A tiny desk toy takes a journey from the office to the Pacific coast, thanks to Google Maps. I can’t get over how well done this stop-motion animation was made… and how cleverly. A personal project of director Tom Jenkins, all imagery is seamlessly animated straight from the screen using stills in street view; there are no screen replacements. The office around the screen dances to life too, bringing motion and depth to the scene. It’s gorgeous and moving. [Read more...]
Long before the present day, when every image seems to be Photoshopped, Robert Funk was creating surreal images that bent reality without even leaving it. The previously New York based photographer captured images around the world in the 70′s, juxtaposing real life with toys, miniatures, paintings, cutouts & “plastic thingies.” He pioneered the photography of toys, an unusual subject for the time, and was featured in many magazines of the day including Popular Photography. Often his images used large flat cut-outs of magazines or even his own art, interacting with the environment around them while their shiny surfaces reflected the surrounding light. His work took him around the world, sometimes seeing him haul large cut-outs in his luggage or creating new ones on location. [Read more...]
What started out as a fun and simple idea to give a 4 year old child a toy based on his own drawing, has now become a very interesting business. That company, Child’s Own Studio, is now creating one-off plush toys based on your child’s own drawing, cleverly re-imagining their often unique sense of style. So far over 200 original toys have been created.
How much do these great toys cost? Prices are quote based, but the $100 Canadian gift certificate should give a rough figure. For such a memorable keepsake, it seems more than worth it. [Read more...]
Nearly everyone growing up in the 1980′s had a few Star Wars action figures… and if you didn’t you wished you did. Now an artist going by the name Sillof has re-imagined a huge array of figurines based on the original trilogy, but not quite so long ago. The images featured here are from his series World Wars 1942, but be sure to swing by sillof.com and sillof.deviantart.com for his excellent wild west and medieval (!) versions. [Read more...]
For anyone raised in the early 80′s, these highly realistic paintings will bring back fond memories and probably your sweet tooth. From Fisher Price people to Gummy Bears, acclaimed artist Margaret Morrison reveals a touch of blissful youth with every stroke of her brush. For more on her tasty work, see artknowledgenews.com. [Read more...]
Now here’s an imaginative new way to show data: try using Lego’s! Samuel Granados used the colorful plastic blocks to make two 3D maps of the America’s. Each map displays information about the various countries moving populations, with one map showing the number of immigrants in the area and the other showing emigrants. Keeping it clear and simple the change is represented by the volume of blocks. See more of Granados’ work, including a bunch of nicely done infographics in Spanish, at samuelgranados.es.
After the jump: your unique daily links [Read more...]
Here’s a great way to reuse that stack of old e-waste you have floating around the house: the people over at VIST, a Ukrainian IT and computer service, are making toys out of only old hard drive parts. Creatively using the existing shapes and structures of the drives, they’ve made both a futuristic race car and a kiwi like robot bird.
To show you how they get the job done we’ve also included some pictures of their crew… hard at work dissasembling old computer parts for future projects.
