Good design often starts with something you already own. A lamp, a chair, a cutting board or a traffic signal has a job to do, and most versions do it adequately. The pieces collected here take that familiar job and change one thing about it: the shape, the material, the way it uses light or the way it saves a step. Some are commercial products, some are student or studio prototypes, and a few are one-off photos people shared online because an object made them stop and look twice.
The quick answer to "what makes these designs special" is that each one keeps the original purpose intact while adding humour, efficiency or a small surprise. Below, the 28 examples are grouped by type, with the designer or the person who shared the photo credited wherever that is known. Where a claim about a product could not be confirmed, it is described as a claim rather than a fact.
Clever fixes for everyday routines
These objects solve small, real annoyances: tired arms, wasted water, kitchen scraps and cramped rooms.
A hands-free phone holder for long journeys
Two passengers on a plane wear flexible gooseneck holders that loop around the neck and hold a phone at eye level. Holders like this are sold cheaply online and are popular for long flights, lying in bed or watching video while cooking. They look comical, which is exactly why the photo travelled, but they also remove the strain of holding a screen up for hours.
A sink that refills the toilet cistern
Here a small basin and tap sit on top of the toilet tank. When you flush, the clean water that refills the cistern runs through the tap first, so you wash your hands with it before it drains into the tank for the next flush. Tank-top sinks have long been common in Japan, and retrofit kits are sold elsewhere for people who want to save water in small bathrooms.
A cutting board with a drawer for scraps
West Elm's storage cutting board hides a shallow drawer underneath the chopping surface. Peel and trimmings slide straight into it, and the drawer can be emptied into the compost or bin in one go. It is a modest idea, but it removes the usual back-and-forth between the board and the bin.
A walking stick with a compass in the handle
A round wooden knob on a hiking stick holds a small inset compass. Combining the two makes sense on the trail, where both your hand and your attention are already on the stick. A built-in compass is a handy backup, though for serious walking it is still wise to carry a proper map and a full-size compass.
A chair that folds away like an accordion
The Concertina Chair by the London studio Raw-Edges was made for Louis Vuitton. Its seat is built from pleated sections that expand and collapse like the bellows of the instrument it is named after, so it takes up little room when not in use. It shows how a folding mechanism can become the decorative feature rather than something to hide.
A star-shaped clothes horse
This drying rack by designer Aaron Dunkerton radiates out like a star, giving each garment its own arm. Shared by the design accounts Day of Rest and Design Bunker, it turns a piece of laundry equipment, normally folded away out of sight, into something you might leave standing in a room.
Design in streets and public spaces
Public design has to work for everyone at once, which makes the playful examples all the more striking.
Traffic lights with curved, glowing arms
In this pair of photos, shared on imgur as a junction in Ukraine, the signal poles carry curved LED strips that glow red or green along with the lights themselves. People online joked that the glowing arcs look like lightsabers, hence the "Jedi" nickname. The practical point is visibility: a long band of colour is easier to notice in heavy traffic and poor weather than a single small lamp.
A curved escalator
The person who posted this photo said it was taken in China. Curved or spiral escalators are rare because each step has to change its geometry as it travels around the bend, which makes them far more complex and expensive than straight ones. Mitsubishi Electric has been the best-known maker of them since the 1980s, and they appear mostly in shopping centres where the swooping shape is part of the attraction.
Benches that melt into a lawn
Plaza Dalí in Madrid, on Avenida de Felipe II, was redesigned by the Spanish architect Francisco Mangado. Because there is a car park underneath, trees and grass could not be planted in the ground in the usual way, so the design raises sloping planted beds above the paving with benches built into them. The result lets people sit on the bench, or lie back on the grass, in the middle of a busy city square.
Tricks of light
Light is a favourite material for designers because it can change how an object reads without changing its shape.
A paint-roller lamp
Natalie Sampson's Paint Roller Lamp mounts a light where the roller would be, so it looks as if it has just painted a bright stripe on the wall. The joke works because everyone recognises the tool instantly, and the "paint" is simply the pool of light it casts.
A skirting-board sunset
The Dutch artist Helmut Smits placed a small, warm lamp at the bottom of a wall so that its glow rises from the skirting board like the sun sinking below a horizon. It is a tiny intervention, a lamp in an unexpected place, and it changes the mood of an entire room.
Light that pours from a can
Yeongwoo Kim's Pouring Light Lamp is shaped like a tipped container, with the light falling out of it like liquid. The designer plays on a familiar metaphor, light flooding or spilling into a space, and turns it into a literal object.
A "hologram" illusion lamp
Despite the name, this is not a hologram. These lamps use a flat sheet of clear acrylic engraved with fine lines; an LED in the base shines into the edge of the sheet, and the engraved lines catch the light so that a flat panel appears to show a three-dimensional knot. Seen from the side, the shape vanishes and you see only a thin plate.
Trainers that change under a camera flash
The same black trainers look plain in normal light and blaze with rainbow colours when photographed with a flash. The upper is printed with retroreflective material, which sends light straight back towards its source; because a phone's flash sits right next to its lens, the camera receives that reflected light at full strength. The shoes appear to be from adidas's iridescent "Xeno" range, and the same principle is used in road signs and safety clothing.
