Jack-O-Alcohol

Halloween Design Project from Instructables:

Wine Bottle Jack-O-Lanterns

The beauty of Wind power

 

I had this beautiful photograph saved in my phone that I just had to share after my green design post. I didn't expect to feel such joy and excitement to see wind mills, but this sight was jaw dropping. My husband and I found these on the ride home camping at Letchworth State Park, we had to take a detour route and these were the first few of many wind mills that captivated us. Just 30 minutes south of my house in the middle of nowhere, looked to be a hundred or so wind mills. Go WNY wind power!

Green Design : Cardboard Straws

 

An interesting utensil found at  Ted's Montana Grill, while visiting Denver, Colorado, was these cardboard straws. An easily disposable straw? I didn't even think about straws not being biodegradable and how truly wasteful plastic straws are to our environment. I mean just think, every time you go to a restaurant you're probably going to use one. As for the green product functionality there is a interesting feel to the lips when you first use one. It does not get cold like a plastic straw and it has a better chance of sticking to wet lips but those are just small sacrifices to upgrading to green design. Earth friendly is always the way to go. I can't wait to find these in the grocery stores and in more restaurants, until then I'm going to make an effort to skip drinking out of straws, what wrong with drinking out from the glass anyway?

Dave's Thick And Juicy

 

So my husband and I went to Wendy's to try Dave's beefy burger. Honestly we were impressed, attention to detail was definitely there in packaging and flavor. Real flavor, real food, and a cute box totally worth $5.

Fall Claw

Inspiration from nature- Japanese maple leaf curls into a haunting claw.

A chair to drink about

Lets sit, relax, and enjoy a classic design made from a deliciously refreshing material.

Made from 111 recycled plastic Coke bottles, the 111 Navy Chair® (1944/2009) is the result of a special collaboration between Emeco and Coca-Cola. It took four years of research, design and materials testing to create this chair, which is a plastic version of the iconic 1006 Navy® Chair. Designed to have the attributes of the original aluminum version – strength, durability and comfort – the 111 Navy Chair expands the collection by offering color and a bit of pop (no pun intended). The Navy Chair design constitutes the proprietary Trade Dress of Emeco. Made in U.S.A..

• The production of this chair is expected to keep three million plastic Coke bottles out of landfills each year.
• Suitable for outdoor and commercial use.
• One of the few plastic chairs to be built with leg stretchers, the 111 Navy will stand up to frequent use.

dwr.com

Loose the pouch!

 

I was amazed at how durable and eye catching this ketchup packing was, go Heinz for being innovative.

Designed for Back to school

I remember went back to school folders only had kittens and puppies or it was a classic matte paper folder. These days we have options. Check out these eco-friendly binders, folders, and notebooks from Target.

 

Smartwool Socks Packaging

Cute and sweet, and makes a statement without creating a lot of waste. Find these socks and its eye catching packaging at your local sports store.

Late July Packaging

Late July is the organic branch to the Cape Cod potato chip company. The Cape Cod and Chatham Village company was started in the 80's and 90's by the Bernard family. Since then they have been able to produce and sell delicious, sustainable, and responsible products.

Shown here is a view of their chip line, but Late July also makes sandwich crackers (the cracker packaging is just as beautiful). I haven't purchased any Late July crackers but I've heard that some crackers are shaped like animals and collect proceeds to help protect the animals they are shaped. One more example from Late July of great design.

Beer six pack individual packaging Concept

Also from the Dieline, a new six pack concept design by Trace Thoma.

Love it, except how do you carry it?

Potato chips never looks so hip

Love this chip packaging design it eliminates the loud crunchy noise from digging into chip bags, and its used more like a bowl or plate. A beautiful design both in function and aesthetics.

See close up pictures of this packaging at the TheDieline.

Dipping into Visual communication

Loving Lays sweet design.

iCrew Bike Navigation System

iCrew for iPhone mount by Color Tokyo.
Keep riding strong with iCrew an iPhone mount that straps onto your bike so you can use your phone for listening to music or navigating yourself through the city.

You can mount your iPhone in a vertical or horizontal fashion with this gadget.

Get it Here!

