Who would think that masking tape could be art? Well, art director and graphic designer Koji Iyama has made it just that. With his new installations across Japan, the latest arriving in the city of Sendai, Iyama has certainly been leaving his colorful mark.

His product of choice? Mt-masking tape. His setting of choice? Old warehouses with high ceilings create the perfect space for him to hang the rolls of tape. He covers the entire floor as well, and even proceeds to cover any objects in his way — bikes, tables, other installations. The result of his final design is pretty cool, and we can imagine very interactive for the people lucky enough to visit his presentations. What do you think of Iyama’s art ventures?

Unique art is our forte! Check out our colorful, and innovative DNA Portraits. 

Photo credit: Spoon & Tamago

It’s modern, it’s elegant, and best of all it’s portable. Check out this uniquely designed indoor/outdoor gel fireplace by Holly & Martin. We have absolutely fallen in love with it’s floating glass panels, beautifully held in place with a brushed nickel base. We can picture it making a great addition to an outdoor space on a cool summer night, or a chic and modern loft in need of a little warmth.

What do you think of Holly & Martin’s fireplace design? We’d love for you to share your thoughts with us!

If you love innovative design, don’t forget to browse through our unique potrait ideas!

Photo credit: Holly and Martin

Check out these absolutely brilliant photos by Japanese chemist and photographer, R. Tanaka. His goal was to capture a microscopic look into some of the world’s most photogenic elements, and he’s managed to do just that. We’re blown away by this rare mix of art + science, and his ability to turn these mysterious substances into a work of beauty and intrigue. He’s managed to bring the periodic table of elements to life with his fascinating project.

Watch him turn elements such as bismuth, platinum, and even lead into art below.

Bismuth

Gold

Osmium

Tellurium

Lead

Photo credit: Neatorama 

Unique art is our passion. So it’s no wonder why we’re so inspired by Japanese artist Motoi Yamamoto, and his breathtaking art installations made from one of the most sought-after minerals in the world — salt. His project, titled “Saltscapes”, features incredibly detailed works of art created with basic table salt. His large installations have been known to take up entire gallery, church, and even soy brewery floors.

His installations take up hundreds of hours of time, and he must be very meticulous with pouring to avoid too many mistakes. While he does follow a basic guideline for each piece, most of his works of art are actually improvised. He often leaves his mistakes and imperfections intact as he is working.

Yamamoto uses salt as the main material in his art, as a way to honor his sister who passed away from brain cancer in 1994. Salt is often used in Japanese culture as a way to cleanse one of grief. To him the material signifies life, death, and above all, rebirth. Once the artist disassembles one of his complex installations he releases the salt back into the ocean, often inviting his fans to help him with the process. It’s a way of bringing new life to his masterpieces.

Photo credit: Huffington Post

Video credit: The Avant/Garde Diaries

We’re always captivated by original art projects that set themselves apart from the rest — much like our DNA art. “Black Hole” is a project by Swiss photographer Fabien Oefner. The setup of his project is very simple, Oefner drips various shades of acrylic paint onto a metallic rod, which is attached to a drill. He switches on the drill, and photographs the moment when the paint starts to move away from the rod caused by the centripetal force. Because the paint moves so quickly, the photo needs to be captured within a millisecond of the drill being switched on. He makes use of a sensor that is connected to the drill and camera, which allows him to accurately freeze frame the motion of the paint.

Video credit: Vimeo

Photo credit: Design Boom

We were intrigued when we came across this video by PBS Offbook, about the future of 3D printing and the opportunities it could bring to the world. 3D printing is a revolutionary new technology that allows you to take a digital file, and turn it into a physical product — toys, shoes, iPhone cases, replicas. Based on this video, it seems like the possibilities are endless!

Who knows where the future will take us — perhaps one day 3D DNA Portraits will exist?

You know that we love designs that combine art + science, but for our inspiration of the week we’ve chosen to feature a design that combines furniture + science instead. Via Tech Nation News:

Why step outside to gaze at the moon when you can just admire your credenza? This design by Sotirios Papadopoulos features a photo-realistic image of the moon that has been treated with special material so that it glows in the dark. It will absorb the lights of the sun and in your home during the day and be luminescent at night.

There are only 24 of these credenzas available, and they ship with a CD of original music designed to go with the piece. I hope it includes recordings of howling wolves.

Product Page (Pricing Available Upon Request via Book of Joe and Laughing Squid)

Now this is an example of  ingenuity at it’s finest! Viennese artist Andreas Franke has recently unveiled his photo project, The Sinking World, in an underwater art gallery. The exhibition is dubbed the Stavronikita Project, and will take place on the deck of the sunken SS Stavronikita, right off the coast of Barbados. We’re absolutely blown away by this mix of innovation and unique art. Via You the Designer:

In his most notable project called “The Sinking World“, Andreas Franke brings a strange, forgotten underwater world back to life by capturing some stills of sunken ships, then recreated what life could have been like aboard the ship with real actors. The amazing images are displayed on the deck of the shipwrecks where divers and art lovers can see his underwater gallery.

He has created two projects so far in The Sinking World series. The first one was The Vandenberg Project, featuring a gallery of surreal photographs of the sunken ship off the coast of Florida and combined the stills with images of staged actors representing everyday life, thus, creating a re-imagined and forgotten world of the sunken giant.

Another set of his Sinking World was The Stavronikita Project featuring a gallery staging the European era, the age of decadence with all its intoxicating extravagance and vanity, on the deck of the sunken ship of the same name right off the Caribbean island of Barbados.

The Stavronikita Project, underwater on SS Stavronikita, will run until April 2013.

We’ve recently been hearing some very big, and very interesting news out of the DNA world! Researchers have claimed to have found a more efficient alternative to storing information on a computer hard drive — rather they are suggesting they have the capabilities to replace the hard drive with DNA. Via Engadget:

We’ve seen scientists experiment with DNA as a storage medium — most recently with a Harvard team fitting 704TB of data onto a single gram of the genetic material — and it looks like that research trend is only picking up. Scientists at the European Bioinformatics Institute in the UK have encoded an MP3 file — along with a digital photo and all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets – into DNA, with a hulking storage density of 2.2 petabytes per gram. The information was written using the language of DNA’s four bases (A, T, C and G, if you remember high-school bio), and to provide error correction the scientists reserved one of the letters to break up long runs of any of the other three bases. In practice, this system allowed for 100-percent accuracy in sequencing and retrieving the encoded files. Though DNA storage is still quite expensive, the researchers say this method could eventually provide a viable option for archiving information, especially considering DNA’s high capacity and long life span. Still, you won’t be ditching that hard drive just yet.

Share our love of DNA? Browse through our unique portrait ideas.

Photo credit: The Telegraph

UPDATE: Congratulations to Brian L. from Florida! He is the winner of our DNA 11 Valentine Contest. 

Love is in the air, and what better way to celebrate than with an amazing giveaway? In honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re giving our fans the chance to win a $250 DNA 11 gift voucher. Entering is easy — simply visit our Facebook page, show us some love, and enter in your contact details. Don’t forget to share your entry on Facebook, and Twitter with friends and family to receive extra submissions.

Contest Rules
Winners must be residents of the contiguous United States or Canada.
Entries must be received by 11:59 PST on January 21, 2013.
We will contact the winner via e-mail on January 22, 2013.

Looking for that perfect personalized Valentine’s Day gift right now? Check out our DNA, Fingerprint, and Kiss portraits.