günther von Hagens.

To research the project, von Hagens visited O’Shea in October to study some much smaller species such as arrow squid. We dissected a number of ‘sacrificial’ squid, says O’Shea.

The plastination process could take up to a year, and the squid will need a rigid framework for support, but O’Shea is confident that von Hagens will be able to display the animals.

An old Noodle Soup Flash animated pitch of Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan to Sony has surfaced of late.
Seems a shame that the deal fell apart, it’s lovely.

The lesson clients need to learn
I so need this as an A1 poster for me at work. It should also come with a pointing implement so I can tap the sign whenever I’m asked to to deliver all 3.
These could so be used in fortune cookies for designers.

Designer Sara Cihat creates really cool looking rehabilitated dishware out of finds from second-hand stores which are then cleaned up, re-screened, and glazed to new heights of hipster glory — via design*sponge