Visual Communication for St. Patricks Day

 

Available at Walmart

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Single Serving Wine Glasses

“Wine Innovations developed this ingenious concept of a single serving wine glasses called The Tulip. Just like a container of yogurt it has a peal-off foil lid. The wine is sealed using patented technology to maintain wine quality and to give a shelf life of over 1 year. The wine glass are filled with red, white or rose wine and is made from plastic so there are no worries of broken glass.”

http://www.boxvox.net/2010/11/single-serve-stemware-packs.html

Crosswalk Advertising

Create Kitchen Magic with a Spice Wand

When you need to be magical in the kitchen, dash your spices from this magic spice wand.

From Chinese designer Arthur Xinis called The Magic Sapor.

Iams Ad idea

Okay we show this photo, then we mention something about superman.
Love it!

 Maybe something like this...

My kitty the superstar!

How to Photograph Beverages

Should you work for free flowchart

Visit ShouldIWorkForFree.com to find your answer

4th Amendment Underclothes

Protect and voice your rights when going through airport security scanners (TSA body scanners) with metallic ink printed clothing.

Underwear, tee-shirts, and socks are available in men's, women's and children's sizes at http://4thamendment.myshopify.com/ (price ranges from $19-$45)

The HR Motor Cycle Gang

So, I’m laying awake in bed at three in the morning worrying about my phone interview last Thursday. “Did I say the right things; did it sound like I was smiling; could she smell the fear?,” only to come to the conclusion that I never do well with interviews conducted with a company’s Human Resources Department or as I like to call it HR.

HR is like a motorcycle gang in the way between you and a delicious burger. You are walking up to the burger shop confident this is the place for you. You’ve dressed the part, researched the place and attempted a reservation. You already know the burgers are delicious, they were established in 1964, their parent company is Burgers-with-More-Money, they went green in 2007, and they design the best burgers with integrity, accountability, and intelligence. You’re mouth is watering.

But before you can get inside you have to get through a wall of intimidating motorcyclists: The HR Motor Cycle Gang. There are some bikers that will see you and greet you with a warm smile, and others that judge you with their experienced eyes. You walk closer and hit the first line of attack, the young ones. In most cases they are extremely bubbly, and they know all the right answers, but want to hear them from you. You begin with a warm greeting, but they immediately get to the point. You just started talking but the mouth that was once watering is now drooling as you stumble over your first few words. She asked the basics, you’ve answered fairly well but still have to force a smile to calm the eerie mood. She may have seen your efforts to recover, but she is digging into her mind to see if you scored high enough to get her engine moving. She leads you closer to the beef but only so much that you can smell the char-grill smoke. You get excited and start sweating.

Walking passed the shiny bikes you feel your heart beating faster. Will you be able to calm yourself, will the next person see that I’m sweating; do I smell bad? The second line of attack is the defensive line and they look ready. They have been seasoned and know what a bad burger looks like. The questions are harder and you lost your cool when you started sweating. You’re wondering about how you look when you should be worrying about what is coming out of your mouth. But your mind is circling around how to get yourself comfortable in your new surroundings. He asks you a question that is so simple you have no answer, there is a long silence and you give him the deer in the headlights look. You mumble out your words while fighting the “real world answers” in your head versus the positive “interview answers” you should be saying. Are you losing it? What’s happening? Is the smell of buns, beef and warm cheese clogging your thoughts? Doesn’t he know that you are great yet, that you work harder than anyone you know, that you prepped so hard for this moment that you played classical music on the ride here while asking to yourself “common” interview questions you practiced all week that you’re not hearing yet? Wait, what did I just say? I can’t remember. I feel sick, and I’m drooling again.

The Queen Bee, she’s here, she just walked in, and she looks damn nasty. She can smell you for sure. “I love burgers, I love burgers, I mean I love your burgers, yes, your burgers. They are the best in town, they will feed my family, bring joy to my life, and I will find happiness here you if you let me.” “What’s your salary,” asks Queen Bee.  “## thousand,” your voice comes out like a whisper. She makes a face, what is that face? I feel a chill. “Oh…, oh I’m sorry; I didn’t see that in your paperwork, we are not hiring a Senior Burger Enjoyer, the position was for a Junior Burger Enjoyer, I apologize.” WHAT! After all this I asked for too much money? I need a job, I fell in love with your burgers already, I can’t turn back, you have stolen a piece of my heart, and I was so close. I was in the price range per burgerenjoyer.com, Burger Magazine and the department of labor. I just aimed high expecting you to bargain with me, not shoot me down. I don’t know how to play this game…uh, how do I save this? “Am I over qualified?” Queen Bee responds, “No, we were just looking for someone between smaller##thousand to smaller##thousand price range.” “Well that range is definitely workable for me” “So you would take smallest##thousand?” Silence short enough to think, but too long to win Queen Bee’s assurance of approval. “Yes.” 

