Animator Eric Lerner, from Jerusalem, has developed a series of characters and short films which accompany them. His Mr CityMen are wonderfully animated using CGI and seamlessly integrated into live action environments.

The juxtaposition of these drab and bleak city landscapes with these cute and colorful characters is striking.  Coupled with a avant garde soundtrack, these animations work on a variety of levels and evoke various responses from the viewer.

In a sense, it’s like a therapy session, only animated. The players, Mr DejaVu , Mr Fortune, Mr Afraid, Mr Dreamer and the oddly named Mr Sunken, are very simply constructed and radiate a slick design as they move across the screen. Cute, clever, clean.

Here are:  Mr. Fortune, Mr. Sunken, Mr. Scared of Anything But Heights, Mr. DeJaVu and Mr. Dreamer

Philips Design has deveoped a series of "dynamic garments" as a part of the ongoing design probe research program called skin.

Skin is an experimental project exploring forms of garments that examines the future integration of sensitive materials in the area of emotional sensing.

It looks at more ‘analog’ phenomena like emotional sensing, exploring technologies that are ’sensitive’ rather than ‘intelligent’. Two outfits have been developed as part of SKIN to identify a new way of communicating with those around us by using garments as proxies to convey deep feelings that are difficult to express in words.

Philips Design Website

Jitterbug Perfume is Tom Robbins‘ fourth novel, published in 1984. The major themes of the book include the strive for immortality, the meaning behind the sense of smell, individual expression, self-reliance, sex, love, and religion. Beets and the god Pan figure prominently. The novel is a self-described "epic", with four distinct storylines, (one set in 8th century Bohemia, and three others in modern day New Orleans, Seattle, and Paris.)

I found this photo today and wanted to share. There’s no information about this work. Anyway if you know its origin, please mail me.

"I don’t want salvation, I want life, all of life, the miserable as well as the supurb. If the gods would tax ecstasy, then I shall pay…At least i will have tasted the banquet that they have spread before me on this rich, round plant…"
 -from the book of JitterBug Perfume.

Straight out of a toilet and into your bed!

The highly unconventional plush toys direct from Sweden. According to their website Pee & Poo also have their own clothing range from temporary tattoos to t-shirts and socks.

The controversy surrounding a line of toys representing human waste has created publicity and the designer has launched her name into the designer world spotlight. Originally sold separately Pee & Poo now come in a duo pack. So you get both bodily functions covered in the one box.

But..  Could it be that only a Swedish designer could get away with making plush toys that represent pee and poo, and have them called cute, cuddly and unique?

Excuse me…  But this is weird. I don’t like the idea behind the pee & poo thing. Whatever, if you like the toyz, here is a website that you can purchase   ;  Pee & Poo Toyz website

Three years ago Docteur Gecko found a way for "hacking" advertising that you find in bus shelters around the world. What’s unique about what Gecko does is that his modifications can only be seen during the night, when the city lights the shelters. However, during daytime the ad modified seems to be untouched.

He’s undoubtably copying some of the ideas of the bigger boys -but- he certainly puts a new slant on it; in these examples, he uses some kind of clever light-reactive technology.

Jessica Joslin works as a commercial model maker, building prototypes of toys. She creates some surprisingly elegant and beautiful sculptures out of animal bones and hardware materials.

"I had been making mixed-media sculptures, which incorporated bones, seedpods, and other natural objects with man-made found objects (especially parts from very old cash registers, adding machines and medical equipment). One day, I found, by chance, a bag of exquisite taxidermied bird parts, used for millinery c. 1900. That was the beginning of the first of my beasts." says Jessica.

Jessica Joslin’s website