Attention design nerds! Here’s a new blog that will have you laughing your fonts off. Clients From Hell features anonymous stories about the incompetent people and projects graphic designers have dealt with. The vignettes deal with anything from stupid misunderstandings—“After I sent a client a mockup with lorem ipsum as filler text [they responded] ‘It’s good but there is a weird language on the page. It will either need to be translated or removed.’”— to clients who fancy themselves better designers than you: “Hi, I was having a word with my nephew last night, who’s a bit of a web designer himself and I have a few new ideas for the site…”

It’s a Helvetica good time. [Clients From Hell Tumblr]

This awesome concept entails recycling your cassette tapes to let them shine on. [Unplggd]

If you end up back at a guy’s house, take a trip to the toilet, and see he’s got this gas mask shower head designed by Chris Dimino, you may want to run screaming from the premises. [Apartment Therapy]

If you have been waiting for the right escargot packing made out of colored snail poop to come along, today, my friend, is your lucky day. For reasons that will surely forever remain a mystery, designer Manuel Jouvin decided the ideal container for holding escargot is made from colorized snail droppings. So, he partnered up with a French snail farmer (my dream profession), and set about feeding colored paper to snails. Then, the snails pooped a rainbow of colors. Jouvin turned that, er, substance into escargot packaging. Ah, the French. So creative. In any case, maybe not something you want to try at your next dinner party. [NOTCOT]

We get it with the whole parenting thing—once you have a kid, the house goes from something like looking like a Design Within Reach showroom to a backdrop for a Disney cartoon. For the parent who wishes to maintain a high-design pad, there’s a litany of concept toys out there on the market—like these Home On The Go dollhouses, which feature streamlined, Jetson-esque miniatures in artistic color schemes. Either, the kid who plays with this has one heck of an imagination ... or she grows up with a cold, cynical outlook on what constitutes a warm, friendly home.

What’s that, honey? You wanted a Malibu Barbie Dream House? Sorry dear, it clashes with the Eames rocking chair. [Swiss-Miss.com]

Designers Vladimir Tsesler and Sergei Voichenko designed this seat, called the Living Chair, which has apparently been subjected to some etiquette training and knows not to sit with its legs wide open. [Tsesler via Trend Hunter]

The Dell Design Studio has just issued Product Red, a new line of laptop covers created by cool artists where part of the proceeds go to the Global Fund to help combat and eliminate AIDS in Africa. Photographer Ben Grieme created a series of beautiful ombre color gradations (like the one above), Klaus Haapaniemi designed whimsical wallpaper-like patterns based on the four seasons, and Takashi Kusui was inspired to create gorgeous abstract prints to “demonstrate the innate energy of the continent of Africa and Mother Earth.” Check out the entire collection here. If you’re in the market for a new computer and/or an art buyer, it’s a worthwhile add-on. [Full disclosure: Ben Grieme is a dear friend of mine and he’s rad. And yes, he paid me to write that last bit. Hollah!]

There’s an uproar in New Zealand over some bathrooms being built on the waterfront in the capital of Wellington. The unisex bathrooms are meant to resemble crayfish, but some are saying they look more like fallopian tubes or Madonna’s famous cone-shaped bustier (which was recently immortalized in necklace form). The design was the winning entry from a competition between 30 young designers from an architecture school, and it will cost about $278,000 to build. What do you think the bathrooms resemble? We’re not sure they remind us of Madonna’s bustier, but they certainly are bizarre-looking. [The Dominion Post, Sydney Morning Herald]

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Enough with trying to reform teenagers. Here’s a design by Deger Cengiz called the “Attitude Chair,” which he says, “is developed for teens with attitude; prevents falling when the chair is tipped back.” Someone’s gotta watch out for those punks. [swissmiss]

When Karen Ryan says she’s got a lot on her plate, she means it. The U.K.-based artist illustrates the phrase literally with charming second-hand plates emblazoned with “anger,” “fear,” “guilt,” and “hate.” Meant to expose the domestic conscience, the removal of whatever decorative pattern the dishes come with symbolically reveals harsher truths. Can you imagine the sweet revenge of handing a plate full of food to a frenemy who finds the message on the bottom? Of course, there are some positive slogans, like “beauty” and “beloved,” which may be more fitting for those relationships you handle with care. [NOTCOT.org]

Voilà the iBum by designer Tomomi Sayuda. A chair with a photocopier in its seat, the piece of furniture automatically revs up when someone sits in it, ejecting a copy of their derriere from the bottom. A must for immature 12-year-old boys, butt fetishists, and anyone who’s ever been bored at the office. [Geekologie.com]

Coca-Cola is no stranger to makeovers. Yet, these vintage cans are so cool, that maybe the brand should consider going back to one of its old looks. Pop art has never gone out of style. Then again, neither has Coke. [Inspiredology.com]

Wow. These accessories are weird. Central St. Martins design student Anna Schwamborn has created a line of “mourning objects” jewelry that is intended to help grieving survivors after a loved one passes. What’s a fashionista to do in the wake of a death? Why, make jewelry out of the deceased, of course! Shudder. Schwamborn’s awesome resume—she’s worked with Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood—certainly helped her on the path to out-there designs. In this case, the London-based designer uses the hair and cremains of the dearly departed to fashion human-based wearable art. The human ashes are combined with black bone china to make the harder parts of what she calls “post-mortem memorial pieces.” So, um, why would you want to wear bits of a dead someone? “The objects are supposed to be worn close to the body of the mourner,” says Schwamborn, “symbolizing a lasting physical connection between two individuals even after death.” The pieces include a necklace, a rosary, and, fittingly, a “tear catcher.” [Dezeen]

Nick Olsen, former Domino blogger and an assistant designer to the amazingness that is Miles Redd, came up with a list of first-timer decorating mistakes forThe Washington Post. Now, since I’ve painted and re-done my bedroom no less than four times over the past year, I considered myself to be over that beginner mistake hump. Ha, think again. As I went down his totally-helpful list, I realized that at one point in my life or another (and even right now, as I look up at a mirror hung horizontally over my couch) I’ve made every single one of the mistakes! Live and learn, I guess—but check his list out, it’s totally solid design advice! [The Washington Post]

This converted mannequin created by Detroit-based designer Bob Turek is causing quite the blogosphere kerfuffle. In case you’re not clear as to what the heck is going on here, Turek remixed a mannequin torso into an MP3 player. Ergo, those are speakers in her boobs, plugged in care of her hoo-ha. As Turek explains: “As part of my object remix series, this stereo forces the music source into the center of attention and creates a radically new user interface.” Interface. Is that what the kids are calling it these days? Unfortunately, some people—some ladies—aren’t too happy with Turek’s transforming the female form into a stereo. Jezebel cries misogyny: “[I]t’s a headless, armless woman whose breasts and vagina are being used to provide power and sound for trivial things.” Boing Boingers are going at it in the comments: “Woman as a faceless functional object. That’s not such a new idea.” I think it’s much ado about nothing. I call for a commenter catfight!

Pharrell Williams has gotten fresh in recording studios and now even in a design studio. The Neptunes producer and N.E.R.D front man likes to keep gettin’ busy.  By the looks of this piece he just designed with Domeau & Pérès entitled Perspective Chair, we’ve gotten some insight into how he likes to work it too.  Pharrell said his inspiration for the butt rest was based on a lingering fantasy: “I had often wondered what it’s like to truly be in love, not lust for once.”  Can we collaborate on the lingering fantasy?  [Trend Hunter]