Another reason to turn on the heating in this cold weather! I love this concept of heat sensitive wallpaper by Shiyuan. In a simple and elegant gesture, when the radiator is turned on a series of flowers previously unseen begin to bloom in reaction to the heat. Clever.

See more work by Shiyuan.

If you’re on a diet, look away now! It’s a new year, and like many others, I’m doing the obligitory resolution to eat in a more healthy manner. However, the exact moment that you start denying yourself sugary snacks, you start dreaming about cake. At least I do. Or to be more accurate, I’m dreaming about the edible creations of Carles Mampel at Bubo.

I found Bubo last year whilst mindlessly wandering around the back streets of Barcelona. The Bubo shop is more akin to an art gallery than a shop selling cakes and petit fours, which is fitting as the edible artworks created by Carles Mampel are beautifully designed statues of taste. Seriously, it’s almost a crime to eat these things!

If you ever find yourself in Barcelona, skip the tourist traps and head over to Bubo to stuff yourself with beautifully designed award winning cakes. Even if you’re not hungry, just go and feed your eyes.

Visit Bubo

A whole new world of mutated chairs. I missed the Martino Gamper exhibition of his 100 Chairs in 100 Days project which was shown in London last year, but there is now a book available titled 100 Chairs in 100 Days and its 100 Ways. It highlights the bastardised chair forms which have been created by Gamper using the odds and ends of other chairs, and other various objects.

See more work by Martino Gamper.

Don’t call it a comeback. Yeah, yeah, yeah… I know it’s been a while since I last updated Things of Random Coolness, but I’ve been getting kind of side-tracked recently. I crippled myself due to a recurring back injury. I’d like to say that it was triggered by something manly like a motorbike accident, or a bar brawl, but it was more likely caused from being drunk and over-enthusiastic on a Nintendo Wii. Also, I then flew over to Spain to see in the New Year (fresh seafood and villas on the beach wins out over anti-climatic british pub celebrations everytime.) Then on my return I bandwagon-jumped on the new Norovirus craze sweeping the nation (suffering from winter vomiting disease is the new going out!)

Ultimately, these are all excuses for being lazy. However, It’s a new year, and although it’s a little stale to be making resolutions this far into it, I’m going to try and post more regularly this year. Starting tomorrow. Hopefully.

Another talented young graphic designer. Normally I’m annoyed by people emailing me with nothing but their website urls, but I’m making an exception for Jack Crossing as I like his posters.

For future reference, if anyone fancies sending me emails about stuff, at least say hello. I get all kinds of emails from weirdos and losers, so ones that are from normal people that say hello are like gold. Also, to anyone who’s sent me an email recently that I haven’t responded too, don’t think that I hate you, it’s just that I’ve got tons to get through, and quite frankly, I’m pretty lazy.

See work by Jack Crossing.

A modern graphic reworking of Klimt’s work. London based graphic designer, Angus Alexander, has created a beautiful screenprinted re-working of the Gustav Klimt sketch ‘The Blood of Fish’. Alexander’s re-working entitled ‘Flood of Nuda’ is a 2 colour screen print available in a limited edition of 250, and is available via his website.

See more work by Angus Alexander.

Gods get mail too! The wonderfully named design company Greece Is For Lovers, have made the mundane act of opening your daily mail into an event that’ll make you feel like a greek god. With your Zeus lightening bolt letter opener, you’ll be able to “rip through hatemail with the stealth and fury of Zeus! ”

See more work by Greece Is For Lovers.

Cars, tax & Art. The Art Car Boot Fair have developed a range of car tax disc holders created by leading artists and designers. The Pretty Taxing tax disc holder and certificate is both a collectible and a usable artwork. With the limited edition pieces both the circular tax disc artwork and the certificate are hand numbered with the edition number.

Pretty Taxing will launch new editions of tax disc holders by leading artists and designers on a regular basis so customers can build their own in-car art collection, and promise to occasionally produce other special signed and editioned pieces.

Available from the Art Car Boot Fair Shop.

Upgrade those nasty plastic bags of yours! Curated by Process Packaging, the Re-Bag Exhibition is a collection of limited edition reusable canvas bags designed by 15 of the UK’s leading design talents.

Designers were asked to create a design centered on the theme of sustainability and reusability. The resulting bags are produced in limited edition batches of 250, and are available to buy. So dump those environmentally damaging plastic carrier bags and pick yourself up a stylish eco-friendly alternative.

Find out more at Re-Bag.

Santa’s Ghetto goes to Bethlehem. This event will probably get picked up by the press as simply another story about the artist Banksy painting on Israel’s controversial West Bank barrier again, but Santa’s Ghetto has been going for a few year now. I’ll let them explain it:

Santa’s Ghetto is probably the world’s most low-concept art event.

Every year we assemble a loose collection of the great unwashed to hawk their artistic wares on the high street amongst the mindless sham and drudgery of the christmas season. This year we’ve moved out of Oxford Street into a former chicken shop on Manger Square in Bethlehem opposite the Church of the Nativity (where Santa Claus was actually born).

This puts us one mile behind the security wall in a part of the world ravaged by conflict, poverty and dust. Just the place, you’d think, that’s desperate to check out the latest five-colour deckled edge screen prints coming out of East London.

You can watch the whole sorry thing unravel on-line but you’re particularly welcome to come out and visit in person (you’re probably far less likely to get randomly stabbed on the way home than you were last year).

Basically, the cream of the urban/street art genre such as Sam 3, Paul Insect and, of course, Banksy have moved the annual Santa’s Ghetto event to Bethlehem in order to draw attention to the issues going on over there with the Jewish/Arab conflict. And what better way to do it than a painting of a soldier feeding a donkey?

Find out more at Santa’s Ghetto.