Imagine seeing one of these in the place of a normal tap and basin. You’d question how on earth it worked, right? Well, it’s quite simple really: you take the small river stone off and the light pressure of the water is left to flow. A brilliant and remarkably aesthetically pleasing design that gets rid of the mechanical components of a tap. Just hope you don’t lose that stone.

SPONSOR

The Good Afternoon clock by Mile Project just shouts design. It’s simple, creative and makes great use of modern technology. The look speaks for itself, a white circular frame with tiny holes that lets a bright and powerful focused LED light beam stream out, creating the second, minute and hour hands of a clock.

Under the motto ‘anything safe for humans is safe for your dog. If you would not use if on yourself, don’t use it on your dog’, Sandy Paws seems to be the champion of dog grooming. Using semi-permanent color, blro-pens, spray chalks, Henna, food colorings and special adhesives to stick the extra elements, her site Pink Coyote shows the extraordinary skills with which she embellish the pets.

Her Pet Grooming Shop is located in Yucca Valley, California, and offers a creative set of hairstyles, dyeing, and “hairpieces” for dogs. One of the most awarded styles is the one on her own poodle called Cindy. Her website also shows Cindy dressed up like a shark, like something out Space Odyssey, like a Punk, like a Dragon, like a Chicken, like a Ninja Turtle and also like a peacock with original feathers.

“Black ink warlock” Justin Bartlett has done some of my favorite metal album covers of late, such as the one for Bohemian Grove’s Age of Retrogression and Pentemple’s self-titled record. His outsider-ish style reminds me a bit of the work of Rudimentary Peni frontman, Nick Blinko, but he has much more sophisticated sense of design and layout.

After the double bike, or the triple bike, if the couple decides to form a trio, comes the Conference Bike. Created by Eric Staller this is a bike for conferences, work meetings, chats with friends and parties, all of which can now take place on wheels. The CoBi7 is the model for seven people. There is also another model, the CoBi5, for quintets, which is easier to park in garages. What’s next? Hopefully they’ll have a G-7 meeting on one of them.

SPONSOR

Random collaborations always come as a pleasant surprise. This time New York-based graffiti artist KAWS (aka Brian Donnelly) has joined forces with lavish beauty product manufacturer, Kiehl’s, in a bid to raise money for non-profit art initiative RxArt. KAWS’ design adorns an exclusive line of Kiehl’s skin moisturizers, with all proceeds benefiting RxArt’s mission to install art pieces in US hospitals.

Ravensblight, an old-school-looking website featuring tons of free internet knick-knacks, has a bunch of cool spapercraft models, including the skull above. Hopefully no one tries to put candles in them.

Don’t be fooled by the cunning disguise. This, my friends, is a pig, a swine, in the truest sense of the word. It’s been painted to look like a zebra, partly because of the bad press pigs have gotten lately, and partly for a Halloween parade in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park. Apparently it lives in the area and is walked in the long shadows of the night, as whispered about and mythologized as the Yeti, Bigfoot and Paris Hilton’s brain. [photo via Fort Green PUPS photostream]

So here’s the theory: happy cows produce better milk. And from this concept comes Japanese-based dairy company, Forest Milk. Rather than locking their cows down, Forest Milk’s lot are free to roam the woods 365 days a year. The freer, happier cows then produce tastier, fattier milk. At the same, they maintain the forest by noshing on unwanted grass and weeds. The sweet packaging with its simple green trees, charming typeface, and old-school tissue paper cap make for an overall delightful creamy treat. So mOOOve over factory farming, Forest Milk is here.

SPONSOR

From straightforward and colorful, to complex and ominous, 1800 Tequila’s bottles are sporting a new look — for a limited time, at least. The recently released creative, vibrant illustrations adorning the glass bottles are part of 1800 Tequila’s second annual Essential Artists collection. Inspired by art and the want to support emerging talent, this now yearly contest challenges users to create designs for the company’s tequila-filled bottles.

From 15,000 submissions, eleven proposals from talented artists and graphic designers from New York to Hawaii were selected. Their original artwork is a mix of artistic emotions and themes, but all are innovative and unique. In addition to the eleven artists there is also a ‘celebrity’ design courtesy of Studio Number One — Shepard Fairey’s creative agency — which is bursting with a rising group of star designers. And though the contest is over, if you think you can do better than the twelve showcased talents, give it a go by designing your own masterpiece bottle directly on 1800 Tequila’s website.

Check out these images from the recent Castle on the Ocean papercraft festival in Tokyo. The creator of this impressive paper city is a university student by the name of Wataru Itou.

Designer Chad Hagen makes retro-yet-contemporary info graphics as well as some great, minimalist illustrations using various printing methods and collage elements.

While perusing Kinokuniya Bookstore on my lunch break, I came across the book, Face Food by Christopher D Salyers. Face Food documents very elaborate Bento boxes called Charaben in which food is made to look like anime characters, animals, plants and flowers. Everyone from Piglet to Pikachu is portrayed, with foods such as broccoli, ham, carrot, cheese, egg, imitation crab meat, and more. I’m blown away by the creativity and time (anywhere from thirty minutes to three hours) that mothers — and father, sometimes — dedicate to making these works of art for their children to take to school.

Some of the benefits of making charaben for children include a way to relieve daily stresses, a way to simply please the kids or a way to make children eat more. But Akinoichigo, one of the leading Charaben artists in Japan, sums it up best when she says: ‘It has a magic power to eliminate all of a child’s dislikes’. Face Food is published by Mark Batty Publisher and you can read more about Charaben on the blog. Also check out the follow-up book, Face Food Recipes.

SPONSOR

Brooklyn tattoo artist and illustrator Scott Campbell has been making stunning pieces out of dollar bills — he draws intricate images and patterns on the money, which he then laser cuts and glues on top of each other to create beautiful reliefs.

If you’re having trouble thinking of a costume for Halloween, here are some masks I drew that you can print out. You can wear them as is, or you can alter them to fit your face and maybe incorporate them into a larger costume. Send us pics.

Vodka bottles are getting more creative by the day. I guess the product is all pretty similar, so the various makers have got to do something to stand out from the pack. These ones from Double Cross [above] and Crystal Head [below] were on display at the recent New York Wine and Food Festival and were practically demanding to be tried. Yup, who would’ve thought that glass could be so … errr .. alluring. [photos by Alison Zavos]

Ugandalebre, nee Sergio Hortelao of Portugal, hocks up some colorfully twisted images onto the page. Crazy, vomiting sheep, disemboweled, four-eyed cow creatures, and fire-spewing demons never looked so fun.

SPONSOR

Who said Hello Kitty wasn’t real? Well, as real as plastic can get, anyway. These Hello Kitty Anatomy toys have been designed by Dr. Romanelli and open a window to the inner workings of these iconic Japanese characters.

I like the look of issue two of Australian magazine, Happenstance, which supports local talent across the design and art community. In the latest issue, local artist and printmaker Del Lumanta invites them into her prizewinning bedroom, alongside sketchbook submissions from Luke Kopycinski, Jacob O. Rolfe, and Evan Shipard: ‘We’ve kept it all homegrown, yet expanded our minds a little. Most of our content is Sydney-sourced, but we’re keeping an eye out on a national scale’. Oh, and if you’ve pre-ordered a copy, chances are it’ll show up at your place on the back of a bike. Nice!

Dark Horse Comics in conjunction with computer accessory company GelaSkins is releasing an extensive line of laptop and iPod covers. While the Hellboy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Mr. Toast designs are sure to appeal to countless nerds out there, my favorite are the Kris Kuksi skins.