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At first glance, Philippe Starck's $2,000 light fixture for Flos looks classically elegant -- until you notice its gilt base is a copy of an AK-47; it's called the Domestic Violence lamp.

There are literally flies on the wall with Scot designers Timorous Beasties' Insect wallpaper, while designer Charles Trevelyan's Titanic table lamp appears to be sinking beneath the table.

Describing something as "looking funny" was never much of a compliment in the world of design and aesthetics. Yet suddenly, design seems to have acquired a sense of humour, as the newest decorative offerings appear to have been designed to be in-house comedians.

Sometimes the joke is a witty juxtaposition of materials, as with Jonathan Adler's dollar-bill rugs and wood-grain needlepoint pillows. Sometimes, it's a stroke of absurdity, as with Marcel Wanders's "Snotty" vases, designed to look like bits of dried, airborne mucus. Then there's Floater's giant thumbtack table lamp (about $50, widely available) and Harry Allen's hooks that are plastic hands coming out of the wall (about $25-$200 at Moule in Winnipeg, Artworks in Edmonton and Designhouse in Vancouver and Victoria).

And some designs are as cerebral and significant as a work of conceptual art.

The first signs of this merry-prankster school of design can be traced back to the early nineties when Dutch collective Droog (or "dry," as in dry wit) Design first introduced such arresting pieces as Tejo Remy's brilliant and seminal Rag chair, a seat built entirely from scraps of fabric, or his Chest of Drawers, an assembly of random cast-off drawers tied together with an enormous belt. For Droog's appropriately dry and cerebral Renny Ramakers, finding something funny is far from frivolous.

"There is often this self-importance to design," Ramakers says. "But products that have a sense of humour have some humanity. There are a lot of nice things out there to buy. But things with personality and humour are reflective. They offer some of ourselves back to us in a positive way."

Davide Tonizzo's Graffiti table has the accidental charm of a surface that has been absentmindedly doodled on. Even Ikea is thinking outside the (flat) box, with a new PS collection of whacked-out ironing board tables and map rugs that values whimsy and humour over mere form and function.

In the opinion of Toronto-based interior designer William Anderson, who actively encourages his clients to introduce their own humour and personality into their interiors, the best of these new designs "actually go beyond wit and humour into social statement."

Consider Starck's garden gnome end tables for Kartell, which are not only funny, but also a brilliant commentary on low-culture kitsch.

For Martin Myers of Toronto's Quasi Modo Design, who sells Kartell's pieces to "clients who are moving into their first loft condos as well as people who are adding them to their mansions in Forest Hill and Rosedale," their send-up of furniture is what makes them so accessible. "I'm hearing a lot of, 'why not?' " Myers says. "Right now, we seem to want things bright and fun, and these pieces are putting a smile on people's faces."

Harry Wakefield, the Montreal-based founder and editor of design website MoCoLoco.com, sees humour as an essential feature of design's democratization. "When something is funny, it's a visual metaphor that's compelling," he says. 'It communicates immediately what it is and everybody can be in on the joke."

The light-hearted approach of a piece that makes you laugh is also refreshing. For Calgary interior designer Monica Stevens, the humorous design vogue is "absolutely a reaction to the severity of all of these clean, modern, spare interiors."

Jonathan Sabine, a designer who's part of Toronto's Vest Collective, agrees. "Often the world of design can become so ideological and its rules so stringent that a sort of ironic deconstruction takes place," says Sabine, who thinks that "a little irreverence can help us all enjoy things a little more." He adds, "To me, this is what really fuelled postmodern design in the 1980s, and is part of what is going on today."

Another important influence is what is happening in the world of fashion. "Now, just like with how we dress, it's all about individual expression," Stevens says. "In the same way that nobody wears head-to-toe Prada any more, today in decor it's about how original and how creative we can be."

For Harry Wakefield, this a most welcome turn of events. "Design has been a very serious and staid business for a long time," he says. "But now that designers are waking up to the idea that we can use design to say things in an elegant and functional way, it's actually approaching the realm of art."

According to Wakefield, what the emergence of this trend shows is that "design has taken over the responsibility of bringing art to the masses" -- a larger trend of design as functional art that, in his view, is one that's here to stay.

For William Anderson, design's new role is exactly what the doctor ordered. "Given the lifestyles we're leading, I would encourage people 100 per cent to add anything that makes you smile, makes you feel good or throws a twist into your environment," Anderson says. "You want to be enriched and surprised and start having a conversation with your space."

And as for those who might prefer the meditative sanctuary of an interior without as much personality, Anderson says, "You can be calm and meditative when you sleep."