Pink Manatee

It’s been hard to resist a coffee-to-go for the commute home or the cold walk to work this winter, but the guilt of all those cardboard cups does weigh heavy.

Well, no longer; Starbucks are set to introduce a new reusable plastic cup. Costing just $1 (roll-out is only to the US and Canada - so far), the eco-friendly cup saves you 10 cents every time you use it and has lines on the inside to denote Tall and Grande so your barista knows where to aim.

It’ll be interesting to see how - and if - this changes customers habits. My desk is covered in half-filled loyalty cards that I forget to take with me when I go for coffee or a burrito and I’m expecting much the same with the cups! 

“Do superhero blockbusters supercharge comic store sales?”

Though I don’t like the actual infographic - is there any need for such microscopic text? - the information presented here is interesting. Well, if you’re a comic book/film fan anyway.

(Infographic designed by Column Five for Intuit)

Most people will have seen Twitter’s new ‘bird’ logo, but here’s a really interesting article about the logo’s progression, the lack of lettering and how the new design (like many others) uses geometry and the ‘Perfect Ratio’ to be more pleasing on the eye.

Councils & property developers are failing their cities

Though some of the examples in this great article over at The Cool Hunter are pretty questionable (they will look dogshit in 10 years), I wholeheartedly agree with the premise. Leeds, the city that I’ve always lived near and recently moved to, is full of stunning buildings, new and old. But the city was known for a time for being the birthplace of a style that I won’t even go as far as calling architecture.

Does the building enhance the surrounding area or make it worse? Will the building still look great 10, 15 or 20 years from now?

With the growth of the financial sector in the 1980’s, new buildings sprang up around Leeds to house them. An interim style hailing the city’s Victorian heritage was adopted, complete with orange-red brickwork, steeply sloped roofs of slate, the style spread through the country and is almost universally hated. Still applied to modern apartment blocks, cheap-looking new-build banks and everything inbetween, the style is barely any better than the concrete blocks that dominated in the 60’s and 70’s.

Yet for some reason, property developers and council councils still allow these characterless, ugly buildings - and countless other of equally soulless styles - to be built. 

We see property developers rushing to get their building up, wanting to make a quick sale and profit, and not really caring or thinking about the aesthetics of the building.

While I don’t think our streets should be littered with gimmicky clusters of mis-shapes, I’d love to see some originality, some care put into new buildings. Something that will highlight the beautiful British buildings we already have, something that will bring people and services to flocking to buy, improving areas all over. And something that won’t look terrible in 10 years - after all, we’re the ones who have to look at and work in them.

If you’re looking for something for the walls of your living room, you could do much worse than taking a look at the Hello Poster Show. Not only are there dozens of amazing looking prints, but each one is limited to 30 and - perhaps best of all - the money raised through sales supports charities and goes back into the community.

Great art, great causes. Lovely, really, isn’t it?

While certainly not the in-depth, detailed website that I was hoping for, this is a very pretty reminder of some basic web design principles that often get forgotten. Well, if you’re using a webkit browser that is. Otherwise it just doesn’t work.