If you find a few minutes this week to test your skills on a handful of the world’s leading brands head over to The Brand Quiz by VYRE. Your given two colors and a visual hint—it is harder than it looks. We got a humbling score of 14/21. Test your knowledge here.

Poster 4 Tomorrow, a non-profit initiative whose mission is to encourage people, both in and outside the design community, to make posters to spark constructive debate on issues that affect us all. Their theme (Death is not Justice) this year coincides with the World & European Day Against the Death Penalty on October 10th, 2010. On that day they intend to hold 100 exhibitions in 100 cities, curated by 100 local partner
organizations. Find out how you can contribute here.

Rebrand just released their selections of 2010. Turnaround, by Siegle + Gale (shown above) got the ‘best of’ nod. To see the entire list head over here.

In 2008 Yves Behar, of the Fuse Project, worked with New York City’s Health Department to promote safe sex in the Big Apple. which resulted in his creation of the NYC Condom dispenser (above) along with the condom packaging (below).

To keep the condom distribution campaign fresh, the city decided to redesign the overall look of the packaging by introducing a ‘call for entries’ competition. The five finalists have been announced and voting has begun. Peruse the following and vote for your favorite.

Related Posts:
Wrap It Up
Sex Is Natural, Sex is Good
The Troublemakers
Pope Benedict XVI (Anti) Condoms

Happy Birthday! Has it been that long?

In an effort to increase bike commuting NYC has made plans to upcycle 225 parking meters by converting them into circular bike racks as seen above. According to Inhabitat: “The increase in bike racks is small compared to the current need in New York — there’s currently only one bike rack for every 30 bicyclists. It is meaningful, however — especially because they are sacrificing the ease with which you can pay to park a car. The meters are going to be replaced by “muni meters” at the end of each block.”

According to Media Bistro: Toronto has already successfully installed 16,000 similar racks (pictured above). Similar efforts are being launched in the cities of Los Angeles and Chicago.

Related Posts:
New Bike Rack Art
Spokes People

London’s Unpackaged Grocery says “no” to packaging. With the wasteful packaging we find in most of our markets this concept is refreshing to see.

Beginning life as a market stall in 2006, Unpackaged is a unique and brilliant concept that is so simple it hurts, especially considering the sheer amount of packaging waste that is ridiculously filling our planet’s landfill sites. Within the beautifully designed shop, organic whole foods, dried fruit, nuts and seeds, herbs and spices, even refillable oils, vinegars and wines are all available to place straight into your own containers, that you will have brought along with you … if you haven’t then reusable bags are available.

How it Works:

Via:

Design Indaba has grown into one of the world’s largest design events since its inception in 1995.

From Design Indaba:
With a focus on international thought leadership, the Design Indaba Conference has become one of the world’s leading design events and hosts more than 40 speakers and 2 500 delegates.

The conference is being held in South Africa at the end of the month from February 26 to the 28th. For more on the conference and to see the list of notable speakers from around the world go here.

Impact! Design for Social Change is a brand new, six-week summer intensive workshop co-founded by Steven Heller of SVA and Mark Randall of Worldstudio.

The curriculum zeroes in on three aspects of design for social change: evolving your big idea, developing your pitch, and funding your project. These lessons will be divided into two tracks, as described below:

The program will run on two parallel tracks; the first will educate students on how to conceive and execute their own projects for social change with a focus on funding projects that are not client-based. For the second track students will participate in the development and full execution of a team project that addresses a pressing need within a predetermined community. The team projects for the program are being selected in partnership with desigNYC—a group of leading designers and design advocates with a mission of improving life in New York City by helping connect the nonprofit and professional design communities.

To apply or learn more click here.

Around the 2009 holiday season, Banksy put up some new work at the Regent’s Canal in the UK. As you may recall, one of the pieces (seen above) involved painting over a fellow artist’s work - a sprayer by the name of King Robbo - which had stood unharmed since 1985. In response, King Robbo covered up Banksy’s work with 3 foot high silver letters spelling out his name.

Babelgum has created an interesting video (seen above) offering their insight into the battle of the two artists that is worth a look.

Original King Robbo piece:

Banksy cover-up:


King Robbo strikes back: