From Inhabitat-Brooklyn Designs 2008 turned out some decent stuff and we proudly bring you the Starburst LED chandelier for your viewing pleasure by Pratt Institute graduate Kenzen Tsutakawa-Chinn featuring free-hanging LEDs from their circuit-mounted domain. As our SeyrWeyr founder attended Pratt back in 1999, we’re glad a fellow student’s getting some attention and we love the piece!

How cute! coffee art- who doesn’t want a little smile as they drink their favourite cuppa? Makes me remember those smiling PB sandwiches from years ago…

Leave it to the government to stifle designers and the public imagination- oh well, codes and laws do keep us safe but in the case of these awesome, attention-getting stop signs, we say lighten up and endorse the creative spirit!

Henk Hofstra makes me smile- all that blue running down the street in Holland and yummy eggs smiling up from the ground. I can’t decide if he’s a modern Dr. Seuss or what but I’d like to have a seat on that little yolk poking up from the ground and eat my lunch, wouldn’t you?

Everything tastes better in your favourite shade with pantone tea mugs! Pair them up with some Pantone plates for lunch and invite the office over for a food fight. And if you’re in Japan you can invite everyone over for the vittles on the new Pantone phone! Ohh! the colours!!

ZeroFly, LifeStraw, and PermaNet are amazing products designed to save lives. They look a bit mundane and you might write them off as a little plasticky but their purpose is anything but. ZeroFly, exhibited at MoMA’s Safe: Design Takes on Risk show in 2004 is a type of plastic sheeting used to create shelter in natural disasters and has been distributed in the last 3 largest disasters this millennium. LifeStraw is a new drinking filtration system that can provide families or individuals in remote places with no access to electric or comprimised health situations clean water. PermaNet nets and beds are long-lasting treated items that ward off bugs bringing malaria and other ills even after repeated washings.

 You can help get a LifeStraw system to a family through one of the organizations distrubuting via USD or international funds such as the Rotary Club on the manufacturer’s site or through Project H.

Being the proud new owner of an iPod Touch brought home from the Apple store right here in Shadyside, I naturally spent several hours putting my music on it (only 268 songs at present- the rest of my 7 days’ worth of songs is on my other computer) and then did the next obvious thing- looked about to make it pretty. For free of course.

SciPhone is a site I stumbled across that brings quite a lot of variety in free downloadable wallpapers (I like the abstract ones personally) with anything from animals to company logos to just cool artwork. The catch? you have to join the community. Ah come on, that’s not too bad. And you can make your own wallpapers and upload them to the community as well.

Well check out this cool guy by BLU running around Buenos Aires:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

 

Vancouver art student Melanie Coles’ art assignment turned into one giant earth-wide game via Google Earth and a characters we know you all know: Waldo! See if you can find any of the huge Waldos lurking about on Google Earth and check out her blog with video, photos and text on how she pulled it off and instructions on how you and your pals can make your own addition to the game. Anyone got a spare roof in Pittsburgh?

Sculpey getting old for your 3D tastes? Try jelly (Jell-o to stateside friends) such as awesome San Francisco artist Liz Hickok has- her cool luminous sculptures of San Francisco will leave you inspired to get cracking on your own gelatin fortresses! You definitely want to visit her site to catch up on the process of how she crafts her work- contact the artist to purchase on prints after it fades away.