Never before have we been so impressed and disturbed by a design project. The very aptly named 'The Uncomfortable' project sees a series of everyday objects redesigned that renders them functionally obsolete, to the point where some of them genuinely makes us squirm in our seat. But that's the whole idea, apparently.
While creator Athens-based Katerina Kamprani openly admits on her website that these designs have been created to deliberately annoy (boy, did she nail that brief), there is, of course, a deeper meaning here.
"My goal is to deconstruct the invisible design language of simple everyday objects and tweak their fundamental properties in order to surprise you and make you laugh," Kamprani. "But also to help you appreciate the complexity and depth of interactions with the simplest of objects around us."
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Below are some examples of Kamprani's seriously uncomfortable designs (in more ways than one). If you'd prefer something a little less stressful to look at, you might be better off with our round up of the best Lego art. If not, brace yourselves...
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An alternative muscle-building tool?(Image credit: Katerina Kamprani)
Makes us want to keep our mouths firmly shut(Image credit: Katerina Kamprani)
Please make it stop(Image credit: Katerina Kamprani)
You want to be sharing this glass with the right person(Image credit: Katerina Kamprani)
Can you pass the salt, please? Oh, on second thoughts...(Image credit: Katerina Kamprani)
How, where would you even begin?(Image credit: Katerina Kamprani)
We'd say laugh is a bit of a stretch, Just thinking about attempting to eat with the chain or thick fork designs makes us a shudder. We'll admit, however, the thought of certain people using the uncomfortable champagne glass brought a wry smile to our faces. And there's plenty more where they came from, all of which you can see over on Kamprani's website.
While Kamprani's adaptations of these every day objects are mostly useless, her creations certainly make you look at and appreciate the original, fully-functional designs all much more. Never again will we take the lightweight material of our umbrella or straightness of our bog-standard toothbrush for granted again.
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Kerrie Hughes is a frequent contributor to Creative Bloq, and was once its editor. One of the original CB crew, Kerrie joined the team back in 2013 after moving from her role as staff writer on 3D World. Since then she's written regularly for other creative publications such as ImagineFX, Computer Arts and Digital Camera World. After a stint working for the police, Kerrie is back reviewing creative tech for creative professionals.
