Puppies and Flowers

Museum of London

The new Museum of London logo first appears to be a collation of current logo design trends, but with deeper inspection and research the underlying meaning of the logo is discovered. The organic shapes that make up the logo represent the history of London, showing its growth over time expanding geographically.

Schizophrenic

Another logo that plays in representational symbols while relating heavily to the brand name is the Schizonphrenic logo. Being a medical disorder that often depicts split personalities the logo characterises this with simple shapes that depict a happy and sad face.

Link to rest of collection  [via]

"It was either me or the wife who was going to go in. And I would have been in trouble if the wife went in, so that was it."

As these pictures show, devoted Marc Greenhalgh risked life and limb saving his trapped pet from the middle of a freezing lake.

Mr Greenhalgh, 25, a bricklayer, said he was walking with his wife, Trisha, 24, when the dog ran onto the frozen water while chasing a duck.

But what the pet - named Jarvis - didn't realise, was that the middle of the lake wasn't frozen. And as he bounded across, he fell into the freezing water.

Mr Greenhalgh, who has only had the two-year-old rescued cocker spaniel for the past two months, said:"It certainly wasn't how I planned to start the New Year.

"Me and my wife were walking through the park and the dog was off the lead. He started to chase the ducks and ran straight into the middle of the pond - and into the water.

 

"To start with, we were shouting at him to come out. Then there was a crowd of about 10 or 15 people around all trying to get him out.

"After about five minutes I realised he wasn't coming. We tried a branch but he was too far out.

"So it was either me or the wife who was going to go in. And I would have been in trouble if the wife went in, so that was it."

Mr Greenhalgh said the ice on the Alkrington Woods' lake, in Middleton, Greater Manchester, was thicker than he thought - and the water deeper.

Source

Police seek blow-up doll sex bandit

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man broke into three adult shops, had sex with blow up dolls named "Jungle Jane" and then dumped his plastic conquests in a nearby alley, local media reported Wednesday.

"It's totally bizarre. It's a real concern that someone like that is out on the street," said one of the owners of the adult sex shops in Cairns in northern Queensland state.

"He has been taking the dolls out the back and blowing them up and using the dolls and leaving them in the alley," the owner, who gave the name of Vogue, told the Cairns Post newspaper.

Police told the Cairns Post that scientific officers had taken DNA samples, fingerprints and pictures of the crime scene. Link

400 Russian men and women use inflatable sex dolls as flotation devices on river run

From article: The unusual sporting event was dreamed up by mastermind and organiser Dmitry Bulawinov. He said the idea of floating down the river in the embraces of a rubber woman was conceived as a joke at a party where...

Chinese confuse Russian kids with gender bending dolls

 From englishrussia: Lately some Russian newspapers post photos of these strange Chinese dolls. You can see the scanned piece of article from one Russian regional newspaper. The reason for the panic is that in Russian children toy stores have appeared strange...

An artist’s complicated relationship with her look-alike sex doll

Real Dolls and the men who love them…

Over the last few weeks I've been running into articles on this topic including an excellent documentary by Channel 4. Link to documentary 'Guys and Dolls'. This phenomenom is not to restricted to Japan, if you've watched the video above...

Poupées gonflées! (Mildly NSFW)

This letterpress poster was handcrafted character by character over the course of roughly 100 hours. Characters from the Bickham Script Pro, Engravers MT, and Epic typeface families form the edifice featured in the artwork, the Salt Lake Temple.

Each poster measures 16"x24" and is printed on Crane Lettra Pearl. Letterpressed by Bryce Knudson of Bjørn Letterpress in Provo, Utah.

Spire Detail

Link to Veer

I saw this abandoned mansion last week from the street and went in with my friend Michel as translator in case we ran into anyone. It took a bit of jimmying to force the door, and inside we found piles and piles of of binders and dozens of black and white photos, all showing one man at various political events.

It turns out the mansion used to be the home of Takieddin el-Solh ( 1908 - 1988) Lebanese Sunni politician who served as Prime Minister from 1973-74, and 1980. The binders were full of voter lists and various political documents. I'm assuming he abandoned the place during the civil war and moved to a more secure location. The house is in the Sunni section, but was within easy artillery distance of the Green Line.

