While some people wrap their cars in bright new colors or flashy custom designs, this creative solution lets you downplay the quality and condition of your vehicle, concealing it under layers of dripping red rust. A bit of hard work and careful planning and voila, a brand new Volkswagon T5 Sportline is suddenly an aging van on its last legs (or wheels).

The simulated wear and tear featured on this sticker set was designed by Clyde Wraps, a company with a wide array of more conventional vehicle covering solutions (not just faux junkers). The client was apparently quite pleased, despite being stopped by cops just a few days later.

A clever combination of guerilla marketing and urban defense, this modified vehicle’s surface will hopefully attract the right kind of attention – gawkers looking to verify its authenticity by day rather than thieves peaking in by night.

From Clyde: “We were delighted when a customer came in and asked our in house designer to create one-off rust artwork that made his brand new top-of-the-range Volkswagen T5 Transporter Sportline look like the paint had rust all over. Taking exact measurements of the entire van over and above the blueprints we already held ensured rust could look like it had ran from door frames, handles, badges and mirrors as well as adding extra fake metal panels that look like they are riveted onto the smooth new van. The more distressed we made it look – the better the end result of the rust!”

The post Rusty Wraps: Stickers Camouflage New Car as Old Clunker first appeared on Gajitz.

Somewhere between art and activism, this faux ‘black diamond’ setting made from pollution sucked out of the sky dovetails well with the likewise real but far-fetched project it draws its source material from: a plan currently in motion to pull particles directly from the air in Beijing, China.

Daan Roosegaarde, known for both practical and artistic endeavors, is already working with city officials on this plan to ‘vacuum’ pollution from above the city. This ring is an extension of that project, proposing to turn said smog into a wearable reminder of the larger problem.

The plan calls for “a system using buried coils of copper to create an ion electrostatic field that attracts smog particles, effectively magnetizing them and pulling them down. The result is sizable void of clean air above. While it cannot yet work on a city-wide basis, the idea is to begin by clearing hundreds of feet of air in key public spaces like parks, squares and other paths trafficked by pedestrians.”

Clearly this cannot solve the larger issue of urban air pollution, but it can provide selective relief where it is needed most, and highlight the contrast of still-pollution sections of sky against the cleared areas – it is a start.

The post Ring of Smog: Air Pollution Pressed into Wearable Jewelry first appeared on Gajitz.