This eccentric looking armchair interprets furniture as a postmodern art-piece!

The Varier Ekstrem was built to evoke a reaction. Now it doesn’t matter what reaction it is as long as it’s extreme (as the chair’s name suggests), but I’m guessing designer Terje Ekstrøm is going for a combination of shock-value and absolute delight, because as eccentric as the Ekstrem armchair looks, it surely looks hypnotic too!

The Ekstrem comes with an incredibly bold-looking silhouette, thanks to its pipe-shaped design. The chair distills the seating experience to its most basic form, and then exaggerates it with thick cushioned columns that curve and intersect to create a seat that’s still comfortable to sit on. The armchair comes with a backrest and a seat, each created by four pipe-columns merging together. The pipes then branch out, becoming either the armrests, or the legs of the chair, creating something that’s absurd to look at, but something you’ll undeniably want to sit on!

Each chair comes with an internal stainless steel frame, covered with PU foam, giving the chair its soft appeal. The foam members are individually upholstered with a bespoke woven woolen fabric, giving it breathability along with elasticity that allows the fabric weave to naturally stretch when you sit on it. The chair comes in six Pantone color variants, ranging from the classic black and light Gray Violet, to more vibrant options like Shaded Spruce, Port (maroon), Sulphur (yellow), and Bridge Orange.

Designer: Terje Ekstrøm for Varier

Varier Ekstrem Extrem Slangenstoel

This geometric cat-shelter looks like a minimalist cat-head!

Talk about purrfect design execution! The Catzz kitty-bed is inspired directly by its feline occupant. Designed to be flat-packed, the Catzz is an icosahedral shelter for cats that comes with multiple triangular panels that come together to form the enclosed shelter. The clever bit, however, is the fact that the Catzz bed actually looks like a minimalist cat head, complete with two pointy ears!

Made from individual felt panels, the flat-packed bed can easily be assembled in minutes. When put together, it forms the perfect haven for your kitten, being a combination of robust and sturdy yet fuzzy and comfortable. The Catzz bed even comes with a dangling toy that you can suspend from the bed’s ear (for the cat to periodically play with), and when the bed does get dirty, it can easily be disassembled and machine-washed. Paw-sitively delightful, isn’t it?!

The Catzz Cat Bed is a winner of the A’ Design Award for the year 2020.

Designer: Mirko Vujicic

Knock on Wood Shoes: Footwear from the Future

There are plenty of wooden galoshes and slippers around, which means that wood can be used to make useful shoes. The thing about woodens is that they always tend to look quite old-fashioned. On the other hand, these wooden shoes don’t look like any I’ve ever seen. You could probably wear these on the grid in TRON and not skip a beat.

knock on wood shoes

The Knock on Wood shoes were designed by Agustina Bottoni, and made out of 2mm sheets of tanganika wood. Each of the pieces used in this design are meticulously handcrafted. The overall structure is supposed to follow the natural distribution of weight in feet, and manages to support a person’s weight using a limited amount of material. There are more pieces where the heel and the metatarsus are supported.

knock on wood shoes on feet

Each module was cut with precision, so that the direction of the lines in the wood converge in a visually appealing pattern. I’m not sure how comfortable they are, but they definitely look interesting.

knock on wood shoes side

[via MOCOVOTE]

Psychedelic Plumber: Mario on ‘Shrooms

I always wondered if any of the fungi in the Mushroom Kingdom were hallucinogenic – especially the ones that turned Mario into a flying raccoon or made him bigger. Well now we have our answer.

psychedelic plumber

In Josh Mirman’s illustration, Psychedelic Plumber, we get a look at Mario the way that he might have looked if we were eating some of the same ‘shrooms that he did. Actually, I always imagined that this is what the world looks like when you eat one of those Mario stars.

The image is comprised of colorful triangles which will definitely drive your eyes wild if you look at them for too long. That said, it would be cool if Nintendo made a Mario game using triangular shapes instead of square pixels.

[Facebook via GameFreaks]

Geometric Superheroes: Rectangles, Assemble!

Remember those cool polygon superhero images by James Reid? Well Rene Schiffer takes our heroes a bit further into pixel-land by using only rectangles in his version. None of his designs uses any other shapes but rectangles and none have more than 20 colors.

Rectangle rene schiffer superheroes hulk

Rene included Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Wolverine, Thor, Cyclops, Professor X, Spider-Man, among others in his rectangular superhero collection. It’s amazing how well these convey the spirit and individuality of each superhero using such primitive shapes.

Rectangle rene schiffer superheroes

Now, where can I get some of these printed on T-shirts? They’d probably look good on my wall as well.

[via Swagsofresh]