After watching this video that Ohio designer Adam Ladd created with his five-year-old daughter, you’ll be smiling from ear to ear. Ladd asked her to share her thoughts about popular logos belonging to some of the world’s biggest corporations. She candidly shares her feelings about each image — in only a way that a five-year-old can — and the commentary is adorable, insightful, and allows you to look at age-old brands in a refreshing way. She instantly recognizes the Disney, Apple, and McDonald’s logos, which isn’t too surprising. Other symbols are simplified to a funny degree. Starbucks simply becomes the “coffee logo,” and anything that looks like it could be a cheetah is a cheetah (Greyhound, Puma, etc.). Check out her commentary past the break.
Today at Flavorpill, we were a little freaked over these photos of a fictional drug addict for the Israel Anti-Drug Authority ad campaign. We were relieved that Jay-Z and Beyonce didn’t actually pay $1 million for a private hospital floor. We tried to imagine a time when states like Texas were nicknamed“Beef Head” and wondered what Missouri did to earn the moniker “Puke.” We thought the similarities between Michael Cera and Hitler’s mom were uncanny. We were surprised that bagpipes were invented in Persia, not Scotland. We said goodbye to the Obama administration’s second chief of staff, Bill Daley. We were fascinated by this time-lapse video of snowflakes grown in a laboratory. We bet this year’s BroNYCon sparkled with glitter like nothing we’ve ever seen before. We listened to a new track from The Shins. We were totally grossed out by these pics of three-year-old french fries and vowed never to eat them ever again. We heard what a Randy Newman version of the We Need to Talk About Kevin theme song might sound like. And finally, we loved this beautiful Hobbit animation from the same artist who worked on Tom and Jerry.
There are plenty of not-so-good-for-you reasons to visit McDonald’s, but the ambiance isn’t usually one of them — that is, unless you happen to be in France. There, the fast-food giant recently commissioned furniture designer Patrick Norguet to give its franchises a much classier and more contemporary new look. Think less plastic seating in kid-friendly colors, more like you’ve stumbled into the kitchen furnishings section of an Ikea.
“Norguet’s interiors are mature, with splashes of colors applied at intervals of white walls, substantial materials such as plywood cabinets and carefully-chosen upholstery, and even digital screens from which to place your order,” writes Samuel Medina at Architizer. “Enclaves of familial privacy are created by means of full-height walls and circular booths, so that families may sit together enjoying their meal.” He also points out that since customers are spending more for their meal in France (around $9), they tend to want to take their time while they eat. Click through to check out some photos from the first store in Norguet’s series, and let us know if these swankier interiors would entice you to linger over Le Big Mac there. Read More »
Today at Flavorpill, we looked at an interesting selection of McDonald’s menu items around the world — like Singapore’s McRice burger. We read the first few lines from Jeffrey Eugenides’s next novel, The Marriage Plot, which is coming out in October. We watched a time-lapse video of a German Sheperd growing from an 8-week-old puppy to a 1-year-old adult. We remained unconvinced that this DIY bike lane, the brainchild of Czech Republic-based artists Vladimir Turner and Ondřej Mladý, was a good idea. We checked out the latest (and rather grim-looking) poster for the final installment of the Harry Potter series. We wished that we lived in Portland so that we could have attended Oregon’s 11th Annual “PUGLANDIA!” Pug Crawl. We were sad to hear that Showtime had cancelled United States of Tara, but happy to hear that they renewed Nurse Jackie. We were amazed by these photos of the devastating damage caused by the tornado that hit Joplin yesterday. We listened to “Forever And a Day,” a track from Stephin Merritt’s unfinished science fiction musical with Daniel Handler, and two new Arcade Fire songs from the deluxe edition of The Suburbs. And finally, we watched a teaser clip from Claire Danes’ new show where she plays a CIA agent — but to us, she’ll always be Angela Chase.
Editor’s note: Each Friday, our internet-savvy friends over at BuzzFeed curate a post for us that’s filled with links to some of their favorite items on the web that week. Enjoy!
That’s the question posed by Viktor Hertz, a Swedish graphic design freelancer and student, in his fantastic series Honest Logos. (If the name sounds familiar, we featured his pictogram movie posters not too long ago.) “Some are cheap, some might be a bit funny, some will maybe be brilliant,” Hugo explains. Admittedly, he totally has us pegged with his re-designed Facebook logo. Click through to check out a few more of our favorites.
Today at Flavorpill, we got a look at the leaked script for J.J. Abrams’ new spy show, Undercovers. Spoiler alert: It’s very, very fast. We learned the word “tessellate,” thanks to the fine folks at Subway and their triangular pieces of cheese. We were tickled by how much butt cleavage can look like boob cleavage — yet unconvinced that it warranted an entire book. We wished that McDonald’s ran cute gay-friendly ads in the US. We laughed at these photoshopped images of internet memes mashed up with art masterpieces. We tried to imagine Oprah Winfrey as an intern way back in 1973. We were proud of Homer Simpson, who has been named the greatest character created for TV and film in the past 20 years by Entertainment Weekly. We wondered if we should be worried about a cat taking our job one day. We saw the BP station sign down the block from HQ get defaced. And finally, we listened to She & Him play “Fools Rush In” as part of the Levi’s “Pioneer Sessions.” Very pretty!
In the late 1950s, the Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel, a car that failed so spectacularly it became synonymous with a corporate cluelessness. For two decades, the Edsel reigned as one of the most boneheaded blunders in all of automotive manufacturing. But in the mid-80s, the Edsel was usurped by an even more disastrous debut: the Yugo. It was an ugly car made cheaply in a communist country. What could possibly go wrong?
Nearly everything. From sub-par craftsmanship and disastrous safety ratings to gross corporate mismanagement and Cold War distrust, the Yugo is remembered best today not for its brief success but for its dismal failure. But if the Yugo was a lemon, Jason Vuic’s surprising page-turner is the lemonade: even though we know how it’s going to end (watch out for the iceberg, Yugo!), we’re held rapt by Vuic’s careful reconstruction of the peculiar history of a terrible idea.
Big Mac, Filet-O-Fish, Quarter Pounder… Eames chair? One of these things is not like the other, but if a forward-thinking fast food industry has anything to do with it, lowbrow will no longer be a descriptor for purveyors of insta-food. Eateries like McDonald’s, Burger King, and Blimpie are angling for an upgrade, a palatable modernism that makes sleekly generic design easy for the masses to swallow.
