Lunchbox
Minimal(ist) food makes me maximum hungry. Check out this gallery by Dan Kenneally.
This series of images was created by taking all of the streets in a given city and centering them on the canvas horizontally and vertically. Note the rigidness of the Chicago grid in #2.
In celebration of LOST's final season and as a project of fan appreciation, 16 top designers and artists, who are also fans of the show, were commissioned to create artwork celebrating one of the series' most memorable, and unforgettable, "water cooler" moments. This ultimate "fan art" was then turned into labor intensive, hand-pulled screen prints, limited to an edition of just 300, with less than 200 available to the public through our websites. Each beautiful poster tells its own different story, allowing the fan to relive memorable and influential moments in an artistic manner, as the show's storied run comes to a close. Once this limited edition print has sold out, they will never be printed again.
Plotters predate modern inkjet printers. Since they use mounted pens, the line is crisper -- and yet tiny imperfections creep in. Pens wobble; ink overlaps. It's a drawing, not a printout.
So, although the piece is generated by a computer program, it has a warmer, more analog feel. Like an LP record played through a tube amplifier.
Via.

Appropriately categorized by but does it float as "Nothing fails like success".
Are we ahead of the curve or what? First business needs design. Now it needs philosophy.
According to a recent article from BusinessWeek, organizations have lost sight of the big picture. Philosophy, which considers problems of values, character, and ethics, can put businesses on the right track, serving human needs and interests.
[C]orporations are promoting the notion that their mission extends beyond profit and provides new frameworks—transportation, fuel, manufacturing, and so forth—for improving existence. These assertions require supporting actions over the long term if they are to have merit. In our connected and transparent world, where so many can easily see deeply into our operations, it has become clear that companies and even nations have character—and that their character is their destiny. For institutions to ensure that their characters, or cultures, are consistent with their behavior, they need more humans within their organizations who can appropriately manifest the desired culture through leadership, business practices, and individual behaviors.
Looks like there's a future for philosophers in the boardroom as well as the classroom. We've been saying it all along. ;)
Love this humidifier from Masuza. Made of Japanese Cypress, it uses no electricity. Water is naturally drawn through the wood and evaporated into the air. Minimal, beautiful, and natural -- this is a great little piece of design. Via.
How much of popular culture is simply people following the crowd? Can advertisers get you to buy something by falsely telling you that that other people like it? Clive Thompson writes about a research study that attempted to find out.
In the study, a music store was set up with a ratings system and purchasing habits were tracked in a variety of scenarios. Unsurprisingly, the researchers found evidence that social pressure is real -- that popular music (as rated by other listeners) tended to sell better. Most interesting, though, was that when the researchers purposefully rigged the system to promote bad music, in at least one instance people lost faith in the system and bought less music overall. Another data point for honest advertising.
Filed under Inspirado, I'm digging this collection of letterheads from Letterheady. Some of the older ones are especially neat.