Uh, so, I leave you here sleepless one now almost seven in the morning. Am I dreaming, or am I lying in bed worrying. “We’ll contact you in a week or two, we have several more interviews to conduct”, she said.

You did your best but a delicious burger will not be in your future anytime soon. The HR bikers have a hundred more folks to rip apart and you barely made it out alive. The good news is you survived; the sad news is that you get to do this all over again and “hopefully” soon. 

Keep your engines vrooming folks, you’re not alone, you may not know it but we’re a gang of our own. There is a lot of us right now, The Unemployed, but don’t let that get you down. You’ll find your place; it’s just going to be hard this time. The road is rocky so put on your helmet and before you know it you’ll be feasting.

______________________

Side Note: This nightmare could  be a good concept for an ad campaign; maybe for a business that helps people with their interviewing skills, with a tag-line like, "Take the fear away from HR" or something like that. See my Photoshop work for this story above.

Tim Hortons Product Design

That's right, its a heart shaped donut from Tim Hortons, "is there really a better way to say I love you", um..probably but this one is pretty cute.

Dry-erase paint

Cute packaging for a great product.

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Tv art

Finding beauty when Hulu freezes

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Polish graphic tee

$1.49 polish graphic tee from Amvests, grandma would be proud.

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Book Review: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

The book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell is just one of his well known works. He is also the author of The Tipping Point, a book about science and chaos theories and hopefully a book I will be reading in the near future. Yet, Blink is a book written about the power of thinking without thinking. What does that mean you ask? It's about the snap-judgments or slices of thoughts that we make without our control. In my understanding of it, it almost seemed that snap judgments where "learned thoughts" through our environment. It was the stuff we might have learned through a situation, such as, a stressful time, or through the influence of others. Such as manners, racism, and common likes or dislikes. It's our first two seconds of thinking that we have learned so well it hits us in a instant. Other interesting topics within the book include mind-reading, speed dating, and selling cars. Gladwell talks about how we can better understand each other without words and know what to look for in a person’s face or body jesters.

Gladwell's Blink had a very interesting chapter, Chapter 5: Kenna's Dilemma: The Right - and Wrong- Way to Ask People What They Want. Throughout the chapter he talked about, Kenna, a musician that couldn't seem to get a solid record deal  because he could not get enough fans in "x" amount of time. And throughout the chapter Gladwall branches into the subject of Coke versus Pepsi and how Pepsi is the better soda at the first sip and not by the glass. The idea is that it takes time to make decisions about products and peoples actions, like 10 minutes or so to realize that you're being tricked or scammed. And sometimes we still don't even know what we want. In Gladwell's TED video I remember listening to a talk about marketing tests for spaghetti sauces. The tests would ask "Did you like a thin sauce or a thick sauce" and the results were all over the map. Because people made snap judgments about how their sauce should look versus its taste or texture. Many Italians like the sauce thin to coat the noodles at the bottom, because that was the traditional way sauce was made; even though the thick sauce was better favored. It wasn't until the company thought people just needed something difference altogether and added meat. People didn't know that they should like meat sauce or not by Ragu showed them the way.

Thoughts no matter how quick they come to us have been learned. It’s our way of protecting ourselves when we have little time to think- it’s or Fight or Flight mechanism. Although this book at first seemed to start telling the same storyline over and over, each story had great points that can be used to better understand product design, research statistics, and marketing/advertising; which is why I would recommend Blink by Malcolm Gladwell to any designer looking for answers and better results.

Christmas product display

Very eye catching in the beer store of cold looking shelving and fridges. You go Blue Moon!

Beautiful place cards by Timeless Paper

 

By Timeless Paper Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Everything is Ok Poster by Jason Munn

Visual Lie. Get your poster here.