Link to CraigFinlay's Flickr Set

Link

Similar to the 'Bubble Project' in New York

As far as I can tell, this is the original poster. 

From IMBd:

Media from The Birds (1963)

Things Magazine have a great collection of Pelican Books' covers spanning the last century. Amazing stuff. These samples are from the 1960's.

PHILADELPHIA - Renowned American artist Andrew Wyeth, famous for landscapes of his native Pennsylvania and Maine, died on Friday, according to a spokeswoman for the Brandywine River Museum near his home.

Wyeth, who was 91, died in his sleep early in the morning, surrounded by his family and friends, after a brief illness, the museum said in a statement.

He is best known for "Christina's World" (1948), in which a disabled woman appears to be striving to cross a largely empty landscape. It was painted, like many of his other works, in egg tempera, a technique that he said forced him to slow down the execution of a painting.

This keyboard was commissioned by a couple of friends of mine from back east (NJ) who are avid Scrabble players. Most of the keys are made from real Scrabble tiles that were all hand-beveled (truly an exercise in patience/masochism!) and built onto a USB, clicky, mechanical-switch keyboard. This keyboard was going into a Mac environment so I decided to use brushed aluminum for the casing and round all of the corners to keep with the sleek, simple Macintosh styling. Near the end of the build, I decided that the keyboard looked a little too minimalist so I added some silver hardware and a seam to put a slightly industrialized twist on the design. 

Link to product site

From Scott Beale over at Laughing Squid:

Timed with today’s Inauguration, Bush Street signs in San Francisco were changed to Obama down the entire length of Bush Street from Presidio to Battery.

Link to "obamastreetsign" flickr set

Noisy interactive posters were designed by DM9DDB to promote Saxsofunny, a sound production company from Brazil.

Found at toxel.com

Here are some samples of his more whimsical work:

PINOCCHIO // WASHING LINE // OUTLOOK DESIGN ITALIA 

BIGFOOT // SCALE // OUTLOOK DESIGN ITALIA

BIGNUT // HEADREST-BALL // OUTLOOK DESIGN ITALIA

Link to castiglionemorellidesign.it

 Continuing on the theme of Industrial Design, here is:

A peek at the upcoming design documentary "Objectified", by Gary Hustwit, the director of "Helvetica". The trailer features the voices of Jonathan Ive, Andrew Blauvelt, Marc Newson, and Karim Rashid. The song is "I Like Van Halen Because My Sister Says They Are Cool" by El Ten Eleven.

Objectified premieres at film festivals and events worldwide starting this March, more info here: www.objectifiedfilm.com

Very cute handcrafted ceramic vases. Each one is unique and sells for $39.99.

Link to ModernArtisans  [via 7 Gadgets]

Link to Poster Boy's Flickr Set. [Via Wooster Collective]

These posters are from from the folks at HolyTaco.com where they also have send-ups of ads and tv shows.

This shot was taken yesterday by a co-worker/friend of mine, Heath T, the line is for a job at Specialtys, a cafe and bakery chain.

 From Fecal Face interview:

I like juxtapositions. Putting blue on top of red is fun for me. Life and the world can be pretty dark but I believe, all in all, in good, even when it's bad. I see the bright neon colors like too much sugar. Like the way too much happy, makes you sick to your stomach. Not sure why I'm attracted to that. Life is brutal yet so awesome and great! I think I'm trying to paint what I cannot to say. 

Link to Joshua Petker's gallery

See also:

• The Paintings of Francoise Nielly
• Mixed media illustrations of Russ Mills

Excellent collection of numbers photographed on the streets of Budapest.
From Zsolt Molnár's blog:

This is my typo-photographic project that I started in Summer 2008, focusing on the typographical diversity of Budapest’s street numbers. On this blog I will post a number each day in 2009. 365 different types of street numbers hopefully.

Link to Budapest36.

Only three episodes so far but this site looks very promising.

Link to Old Jews Telling Jokes