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Design

Unused Microchips, Motherboards, and Other Electronic Waste Make This Upcycled Watch Tick

All images © Vollebak

Recent reports estimate that the world produced 53.6 million metric tons of electronic waste last year alone, a record high that’s expected only to rise. In an effort to prevent digging up precious materials like gold, silver, and aluminum just to return them to the ground later on as trash, the sustainable fashion brand Vollebak has introduced Garbage Watch.

As its name suggests, the upcycled timepiece is constructed with old motherboards, microchips, and computer parts, utilizing bright electrical cords as the strap with an open face and exposed mechanisms. “We’ve taken an ‘inside-out’ design approach with the Garbage Watch, making the functional inner workings highly visible,” said Vollebak co-founder Nick Tidball in a statement to Inhabitat. “Our aim was to reframe an often invisible and hazardous end of the supply chain, and make people think deeply about the impact of treating their wearables in a disposable manner.”

An undertaking in partnership with the Wallpaper* Re-Made project, the timepiece officially launches in 2021, although a waitlist is currently open. Until then, find more of Vollebak’s sustainable designs on Instagram.

Design

Hundreds of Symbols From Prehistory to Modern Day Comprise a Gold 'S' Screenprint by Seb Lester

“S” (2020), metallic rose gold screenprint on black Plike art paper, 330 gsm, 24.4 x 24.4 inches. All images © Seb Lester, shared with permission

Centered on the letter “S,” an anachronistic print from Seb Lester (previously) blends hundreds of symbols into one embellished form. Rendered in metallic on black paper, the typographic piece captures an incredibly long timeline, from prehistory to the Dark Ages to the Renaissance to present day. Look closely and you’ll spot snippets of cave paintings, Egyptian hieroglyphics, emojis, and modern logos.

Based in Lewes, England, the artist and calligrapher channeled the heavily detailed marginalia and flourishes of illuminated manuscripts. “I have spent two decades studying the most beautiful examples of intricate letterform and ornamental design I can find. This letter ‘S’ is arguably the most intricate letterform that has ever been drawn,” he shares with Colossal.

Lester released a limited run of 150 gold screenprints, which currently are available in his shop. Check out the video below to see all of the piece’s gleaming intricacies, and follow the artist on Instagram to keep up with his latest releases.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Seb Lester (@seblester) on Aug 3, 2020 at 5:20am PDT

Design Food

Tote Around Exactly One Watermelon in This Elegant Leather Bag

All images © Tsuchiya Kaban

Say goodbye to the days of fumbling an unwieldy melon while trying to carry in groceries. Japanese designer Tsuchiya Kaban’s latest leather bag provides an elegant, luxury vessel tote around your fruit. Holding exactly one, round watermelon, the carrier was crafted by Yusuke Kadoi as part of a project titled The Fun of Carrying, which encouraged designers to create playful, inventive items as side projects. Watch the video below to see Kadoi’s process and how simply he secures a watermelon inside. (via Spoon & Tamago)

Design Music

A Drawing Machine Linked to A Synthesizer Audiates Geometric Illustrations by Musician Lamond Campbell

Beyond the scratch of the pen on paper, drawing as a practice isn’t thought to be particularly rhythmic or melodic. An inventive machine by musician Lamond Campbell, though, adds a musical component to its looped sketches. The Harmonograph Synthesiser is exactly as its name suggests: Campbell connected a modern, modular synthesizer to an 18th-Century harmonograph, an antiquated apparatus that uses pendulums to render geometric shapes. Two of the swinging mechanisms move linearly with the pen, while the third rotates with the board. Each triggers the synthesizer when movement occurs, which creates the corresponding audio track. An additional microphone picks up the noise of the pen.

Watch the video above to see the intricacies of the modified contraption. Campell is selling a complete, 18-track collection on his site, and you can find more about his multi-media creations on Instagram and YouTube. To see a reverse audio-visual process, check out “Visual Sounds of the Amazon II.” (thnx, Craig!)

Animation Design History

Architectural Gifs Restore Damaged Cultural Sites Around the World

Hatra, Al-Jazīrah, Iraq

Evoking a bit of time-travel, NeoMam (previously) recently animated a series of gifs that restore impressive, human-made structures around the globe to pristine condition. Although the six landmarks are now in some form of decay and have made UNESCO’s list of endangered world heritage, the short clips digitally reconstruct the sites to show what they’d look like had they not faced the ravages of time.

Included in this round of restoration are a remnant of Hatra, a large fortified city that was capital of the first Arab Kingdom, and the hundreds of islets that make up Nan Modol in Micronesia. UNESCO designated these landmarks in danger because of natural and human-generated threats like earthquakes, military conflict, and urbanization. Dig into the history behind the six restorations, which were completed in partnership with BudgetDirect and architect Jelena Popovic, in addition to other at-risk locations on UNESCO’s site.

Nan Madol, Temwen Island, Federated States of Micronesia

Leptis Magna, District of Khoms, Libya

Jerusalem, Israel

Palmyra, Tadmur, Homs Governorate, Syria

Fort San Lorenzo, Province of Colon, District of Cristobal, Panama

Art Design Illustration

Paper Wildlife Sculptures by Artist Diana Beltrán Herrera Document Nature's Most Striking Details

All images © Diana Beltrán Herrera, shared with permission

In 2012, Bristol-based artist Diana Beltrán Herrera (previously) began sculpting impeccably layered paper birds and other wildlife as a way to record her surroundings. Her lifelike pieces continuously have captured nature’s finely detailed and minuscule elements, like the fibrous texture of feathers and the veins running through leaves.

Today, the artist has expanded the practice to include exotic species and environments she’s never seen up close, developing her paper techniques to express the more nuanced details of the shapes and textures she studies in biology books. Now focusing on the structural elements of fungi, fruit, and florals, Beltrán Herrera shares with Colossal:

Paper as a medium for documentation allows me to register and create notions and ideas of subjects that I have not experienced in real life but that I can experience when a sculpture is completed. I like this approach because it is not harmful, and through my work, I can show and tell my viewers about the things I have been learning, of the importance of nature just by researching and making it myself.

Much of her work centers on conservation efforts and environmental justice. For example, a recent commission by Greenpeace UK bolstered the organization’s Plastic Free Rivers campaign. ” I am constantly looking for more subjects that are relevant to the times we are living in, so that through my work I can communicate important information that can educate or just make things more visible. The approach is very (graphic) and visual, which helps to deliver a message,” she says.

Beltrán Herrera’s upcoming projects include a commission for a coral sculpture, in addition to plans to launch a studio with her brother by the end of 2020. Her hope is to merge graphic and digital design with her paper pieces, potentially adding in animation, as well. Ultimately, her goal is to dive into larger projects. “I don’t see my work as something I want to know how to make and stay safe, but as a challenge, that will always allow me to wonder how to execute and create things that were never made with paper,” she says.

To see more of Beltrán Herrera’s creative process and follow her future pieces, head to Behance and Instagram.