Designed to Make Us Smile

Paris-based company Atypyk graces us with these ingenious takes on familiar everyday products . . . because there's almost always a humorous side to everything.

Pencils with various moustache options (Clark Gable, Burt Reynolds, Salvador Dali, etc.) for those moments you rest yours on your upper lip

Kite

Pizza Plate

Drink Coaster

Secret Agent Umbrella

Bookmark

WoooHoooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Poster by Shepard Fairey

Helios House

I was driving through LA recently and happened upon this shocker of a gas station (on the corner of Olympic and Robertson). It's a British Petroleum venture to enhance the gasoline consumer experience and to showcase some overall functional and structural sustainability. The design strategically selected materials, lighting and plumbing methods to limit environmental impact. Helios House exceeds current environmental standards for on-site water collection and uses 16 percent less electricity than traditional stations, says BP.

Coined a “living laboratory,” this spot also serves as an educational center, in which specially trained employees actually distribute to the unsuspecting driver guides to greener living. Not a bad way to spread the word!

Os Gemeos

From the womb to age 34, the members of Os Gemeos have shared a conscience—both figuratively and literally—winning the world over with their graffiti in a tight collaboration granted to them by their matching DNA. Brazilians Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo are identical twin brothers who have created art together ever since they can remember, a living monument to the meaning of brotherhood. Always in visual harmony with their environment, their characters feel as if they really belong in the spaces where the twins paint them. The work is heartfelt, relevant and beautiful—
so deeply regarded that the pair have been beckoned internationally to paint walls, trains, even a castle.

Barcelona, Spain

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (I think)

Kelburn Castle is a large house near Fairlie, North Ayrshire, Scotland

"When we dream, everything we dream has yellow tones. This is something of ours, myself and my brother. We use it in our painting. We can't use another color. We have to use yellow."

Pocoyo

I know I know, I don't have a kid nor am I one, but I love this Spanish/British pre-school cartoon that I just discovered. Pocoyo art, created with Softimage, is delightfully simple and if you can get over the whole call/response bit, the jokes are pretty funny on an adult level, too.