Exposed to the elements, hand-painted signs on building exteriors chip, crack and fade over time, but one artist is shining a spotlight on these historic illustrations, restoring them through animated and layered projections.

Craig Winslow is meticulous about his work on “Light Capsules,” digging through archived newspapers, magazines and photographs to find ads showing what these signs and their typogrophies originally looked like (in some cases over 100 years ago). The result of one such search recently helped him project over an ad in Winnipeg, Canada for Porter & Co., crockery, china, glassware, lamps, silverware, cutlery, which then switched to another projection for The Home of Milady Chocolates on the same spot.

And it isn’t just about recreation, but also spectacle and preservation. People passing by, used to ignoring faded signs, suddenly stop, look up and start thinking about them and the histories they represent as well as their historic value to a city.

In the last few years, Winslow has brought his projections to cities around the world including Detroit, London and Los Angeles. A lot of the advertisements he projects over provide insights into what was popular in the early 1900s when hand-painted signs were common.

His projections are often layered, cycling through to highlight different stages of ads (or overlapping ones) that have evolved and changed over the decades. Importing digital images, Winslow uses a suite of editing tools to fill in the gaps and create animations.

And while some argue for restoring them outright (using paint), that can be problematic — critics say repainting ruins the authenticity, plus new paints tend to be more vibrant and would be unlikely to represent the original. In a way, Winslow has found a middle ground — his method lets people get a sense of what they looked like without putting the originals at risk.

More from the artist’s website: “There’s an extra element of excitement in signs that are incredibly worn or have multiple layers—The best ghostsigns candidates to become Light Capsules have multiple layers, called palimpsests, providing a compelling canvas which digital recreations can bring a focus to specific layer in time. Projection is ephemeral, non-damaging, and non-invasive, providing a strong preservation solution that traditional mediums can’t provide. Using light as a medium, we can visually explore the stories of every layer, seeing how a building changed throughout the years.”

Traditional timepiece meets inventive illumination in this human-powered hourglass lamp that draws its energy elegantly from grains of falling sand.

Designed by Danielle Trofe, each fixture pivots around a central point so users can easily rotate the wood-and-glass core, thus refreshing the timer and turning the light back on each time it runs out.

Both conceptual renderings and the actual prototype are shown above – according to their creator, relatively little efforts is required to turn the device and brighten a room.

A larger and longer-lit variant comes in the form of a table, essentially an extension of the same design but in a multi-functional format that is potentially more stable and robust.

Other works by Trofe include the above mushroom-shaped lamps (Mush-Lume), which is built from agricultural byproducts (including mushrooms) and seems to balance precariously on its base.

Long before Sim City, Minecraft or the MMPORG, there was Jerry Gretzinger, man using cards and spending decades to spawn his own self-contained imaginary game world.

Over 2600 sheets of 8.5-by-11-inch paper make up this strange and amazing fantasy world, largely unknown until this video began to spread slowly (then quickly) around the internet, gaining him almost overnight fame. Each frame is created when Jerry chooses from a deck that dictates his next move, be it destructive, creative over both.

It started with a single city, then sprawled into ever-vaster territories and entire countries connected by highways and high-speed rail, or or divided by defensive barriers and walls, all expanding panel by panel across standard-sized sheets.

Attention to detail and daily ritual pervades the project, from a carefully-controlled color palette and archaic digital organization system to deployment based on semi-randomized cards, shuffled to reveal what direction he should take next.

At the same time, chaos is routinely added back into the system, through elements like ‘void cards’ that dictate the complete rebuilding of a section of the map, and can mean the entire destruction of cities that stand in the way.

These pages are stacked by necessity on shelves rather than splayed out to form a contiguous map too big for any interior wall. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the entire project is the fact that the entire work-as-such has never actually been on display until the documentary was being made about it. Even Jerry did not know its exact overall shape or form for the past decades, and, thanks to elements of chance and his own creativity, still does not know what future shapes it may yet take.

As UpperCase reports: “Jerry’s willingness to bend, adapt and break his own rules extends freedom to the map itself,” says filmmaker, Greg Whitmore, the creator of Jerry’s documentary trailer. “I should add that though Jerry is permissive and liberal when it comes to the process, he is dogmatic in one regard: that this ‘thing’ is, in fact, a map and he is responsible for it.”

Innocuous spheres by day, the carefully handmade holes dotting these coconut shells are hard to even see until they light up at night, morphing from muted balls to bright orbs.

Once illuminated, these subtle spheres are themselves beautifully lit up from within, but also project amazing patterns on surrounding walls, furniture and furnishings, whether set on the floor or placed on a bookcase or nightstand.

Creator Vainius Kubilius explains their constituent parts in anatomical terms – bones (of metal wire) to create a strong and flexible stand, wrapped with skin (of various ropes) to create a tactile exterior, with a head and brain (custom drilled coconut) unique in each case and giving personality to the whole.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Starry Light Hand Crafted Shell Lamps Cast Stellar Patterns

Customization has long been a limiting factor in certain aspects of medical practice, particularly those centering around damaged or lost limbs  creating different person-specific needs. 3D printing technologies, perfect for one-off, fit-to-purpose projects, may just promise ideal solution(s).

Jake Evill dubs his project, Cortex, an exoskeleton rather than a cast. First, an x-ray of the injured limb is performed. Next, a scan of the exterior of that same limb is made. Finally, based on both of the above, a suitably stiff-but-flexible 3D print is made. The result is customized to the needs of the user for both recovery and comfort.

The resulting design addresses issues of aesthetics, but more importantly deals with waste, healing, safety, durability and other everyday needs. Unlike its cumbersome traditional counterparts, it is readily washable, comfortable and compact enough to fit under clothing that would otherwise require modification.

Bespoke Innovations, meanwhile, addresses the needs of those with artificial limbs through what they call Fairings. Their process likewise involves scanning the limb, but in this case of the non-organic variety, then creating a custom cover to fit the functional and stylistic needs and wants of the wearer.

From the company: “Fairings infuse the individual’s lifestyle and taste into the design from the start. But to make this an even more personal part of the prosthetic leg, Fairings can be enhanced with patterns, graphics, and materials—including leather, ballistic nylon fabric, chrome plating, and even tattoos. By creating a unique custom form that presents the individual, Bespoke Innovations hopes to change the way the world thinks of prostheses.”