USA Today's pop culture blog, Pop Candy by Whitney Matheson mentions The Look Book (new from HOW) in today's post. 

She says:  "I'm also reading: A gorgeous book just came out called The Look Book by Chris Sickels (HOW Books, $17.99). It's somewhere between a children's book and an art book—he does this amazing 3-D illustrations that remind me of Tim Burton movies and the Neighborhood of Make-Believe."

Posted by Megan

Every town has its share of terrible logos, but Philadelphia's Gyro Worldwide decided to do something about it by sponsoring the Philly's Worst Logo competition. They rounded up a bunch of bad logos then asked everyone to vote. The "winning" logo was redesigned by Gyro's crack team of interns and the results are actually pretty good.

Before

After

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HP and MTV have teamed up for a global design competition that challenges young people to express their interests in a design for a new limited edition notebook computer. What's really cool is that the winner will be invited to attend the MTV Europe Music Awards in Munich, Germany, and travel to several HP sites, including Tokyo and Houston, to witness his or her design as it makes its way through the notebook development process.

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Designers Andy Mueller, Jennifer Pitt and Kevin Fernley of The Quiet Life (a little creative side project for the trio) have teamed up with Lakai Limited Footwear on a sweet limited-edition collection of skateboard-y shoes.

The deadline for HOW's biggest and most prestigious competition has been extended to Sept. 17. Enter now and see your work in the International Design Annual.

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To celebrate its fifth anniversary Veer is running a fun promotion: spend $500 on photography, illustration or type and get $100 towards cool Veer merch. Click here for all the details, then check out cool goods like the Kern jacket, Swash buckle or Helvetica mug.

Posted by Megan

Minneapolis-based Duffy & Partners unveiled a new logo brand identity, for the "Breast Cancer 3 Day" 60 mile walk event, in conjunction with its’ 5th anniversary which took place on August 3-5, in Boston, August 10-12 Chicago, August 17-19 Cleveland, August 24-26, and will take place on September 7-9 in Seattle Washington 2007. This new identity is just one piece in a larger, overall rebranding of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation into Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Posted by Megan

The color masters at PANTONE have just announced a whole new color-matching system called PANTONE Goe (pronounced go). The new system will be available Oct. 1, 2007, but you can read more about it here. A couple of interesting features of Goe include more than 2,000 new colors, adhesive-backed chips, software for creating color palettes that can be imported into design applications and a simplified ink mixing process that allow printers to create all the colors from 10 mixing bases plus PANTONE clear.

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Designer and Illustrator John Foster of fuszion has work appearing in two upcoming shows.  "How to Stay Sane in Graphic Design," a gallery exhibition of over 40 pieces by Foster, will be running for the entire month of September at Salisbury University in Salisbury, Maryland.

September 7th opens the show "Tables to Walls" at the Quick Gallery in Richmond, VA. Curated by Sterling Hundley and Robert Meganck, it features some of the top illustrators in the country. Included are John Foster, Gary Kelley, Anita Kunz, Patricia Martin-Nelson, Joe Morse, Tim O'Brien, Roberto Prada, Tifenn Python and Greg Swearingen.

Posted by Megan

The String Republic offers classic espadrilles in fantastic patterns by designers and illustrators from around the world. One of its most recent offerings is a pair by illustrator Nate Williams.

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Digital font foundry T.26 just released seven new faces including Otis Condensed, a heavy contemporary display face in one weight.

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An all-star team of experts with world-renowned environmental and baby product design credentials have joined forces for the “Wee Generation” project to develop an environmentally safe, impeccably designed baby bag certain to be the “It” bag among green celebrities, the eco-chic and the health-conscious. To influence the design process, current and future parents are encouraged to weigh in at www.weegeneration.com and share their own stories and insights of baby bag usage.

Posted by Megan

The work of San Francisco-based artist Tauba Auerbach is extremely typographic and interesting.






via Hi + Low

Posted by Megan

We just got an interesting press release about Sweat Equity Enterprises (SEE), a design and entrepreneurship program for underserved youth, and their recent partnership with Nissan North America (NNA). The partnership brought together 18 high school students from New York City and Providence, RI to develop a concept for a low-cost vehicle targeted toward youth in metropolitan areas. From February to May, the students worked with Nissan Design America designer Bryan Thompson to conduct market research, predict upcoming trends and produce detailed professional-quality designs for the car’s exterior, accessories and interior elements. 

Working in teams, students came up with six car concepts which were submitted to Nissan for competition. Nissan chose the Pure concept vehicle designed by Chris Jones, Paul Ayala, Alex Rodriguez and Shakirra Torain. The designs were so well received that Nissan created digital animated models of all six designs, and a 3-foot professional model of Pure, which they will reveal at the Los Angeles Auto Show this November.
 
“The goal of the Nissan Pure is to be as iconic as the original Mini Cooper, as legendary as the Nissan Skyline and as economical and fun as the Datsun 510,” says 16-year old SEE designer Chris Jones. “The Pure gives you that classic car feel and all the right things to bring the essence of what made us fall in love with cars in the first place.” 
 

Posted by Megan