Furniture and interiors with a twist
Furniture is where ordinary function and sculpture meet most often.
A tap that shows the water moving
Water Ball Ripples, a tap concept credited to Smith Newnam and Touch360 Studio, makes the flow visible as rippling shapes, so you can tell at a glance that water is running. Visual feedback like this is a recurring idea in good design: if an object shows you what it is doing, you are less likely to misuse it.
A chamomile table
The "Love me, love me not" table by John Vogel and Justin Plunkett borrows its form from a daisy-like flower, with a round centre and petal shapes in wood. The name refers to the old game of pulling petals off a flower one by one, which gives the piece a story as well as a shape.
A floor of interlocking wooden lizards
This parquet is made of lizard-shaped wooden tiles that fit together with no gaps, like a jigsaw. The idea recalls M. C. Escher's famous tessellations of reptiles. The account that shared it asked followers to identify the maker, so the designer is not confirmed.
Moove, an ergonomic plywood chair
Moove was designed by Yasunori Morinaga as a student project, shown by the account Student Design. According to the designer's description, it was inspired by Dr Patrik Künzler's LimbIC chair and splits the seat so the body can shift and stay active while sitting. Claims about extra focus or creativity come from the designer; any chair's comfort is best judged by trying it.
Origami cabinet doors
(The Instagram post originally embedded here is no longer available.)
The post that showed these cabinets is gone, but the idea was kitchen or storage doors with faceted, folded-looking fronts, as if made from giant sheets of folded paper. Angled facets catch light differently across the surface, which is why the effect works on plain, single-colour units.
The INA chair
INA is built from two intersecting pieces of wood with a small seat where they cross. Its designers describe the aim as lightness, both visual and physical, using as little material as possible. It is a good example of minimalism that still has a strong, recognisable silhouette.
An acrylic and wood chair
(The Instagram post originally embedded here is no longer available.)
This post is no longer available either. It showed a chair combining clear acrylic with solid timber, a pairing designers like because the transparent part almost disappears and makes the wooden part look as if it floats.
Playful objects and accessories
Not every design needs to solve a problem. Some exist simply to make you smile.
A Yoda bookend
A metal Yoda silhouette stretches out a hand towards a row of Star Wars novels, as if the leaning books were being held up by the Force. The base slides under the first book, so the weight of the books keeps the figure in place. Fittingly, the shelf holds titles such as Leia, Lost Stars and Thrawn.
An ear cuff that turns an ear into a face
The Dina Ear Cuff by the jewellery brand Mara Paris traces the outline of a face along the curve of the ear, so the ear itself seems to become a head in profile. It works because the ear's natural shape already resembles a face from the side.
A pizza pool float for a group
(The Instagram post originally embedded here is no longer available.)
The original post has been removed, but the design was an inflatable pizza big enough for several people, with each person lounging on their own "slice". Giant novelty floats became a summer trend in the late 2010s, and this one turned a solo float into a shared one.
A calculator shaped like a piano
The number keys of this pocket calculator are laid out as white and black piano keys, and the case is shaped like a grand piano. It is a novelty item, but it is also a reminder that the layout of buttons is a design choice, not a law of nature.
A pop-up brass candle holder
Studio Inbetween's Brass Pop Up Candle Holder starts as a flat cut sheet of metal and is pushed up into a three-dimensional holder. Flat-pack objects like this are cheaper to ship and store, and the transformation is part of the pleasure of owning one.
A Pac-Man ear piercing
Four studs along the rim of an ear recreate a scene from Pac-Man: the yellow hero, two pellets and a ghost. The arcade game was released by Namco in 1980, and its simple shapes are still recognisable from just a few small pieces of metal.
A chessboard that shows possible moves
The photo here is dark and hard to read, but it was shared as a chessboard that lights up the squares a piece can move to. Electronic teaching boards with this feature exist and are mainly aimed at beginners and children, helping them learn how each piece moves before they start thinking about strategy.
What these designs have in common
The designer Don Norman, in his book The Design of Everyday Things, argued that well-designed objects explain themselves: their shape tells you how to use them. Many of the pieces above follow that rule. The rippling tap shows that water is running, the glowing traffic arcs make the signal impossible to miss, and the sink on the cistern makes the water-saving step automatic.
Others work through surprise. A lamp disguised as a paint roller or a sunset is still just a lamp, yet the twist makes you look at an ordinary room differently. A few are pure fun, and that has value too.
If you are tempted to buy something you saw here, it helps to ask a few practical questions first:
- Does it still do the basic job well? A beautiful chair that is uncomfortable after twenty minutes will not get used.
- Is it a product or a prototype? Many striking designs on social media are student projects or one-offs that were never manufactured.
- Who made it? Buying from the original designer supports the person who had the idea, and avoids cheap copies of lower quality.
- Will it age well? Novelty fades; materials such as solid wood and brass usually last longer than the joke.
Sources: Photos and posts by the Reddit, imgur and Instagram users credited under each item, including Product (@p.roduct), Design Bunker (@designbunker), Design Hunter, Student Design, Mara Paris and designdaily. Mangado y Asociados: Plaza Dalí, Madrid; imgur: tank-top sink; IngvarrSchulz / imgur: Ukrainian traffic lights.
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