Funny and Harmless (6 Photos)

September 10, 2026

By Vidar

A library for dogs. A road sign for Mario. A better use for the ordinary.

These six works add humor and color to everyday places. Sometimes all it takes is a pair of eyes.

More: Someone Gave the City Eyes and It’s Perfect (17 Photos)

🩺 A Wise Doctor Once Wrote

The board promises a wise quotation, then delivers two lines of unreadable handwriting.

💡 Nerd Fact: A 1996 study published in the BMJ compared handwriting from 209 healthcare professionals, including 82 doctors, using a ten-second writing task. Four raters found the doctors’ handwriting no less legible than that of the other participants.

More: Funny Signs (12 Photos)

🐕 Dog Library

A wooden sign reads “Take a stick, leave a stick.” The little library sits beside a tree, with plenty of branches for the next dog passing through.

More: Dog Library: Take a Stick, Leave a Stick

🎮 Mario on a Road Sign — By Pappas Pärlor in Sweden 🇸🇪

Pappas Pärlor adds a seated fuse-bead Mario to a diagonal arrow, turning it into a slope from a video game. The Swedish artist, Johan Karlgren, began making bead art with his children before bringing his figures into public space.

💡 Nerd Fact: Mario’s original design had to fit into 16 × 16 pixels. In a Nintendo interview, Shigeru Miyamoto explained that the moustache removed the need to draw a mouth, while the overalls made Mario’s moving arms easier to distinguish from his body.

More: When Retro Games Hit the Street (15 Photos)

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👀 A Pole With a Smile — By Vanyu Krastev in Bulgaria 🇧🇬

The gap above the loose access panel looks like an open mouth. Two plastic eyes above it give the battered pole a delighted expression. Krastev’s Eyebombing Bulgaria project uses existing imperfections to make faces.

More: Someone Gave the City Eyes and It’s Perfect (17 Photos)

🔗 Follow Vanyu Krastev on Instagram

🧩 Mosaic Street Repair — By Ememem in Lyon, France 🇫🇷

Rows of circles, squares and patterned tiles follow the ragged edges of this pavement gap. Ememem calls this practice flacking, from flaque, the French word for puddle.

💡 Nerd Fact: Ememem says his alias imitates the sound of his motorcycle when he sets off to make a street mosaic. He adopted the name when he began flacking in 2016.

More: Repairing Streets (10 Photos)

🔗 Follow Ememem on Instagram

🏸 A Little Help? — By David Zinn in Michigan, USA 🇺🇸

A bear and a squirrel wait beside a badminton net drawn across the pavement in Zinn’s 2021 chalk drawing. Their shuttlecock has landed at our end of the path. Someone with longer legs needs to fetch it.

More: Silly Art By David Zinn (20 Photos)

🔗 Follow David Zinn on Instagram