Just because it's Monday morning

September 11, 2017 5:54 AM

All the objects you will see in this website are deliberately designed to annoy you.
posted by still_wears_a_hat (55 comments total)

I feel like I already own several of those objects.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:58 AM on September 11, 2017 [11 favorites]

And the images of the objects disappear when you scroll them up to the middle of your screen! How meta.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:59 AM on September 11, 2017 [20 favorites]

Previously.
posted by misteraitch at 6:00 AM on September 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

Seriously though, after the third time that happened I noped out. At least nobody expects me to actually use the fork with a chain for a handle.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:01 AM on September 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

This just redirects to the MeFi front page?
posted by Sangermaine at 6:03 AM on September 11, 2017 [56 favorites]

everyday objects by Athens-based architect

And we wonder why Greece's economy is in trouble.
posted by clawsoon at 6:05 AM on September 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Fuck right the hell off, peep-toe Wellies.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:08 AM on September 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

Before I clicked, I expected it to be a link to a mainstream media news' website.
posted by fairmettle at 6:18 AM on September 11, 2017 [11 favorites]

MetaFilter: Deliberately designed to annoy you.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:18 AM on September 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

I love this.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:19 AM on September 11, 2017 [6 favorites]

I like the triple door. It looks good for controlling cats, kids, breeze, heat, and noise.
posted by pracowity at 6:27 AM on September 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

On mobile, the website itself constitutes the first item in the collection.
posted by davemee at 6:43 AM on September 11, 2017 [12 favorites]

I rather like the orange teapot and cup
posted by KateViolet at 6:48 AM on September 11, 2017 [8 favorites]

I thought I'd hate it but I loved this - thought the designs were really clever. Clearly I'm less mature than I thought I was, because I chortled gleefully at the thought of offering nothing but those wineglasses at my next gamenight. Or giving someone the one-hole saltshaker/multi-hole pepper shaker as a housewarming gift. *snicker*
posted by widdershins at 6:51 AM on September 11, 2017 [6 favorites]

Mod note: As a quick note, this was posted a few years ago (different url), but from the artist's facebook, it seems like there is new content since then, so we can probably go with this.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:59 AM on September 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

I'm thinking wedding presents...
posted by jim in austin at 7:16 AM on September 11, 2017 [10 favorites]

I could swear I've seen that wine glass offered in a Sharper Image type catalog, marketed as a special capture-the-aroma snifter.
posted by penguinicity at 7:17 AM on September 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

Plenty of kids would love that triple door.
posted by qntm at 7:19 AM on September 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

All the nopes for this kuku site!t
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 7:23 AM on September 11, 2017

All the objects you will see in this website are deliberately designed to annoy you.

So, Twitter?
posted by tobascodagama at 7:43 AM on September 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

See also: impossible objects
posted by TedW at 7:51 AM on September 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Ok, the milk steaming pitcher with the spout over the handle made me instantly and irrationally angry. When I saw that one I sucked my teeth so hard I actually startled myself with the noise.
posted by loquacious at 7:57 AM on September 11, 2017 [14 favorites]

Designed By Managers, For Workers (TM)
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:59 AM on September 11, 2017 [12 favorites]

The cutlery makes me hangry.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:02 AM on September 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

Push broom with a handle on the long end, genius, no really, not frequent but a broom with an alternate socket for the handle would be incredibly handy for certain spaces. Ah a certain dinner party with certain, ah guest, that I'd've been pleased to provide a convex chair.
posted by sammyo at 8:05 AM on September 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm annoyed they're aligned with tabs and not spaces.
posted by maxwelton at 8:10 AM on September 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

but wait there's more!

Be sure to click into each project for more shots, like this great one of the full cutlery set!
posted by rebent at 8:15 AM on September 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Déjà vu, non?
posted by homerica at 8:16 AM on September 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

I've seen this before and every single time I'm annoyed, not because of the objects themselves, but because I feel like the concept is pretentious and dumb, but then I realized that's because I'm disabled and it just makes me think of inaccessibility & the numerous objects that are completely nonfunctional to me, so my reaction is just YES THIS IS MY LIFE AND IT SUCKS but I guess that means it achieved its goal of making me think deeper about something or whatever. Point to you, Katerina Kamprani.
posted by brook horse at 8:35 AM on September 11, 2017 [24 favorites]

Actually, as the parent of small children, that tripartite door would be damn useful in spots. Prolly work for pets too.
posted by telepanda at 9:42 AM on September 11, 2017

I came across this calendar a few nights ago when looking at 2018 calendars on Amazon, and I posted a screencap of it to my Facebook page and also emailed to an old flame of mine who didn't treat me at all well. On Facebook it garnered comments like, "why would you do this to us", "I need a Valium and a drink", "this will eat your very soul", "there is not enough eye bleach for this", and "you are a monster". The ex-flame has not replied yet, but I think he will once the very severity of his punishment has reduced him to the point of understanding just how unforgivably he transgressed, like the machine in Kafka's "In the Penal Colony".

So now I'm posting it in this thread about deliberately annoyingly designed ordinary objects to deliberately sear all your aesthetic sensibilities. De rien, Metafilter!
posted by orange swan at 9:49 AM on September 11, 2017 [5 favorites]

Well, the website didn't try and make me sign up for its newsletter or follow it on Facebook, so it has that.
posted by zabuni at 9:49 AM on September 11, 2017 [9 favorites]

My first thought for these was that it was an interesting exercise in design, followed by that I could repurpose a number of these things and they'd be great for houseplants.
posted by bile and syntax at 10:12 AM on September 11, 2017

To be honest, you could just include "90% of all bathroom shower systems" as examples of design that makes you want to punch yourself in the face.

