Disclaimer: no polar bears or snow leopards were harmed during the creation of these shoes… National Geographic imagery meets sneaker design in this collaboration between PUMA, Atmos NYC, and Japanese photographer Mitsuaki Iwago. Through two releases– the Polar Pack and the Asia Pack, sneaker buffs will be treated to a series of kicks inspired by Mitsuaki Iwago’s famed wildlife photos. The outsides of the shoes capture the unique characteristics of various animals, and each (removable) insole sports Iwago’s actual photos on them. The final touch is that both the name and habitat of each animal is printed on the reverse tongue and on the outsole in both English and - you guessed it - Japanese.

The Polar Pack will be on sale only at Atmos NYC and Ubiq in Philadelphia beginning on June 28th, and you can expect the Asia Pack to drop later this summer.

Most artists are as individual as snowflakes; it’s a pretty safe bet that no two creative talents - given a blank canvas - will come up with the same thing. That’s exactly what makes Schaffas so magical. These “gentle and un-aspiring creatures of great mystery,” that more or less resemble one of your cuspids, were sent out by Sam Barratt and Chris Edser at Screamdance to their art friends all over the world, giving them carte blanche to decorate these bizarrely sculpted little guys at their own artistic whim. The result is a family of eighty distinct characters that reflect the genius and personality of their creators.

If you’d like to ‘Meet the Schaffas’ first hand, they’ll be on display at the Urban Cow Gallery in Adelaide until the end of June. Word has it, after their exhibition is over, the individual characters will be on sale with proceeds going to Close The Gap, a campaign that aims towards closing the health gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.

Related: Puppy Love: Miami

The car people out there should take a look at this video, which covers the insane sticker job that Tristan Eaton (think: Kid Robot) and the rest of the Thunderdog team recently did on a Mini Cooper belonging to Matt Farah of the New York Motor Club. After-market auto tweaks are one thing, neon blue ground effects are another, but this glow-in-the-dark job, well, it’s something from another world. Matt’s request to Thunderdog was inspired by the BMW Art Car Project, which was going on between 1975 and 1999, and featured work by artists that we all know and love (e.g. Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein). My vote is that the Thunderdog crew get commissioned to kit out the next Batmobile– imagine that: a glowing black Lamborghini Murcielago.

The international women’s fashion retailer Topshop has tapped the legacy of famed fashion photog Helmut Newton to recreate the camera for which Newton became known in the 70’s. The Newton Machine is basically Newton’s self-timed camera with a mirror next to it and a strobe light connected to the “magic box.” The model adjusts the timer based on what she want’s to do in her pose– all at once she can be the photographer, stylist, and subject. The site tells us the story of Newton, explains this instant project, and most important– serves as a constantly updated place for candid photos of Topshop customers doing god-knows-what in front of that magic little box. Whether animalistic, expecting, or jumping for joy (see photos above, from left), it looks like folks are having fun with this one.

We fell in love with the original Speakerdog — Ben the Illustrator’s creation that starts out as a piece of standard letter paper and with a few folds, turns into an adorable puppy — and now, there’s even more to love. From postcards to vinyl toys, you can enjoy Spearkdog in a variety of mediums. Via a series of frameable posters, you can follow Speakerdog’s adventures as he travels the world. Or you can show off your support for the cartoonish canine with four button collections. And, if you really can’t live without having your best friend by you day and night, Ben is offering a line of softies which make it easier to take your puppy friend for a walk. Although, if you’re at this point, you may want to pull back on the Speakerdog reins. People are starting to talk.

When Zoo York asked Mark Owens and Matt Owens to design six decks for their artist series, we knew we’d be in for some of their standard-issue graphical, collage-esque awesomeness. What we got, though, is seemingly more — a modern, quirky ode to New York City, the brand that asked them to participate and the riders themselves, each representing unique areas of interest: Architecture, Literature, Gastronomy, Art, Transit, and Tourism. We likey.

Via AthleticsNYC

Over the years, millions of Football (in America, read: Soccer) fans around the world have worshiped at the altars of players like Beckham, Ronaldinho, and Zidane. AC Milan, Real Madrid, and Manchester United aren’t just teams — they’re religions. It’s this “sacralization” of sport that served as the inspiration behind “Holygame” from our good friends, the talented Swiss Designers at +41. Their installation, a part of the Nike 1/1 project, made up of Football shoes laced to each other and surrounding a soccer ball comes off as a remarkable religious prayer monument of sorts that might even prompt those immersed in the fanaticism of the football cult to bow and pay homage to that sport which they hold most dear. If you’d like to kneel before the soccer gods, this monumental installation will next be on display during the Art Basel fair in Switzerland early this June.

