Google Earth Carpets Put The World At Your Feet

Gizmodo AU

Not the most attractive creation, but a clever use of Google Earth nonetheless. This is just one carpet print from German designer David Hanauer, who turned a 2008 university project into a business venture — one that nets him up to 400 euros (~$550) per carpet.

A fascination with photography, contemporary Persian design and Sim City was all Hanauer needed to bring these carpets to life. In an interview with GOOD, Hanauer does his best to explain his inspiration:

Why I’m attracted by this is only because of the top view of things, because in normal life you always walk around with the horizontal view, so you only see the horizontal line. And the thing is when you have the top view you can barely see what things are like, so if it’s a house or a car you just see these graphical elements and colors but you probably don’t get firsthand what it’s really like.

The patterns are mostly of urban locations, but a few, such as the stark “Arctic Woodland” below, offer something more nature-tinged. I see a pair of hairy lips, but I’m odd like that.

WorldWide Carpets [via GOOD]

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(3 Comments)
  • [–]

    Namarrgon

    Sunday, October 9, 2011 at 4:59 PM

    Thank you for leaving it horizontal :-/

  • [–]

    Shreeraj

    Sunday, October 9, 2011 at 11:18 PM

    Ha ha! I see what you did there!

  • [–]

    WhiteDaemon666

    Monday, October 10, 2011 at 10:45 AM

    About the top view vs horizontal, I have about 170 images that I use for my desktop, cycling every 30 seconds. The few top view shots of even more boring cars are sometimes really hard to pick, because of the different perspective.

    /end trivial info/

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