business card design

here's a peek at a few of the 70 business card designs featured on fubiz.net. so inspiring!

history of graphic design

the designhistory.org site was created by nancy stock-allen for the moore college of art & design and the university of the arts in philadelphia. it's very brief but gives a good overview of many aspects of graphic design.

KOR ONE

the KOR ONE "hydration vessel" aims to redefine the bottled water experience. i'm not crazy about the dramatic product name but you've got to give them credit for encouraging people to stop purchasing bottled water by designing a bottle that meets the aesthetic and functional needs of its user. it has similar features of other high quality portable water bottles and includes some unique elements such as a rubber base for protection and a hinged cap that won't get lost.

light-emitting wallpaper

wow. see more designs on the jonas samson website.

before we go any further...

you should know just how cheesy i am...i love watching so you think you can dance and especially this performance. there, i said it.

bottled water

check out this informative fast company article about the our dependence on bottled water. here's an excerpt from the article:

Bottled water is the food phenomenon of our times. We--a generation raised on tap water and water fountains--drink a billion bottles of water a week, and we're raising a generation that views tap water with disdain and water fountains with suspicion. We've come to pay good money--two or three or four times the cost of gasoline--for a product we have always gotten, and can still get, for free, from taps in our homes.

A chilled plastic bottle of water in the convenience-store cooler is the perfect symbol of this moment in American commerce and culture. It acknowledges our demand for instant gratification, our vanity, our token concern for health. Its packaging and transport depend entirely on cheap fossil fuel. Yes, it's just a bottle of water--modest compared with the indulgence of driving a Hummer. But when a whole industry grows up around supplying us with something we don't need--when a whole industry is built on the packaging and the presentation--it's worth asking how that happened, and what the impact is. And if you do ask, if you trace both the water and the business back to where they came from, you find a story more complicated, more bemusing, and ultimately more sobering than the bottles we tote everywhere suggest.

i can't help but wonder...if designers can make such a significant impact on people's choices between different bottled water brands and packaging, do they have the ability to take the coolness factor out of purchasing and drinking it? what if they created a compelling campaign to deter people from using it at all...or came up with a realistic alternative? is that possible at this point? some people are trying. check out the tap project.