Having tended a bar (or seven) on a previous career path, I still find myself rather drawn to well-crafted bar accouterments. Josh Owen’s Jigger Aluminum Cube is inspired by traditional sake cups and measures a mere three-inches cubed, and is designed to accurately measure the four most utilized alcohol measurements in the smallest possible dispenser. It’s available for pre-order at Unica Home now — just in time for those summer margarita sloshfests.

Just what we need right now — someone to shed some light on the situation. Art director Kleber Matheus, whose graphic designs have found their way onto apparel from kingpin Brazilian labels Ellus and Neon, is getting props for his Neo Ornamental solo exhibit in Sao Paulo at Galeria Polinesia all done with neon tubes. Rather than be twisted into words that tell us whether a place is open or if it serves beer and pizza, he’s arranged them into geometrical forms and placed them in different settings like against a garden backdrop to offer up the discussion between organic versus the posed/manmade and how they can be used together in harmony to give off good vibes. Nevertheless, is it just me or do you feel like eating a hot dog all of a sudden?

Wallpaper…it’s pretty much always on display. However, not all wallpaper on display is as eye catching as that which currently gracing the walls of the ground floor at colette. The Paris retail store has the honor of hosting an exhibition of Pottok wallpaper by famed designer Geoff McFetridge. The exhibition is made up of several of the artist’s prints and patterns created with water-based inks and recyclable paper on some serious hand made silk-screens. If you just so happen to find yourself strolling down the rue Saint-Honoré we recommend checking it out.

Via SlamXHype

Kitsune Noir has recognized the wallpapering genius of Spear Collective Dan Funderburgh. Fundy — as nobody calls him — is kind of a big deal with creating fun wallpaper designs that translate well in digital form. Don’t be surprised if the coffeehouse regulars start looking over at your laptop. And this time it won’t be for German porn.

While we consider ourselves the most appreciative of art lovers, there are always a few pieces within an exhibit that don’t necessarily arouse our interest. If we had our way, we’d have the final say over what pieces get displayed so we didn’t have to spend the entire day in the gallery searching for the works that pique our aesthetic fancy. It seems that the folks at the Brooklyn Museum have read our minds. Their newest photography exhibit Click! A Crowd Exhibit, puts the power of the curator in the hands of those who pay to appreciate. Inspired by “The Wisdom of Crowds”, a book by New Yorker business and financial columnist James Surowiecki that raises the argument that a diverse crowd is often wiser at making decisions, Click! asks potential visitors to evaluate some of the works that have been submitted during the museum’s open call in order to decide which pieces end up in the show. Art experts and art lovers alike can vote until May 23rd on the Brooklyn Museum’s website and see if their wisdom has been heeded when the exhibit opens on June 27th. So head on over to the Brooklyn Museum site and let your taste speak for itself.

We make no pretense about being “all about the Benjamins.” However, we are particularly about this Benjamin because it’s actually the work of 10,000 international artists (each paid one cent using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk labor distribution tool), who could only see the tiny fragment of what they were working on. The result is a pretty accurately rendered $100 bill that cost $100 to make. Brainparents Aaron Koblin and Takashi Kawashima are both visual designers living in the San Francisco area, who wanted to create a project that exploited the notion of “crowdsourcing” (and, from the looks of it, the One Laptop Per Child project.) We’re currently soliciting one penny from 10,000 investment bankers to buy one.

I was going to write about Domestic’s rad-times-100 vinyl wallpaper, a topic we love to talk about here, but after being getting to know their Surface 02 collection, I feel we ought to thank them for not, um, sticking to just those offerings. Porcelain plates decorated by designers at the forefront of their game — like Ich & Kar, our hero Jeremyville, Antoine+Manuel — come as an inseparable pair for the second series of the line, which is being featured until April 8 under a Domestic Spring Invasion 1 theme at the Printemps store inside Centre Pompidou in Paris. These are hot plates that will give a much longer-lasting impression for your bachelor pad than the plug-in, two-burners kind you use as a decorative piece.

When we heard about the partnership that had been formed between Spanish-Portuguese designer/manufacturers De La Espada and Brit-bred furniture designer Matthew Hilton, we didn't bat an eyelash. Sure we were thrilled about it, but we can't say we were surprised. It only made sense to us that one of Europe's leading manufacturers of Solid Wood furniture would team up with the much-respected furniture design mastermind who was once given the highest honor possible to UK industrial designer, when he was named a Royal Designer for Industry in 2003. The symbiotic relationship was born out of a shared vision based on each other's complimentary expertise. De La Espada brings a reputation for high quality manufacturing and rigorous testing to the table, whereas Hilton adds unique creative insight to the design of the product. Together they're sure to turn a few heads when they bow the Matthew Hilton range at the Milan Furniture Fair this month. In addition to their work with Matthew Hilton, De La Espada will also be unveiling some of their newest work with Turkish designers, Autoban, whom they graced our pages with previously.