Tag Archives: artistic

This modular furniture building system takes an artistic approach to construct functional and playful pieces

Posted on by

Deku is a modular furniture building system composed of wooden planks that fasten together at the planks’ 45-degree, pyramid-shaped edges.

While modular furniture is functional by design, it also evokes the designer’s most creative tendencies. In time with our world’s rapid WFH movement and mobile lifestyles, the emergence of modular furniture has redefined what our living spaces could look and feel like.

Designer: Takuto Ohta

Combining their artistic skills with the practical edge of an industrial designer, Takuto Ohta designed Deku, a modular furniture system comprised of wooden planks that can be stacked and configured together to form numerous different furniture pieces, from tabletops to benches.

Named after the Japanese word for wooden puppet or doll, Deku is inspired by the stone piles that wash ashore on riverbanks. In creating Deku, Ohta sharpened the ends of each wooden plank to form 45-degree angles, allowing each wooden plank to slink into one another with ease.

This triangular building system is essentially what allows for so many different configurations to be made from Deku. Using colorful masking tape to fasten each module together, Ohta was able to add some playfulness to the project’s overall display and assembly process.

Using human instinct as their natural guide for building each piece of furniture, Ohta notes, “I don’t think about what I’m making, I feel the laws of physics in the freedom and inconvenience of combination, and I see the forest with the smell and texture of trees. When I moved my hand, the furniture was made naturally.” In the development of Deku, Ohta seems to find the human’s most primal desire: to play and fill the gaps.

The post This modular furniture building system takes an artistic approach to construct functional and playful pieces first appeared on Yanko Design.

Mind-bending minute-machine!

Posted on by

Relying on the methodical movement of the seconds hand, the Humism converts that functional cyclical motion into something more aesthetic, more alluring, more amazing.

Inspired by the kinetic art movement of the 50s, the Humism watch rejects the idea that time should be about numbers and measuring units, but rather of movement, because time as an entity keeps moving.

With a 316L surgical-grade steel body, a sapphire crystal on the front and back, and a Japanese Automatic Seiko NH35A movement on the inside, the watch has some undeniably impressive specs, but none as impressive as the revolving detail on the front. The hour and minute hands present themselves as a blocked and an outlined circle around the edge, but what’s truly hypnotic is the seconds dial, a “vanishingly thin” laser cut dial with a design detail that makes one revolution every 60 seconds. Behind it is a static dial with a mirror image of the second dial’s artwork. When the dynamic dial spins against the static disc, it creates some remarkable psychedelic patterns that you’ll probably spend more time looking at than the actual time. But then again… that’s the point. To enjoy time’s movement rather than to be bound by it!

Designer: Humism

humism_watch_1

humism_watch_2

humism_watch_3

humism_watch_4

humism_watch_5

humism_watch_6

humism_watch_7

humism_watch_8

‘The Art of Dollar’ Collage Art Definitely Costs More than a Dollar

Posted on by

The art of Brooklyn-based artist Mark Wagner is all about the dollar, although the whole thing is clearly worth so much more than the dollars he used to create it. Mark is known as the “Michael Jordan of glue” or “the greatest living collage artist” and he wows once again with his dollar art series.

Art of Dollar4

He basically takes a dollar and another and another to create awesome collages, from portraits of Abraham Lincoln and President Obama to a dinosaur trying to claw away at an bored-looking George Washington.

The one dollar bill is the most ubiquitous piece of paper in America. Collage asks the question: what might be done to make it something else? It is a ripe material: intaglio printed on sturdy linen stock, covered in decorative filigree, and steeped in symbolism and concept. Blade and glue transform it-reproducing the effects of tapestries, paints, engravings, mosaics, and computers—striving for something bizarre, beautiful, or unbelievable… the foreign in the familiar.
Art of Dollar 300x250 Art of Dollar1 300x250 Art of Dollar2 300x250 Art of Dollar3 300x250 Art of Dollar4 300x250 Art of Dollar5 300x250

It takes a man with true talent to do what Mark does all the time. I can definitely say not a single dollar went to waste in his latest masterpieces.

[via Colossal]

Thermochromic Table: Just Add Heat

Posted on by

Interactive furniture is pretty uncommon. After all, your first consideration in making a piece of furniture is to create something that’s sturdy, durable, and comfortable. Aesthetics usually comes second.

And then there’s the Thermochromic Table. It looks like a simple, minimalist table and bench at the outset, but it’s the finish that sets it apart from the rest.

Thermochromic TableBecause of its thermochromic coating, different parts of the table might temporarily ‘change’ in color once it comes contact to someone or something hot. For example, a person’s hand or steaming cups of coffee, as you can see in the gallery below.

Thermochromic Table1 175x175 Thermochromic Table2 175x175 Thermochromic Table3 175x175 Thermochromic Table4 175x175 Thermochromic Table 175x175

These tables are made by Jay Watson Design and costs £1,850 (~$3,000 USD). Or you could just buy some thermochromic paint pigment and cover your own furniture with it.

[via Geekologie]

Saving Shavings for the Sake of Art

Posted on by

Different pencil sharpeners result in differently-shaped and textured pencil shavings. For example, the ones that come with a handle churn out thin, coil-like shavings (which I packed into tiny bags and used as instant noodle props for my Barbie dolls when I was a kid.)

Then there’s the handier, compact sharpener that produces the kind of shavings that Marta Altes uses in her art.

Pencil Shaving Art6

The caricatures are playful, fun, and obviously creative. I wonder why nobody thought of doing this before, but then again, pencil shavings don’t really seem very appealing as an art medium at first thought.

Aside from the rad guy with the shaving mohawk, check out the rest of series featuring a lion, a ballerina, and a cool surfer dude all penciled in with shavings completing the scene.

Pencil Shaving Art1 175x175 Pencil Shaving Art2 175x175 Pencil Shaving Art3 175x175 Pencil Shaving Art4 175x175 Pencil Shaving Art5 175x175 Pencil Shaving Art7 175x175 Pencil Shaving Art8 175x175 Pencil Shaving Art6 175x175

[via Buzz Patrol]


Anatomical Portraits Go Beyond Skin Deep

Posted on by

I’m sure you’ve seen anatomical models of the different human systems when you took biology in high school. There’s the good, old skeletal system and of course, the muscular system.

Maybe Koen Hauser had these lessons in mind when he came up with his recent series, because they’re creative, different, and probably all anatomically correct.

Anatomy Portrait

Dubbed the ‘Modische Atlas der Anatomie’ or the ‘Fashionable Atlas of Anatomy’ when translated, the series features digital manipulations that literally strip the skin off of the models to reveal the organs and muscles underneath.

The images exude contrasting elements, with models posing in a relaxed manner while their bones and tendons are revealed in the same image.

Anatomy Portrait1

Even more impressive is the fact that he came up with this series and published it over a decade ago.

With this series, Koen was able to masterfully and artistically combine both science and art into one neat package.

[via Designboom]