Logo design

Thing: The Revenge of the Brands: How corporate America turned Naomi Klein’s anti-branding manifesto on its head from Reason. Intended as an anti-marketing call-to-arms, Naomi Klein’s No Logo has actually wound up as the blueprint for modern branding. When corporations are tripping over themselves to seem as uncorporate as possible, what’s left to subvert, anyway? Reason argues that, for Klein, “Writing about branding was only an excuse to talk about politics,” which explains her present lack of satisfaction at seeing corporate America playing by her rules. ELSEWHERE IN BRANDING: Ice Cube on co-opting the Los Angeles Raiders brand by force in the early ’90s.

Thing: Riders on the Storm by the New York Times. David Brooks, fresh off a 15-minute break spent dumping on Sandra Bullock for being the victim of infidelity, gets back to work by linking to some studies that declare internet users to be surprisingly open-minded clickers. “People who spend time on the most liberal sites are more likely to go to foxnews.com than average Internet users,” and vice versa. Sure, most of that cross-traffic can be chalked up to troll exchanges, but it’s reassuring to think more and more people might be finding common ground every day simply by being adventurous surfers. ELSEWHERE IN VIEWPOINTS: Design for the First World, a new blog that flips the “Design will save the world” notion — the idea that well-meaning while perhaps patronizing designers can solve developing-world problems just by being great designers who care really hard. DFTFW is soliciting solutions from developing-nation designers for first-world problems like obesity or having nothing to whine to Twitter about.

THING: Super Mario Bros Crossover via Rock Paper Shotgun. You can play through Super Mario Bros, warps and all, as Mega Man, Link, Metroid person, Castlevania man, or Contra guy. This is all you need to know. ELSEWHERE IN RETRO: The Industrialization of Traffic: Why Bicycles Are Faster Than Cars by No Tech Magazine.

BONUS!

You’ve seen parkour videos before, and some of them were ok, but none of them were as good as this one is:

Logorama by François Alaux

The 2009 Best Animated Short Acadamy Award-winner, and probably the strangest 16 minutes of your week, unless you’ve already been gunned down by Ronald McDonald this week.

[NSFW: Language]

Photoshop CS5 Content-Aware Fill Sneak Peek

This should not exist yet. John Gruber says it’s “indistinguishable from magic.”

But is there already a parody? Of course there’s already a parody.

Fantasyland

The next time some wet blanket takes issue with how much you care about your passions, remind them it could be a whole lot worse; you could be like the fantasy baseball mega-nerds (NO SERIOUSLY, these guys are OFF THE RESERVATION but GOD BLESS EM) in this documentary.

• You’ve heard of the uncanny valley. How about the completely useless valley? Realism in UI Design takes us there. More like Useless Interface, am I right?
• A lesson in late-night TV walk-on music, music publishing, and markets by Questlove of The Roots, known by many as the greatest-ever hip-hop band and by others as Jimmy Fallon’s house musicians. If you know them by the latter, then… well, then you and I are probably not friends already, but we can get past this! (The big question: How much would it cost to use “Walk On” as walk-on music?)
• To help Haiti’s earthquake victims, change U.S. immigration laws. Also: the photo of the year?

Because we love you

When it comes to Lost, I’m like a doorbuster sale… I have ZERO ZERO ZERO ZERO INTEREST!!! But this seems like a thing that took work to make and that you’d like.

• We saw Avatar in 3D, sitting in the front row. There’s a lot to like, mainly the sensory overload. Two things really bugged me: first, there’s no way a female scientist in the year 2150 uses man to refer to humanity. Second, it’s a movie about a white guy who (SPOILER, I GUESS) ¹ enters a new culture group, ² endures a montage, and ³ quickly becomes better at all the group’s activities than any of the group’s lifelong members. Just as in The Last Samurai, Dances With Wolves, Last of the Mohicans, 8 Mile (peace to Brittany Murphy), Batman Begins, and many many more. This convention goes beyond lazy writing, and in fact presents real sociological puzzles — there’s a strange assumption of supreme white competence, for one. When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”? goes in on the newest version, in which the white guy not only masters the tribe, but becomes its Messiah too. Which is, like, even worse. (NOT REALLY THAT MUCH OF A SPOILER, BUT IT’S OVER)
• “The boss says, ‘Get there on time;’ the leader gets there ahead of time. The Builder makes sure ‘getting there’ matters.” More: The Builders’ Manifesto.
• A thorough, detailed case study by the company responsible for NBC’s current comprehensive branding campaign, focusing on the campaign’s dynamic use of bold colors. You should click this, but I’m really not gonna be able to talk you into it. That’s fine.

But Wait There’s More

If Earth had rings like Saturn, what would our sky look like?

Something Completely Drupal

Monty Python is now using Drupal.

We had a lot of confused trick-or-treaters this year.