Orange Swan - you've just sorted Christmas!
posted by stanf at 10:49 AM on September 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Huh.

It's like MeFi, only with objects instead of people...

(I kid, I kid, I love you guys...)
posted by jkaczor at 11:18 AM on September 11, 2017

the triple door is G R E A T and i will hear no words against it
posted by poffin boffin at 11:23 AM on September 11, 2017

regarding the "triple door" - at one time my parents ran large day cares for preschool kids. Like little schools. Most of the interior doors looked a little like that, but with two segments instead of 3.

Turns out the kids do better with segmentation but the employees still need to do a lot of cooperation and interaction.
posted by mce at 11:33 AM on September 11, 2017

Some of these objects are only just slightly further along the spectrum of the many things I interact with on a daily basis that are specifically designed to be suboptimal for lefties. Y'all don't even realize how every piece of cookware with a flared pouring lip has the damn lip on the wrong side for us.
posted by xigxag at 12:17 PM on September 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

slightly further along the spectrum ... specifically designed to be suboptimal for lefties

This.
posted by mce at 12:40 PM on September 11, 2017

Some of these objects are only just slightly further along the spectrum of the many things I interact with on a daily basis that are specifically designed to be suboptimal for lefties. Y'all don't even realize how every piece of cookware with a flared pouring lip has the damn lip on the wrong side for us.

#notallrighthanders
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:55 PM on September 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

So if you're a bad guy that might end up somehow provoking Jackie Chan into fighting your minions I would avoid the triple door at all costs
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 2:35 PM on September 11, 2017 [8 favorites]

I want a series on technically functional objects with baffling design decisions. My exhibit A is the hallway to my research lab, where there is a ramp and a set of stairs right next to each other. At the end of the ramp there is a small landing. Then there is another ramp and set of stairs right next to each other. But they've swapped sides.
posted by brook horse at 3:04 PM on September 11, 2017 [6 favorites]

> "So if you're a bad guy that might end up somehow provoking Jackie Chan into fighting your minions I would avoid the triple door at all costs"

I lost like 500 henchman in five minutes after he picked up one of my goddamn chain-forks.
posted by kyrademon at 3:10 PM on September 11, 2017 [6 favorites]

This would be cool, if they actually made any of these. But AFAICT this is just somebody's CG homework assignment.
posted by mr vino at 3:47 PM on September 11, 2017

Brilliant. I imagine a quadfecta of the key, the triple door, the inflatable doorknob, and the uncomfortable entrance, and it's like coming home on Friday night!
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:48 PM on September 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

But AFAICT this is just somebody's CG homework assignment.

The page has a filter for CGI renders vs. actual prototypes, which implies to me at least that the prototypes have been turned into real versions. Especially since there's some items where there's both a render and a distinct prototype
posted by CrystalDave at 3:55 PM on September 11, 2017

I really like these, but I wish the creator had more new ideas instead of recycling the same few in a variety of forms.
posted by the_blizz at 6:58 PM on September 11, 2017

From the bottom of my heart, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that tea set.
posted by Space Kitty at 9:51 PM on September 11, 2017

This is surprisingly entertaining.
posted by Too-Ticky at 4:21 AM on September 12, 2017

Yeah, I enjoyed this (in a perverse way). It's visually too obvious, but my favorite is the chain fork because while looking at it I have a strong visceral sense of actually picking it up and it flopping around and screaming it's uselessness.

The others I like are the chairs. I have a strong urge to buy two of those leaning forward chairs.

The ableism implication that brook horse points out didn't occur to me at the time, but is very salient. I'm also disabled and there are a number of real-life things that are this way to me.

Speaking of the chair, it recalls something that happened to me last year. Because I can only bend my hips about 20 degrees, sitting down and sitting itself are invariably exercises in difficulty, pain, and frustration. Many cushioned chairs and such I have to fall backward onto.

However, when a chair has arms, I put my weight on my arms and lower my body straight down onto the seat (that's also how I get up). This works better for me than most other chairs... but not always. Last summer at a family gathering, I went to sit down on a plastic unibody chair with arms. Note that I'm not too overweight -- I'm about 180. So, as I started to lower myself down, the chair at the arms broke apart, causing me to fall. Which frightened my family more than it did me. But now I'm always a bit scared of this happening with any armed chair, not just cheap, plastic, sun-brittle unibody ones.

But think about all three of the chairs shown on this site. In different respects, they represent to able people what sitting down is like for many disabled people. It can be almost impossibly difficult, hatefully uncomfortable, or extremely precarious. Or all three at once. At that's just chairs.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:28 AM on September 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

I have a few shirts where those those thick ones would be an upgrade. The killer feature on mine is the 45° chamfer around the inside rim, which ensures that even a slight tug is enough to make it come out of the buttonhole.
posted by Jobst at 6:53 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

this seems like a whole list of "challenge accepted" in my head
posted by numaner at 12:50 PM on September 12, 2017

Seeing the watering can used as a planter kind of dispels the notion of its uselessness, though, doesn't it? I mean, it's useless
as a watering can, which at first glance is its form, but it's perfectly functional as a planter, and even interesting when used as such given the contrast to its apparent form.

How many of the other items here can be made useful by using them in nonobvious ways?
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:44 AM on September 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

I can imagine using the chain fork. You don't push the fork into your food. Instead, you get a good wind-up and whip the tines into your food hard enough to stick. Then you can lift the impaled food up, dangle it into your mouth, and repeat.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 6:40 PM on September 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

That thick cutlery set looks dope.
posted by dhens at 11:31 PM on September 13, 2017