Photo credit: Draftfcb / UTEC

Situated outside the small community of Bujama, Peru, it cost around $32,000 to make, and creates approximately 100 litres of drinkable water every day.

“It works by condensing vapour in the air (humidity in the region is around 98 per cent) into water, before passing it through a series of filters and running it under UV lamps for further purification. The clean water is then collected in a tank and dispensed through a tap which can be used by anyone walking past.”

Quoted from Creative Review.

The video embedded below gives a bit more detail.

The billboard is the product of a partnership between outdoor advertising owner Clear Channel Peru, researchers at the University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) in Lima, and advertising agency Draftfcb.

Also reported on the BBC website: Advert turns air into water.

Brilliant idea. Let’s hope it’s not a one-off.

Brand identity inspiration on Identity Designed.

We talked about unpaid internships back in 2011, and the topic generated a fair bit of chat in the comment thread. Here’s a question from a recent commentator.

“I worked at a social enterprise as an unpaid intern last winter and my friends all questioned why I would do an unpaid job. [...]

“The social enterprise, which is kind of between a normal company and an NGO, aims to hire a large amount of interns for a short-term continuous labour source. They only have several full-time workers. Do you think this plan is sustainable?”

I don’t.

The enterprise seems to be disguising volunteer work as an internship (all too common).

An internship is not where the intern does the work of a normal employee without getting paid.

It is where the employer devotes time to the individual intern so he or she can learn as much as possible about the chosen profession.

Too many companies either don’t know the difference, or don’t want to.

If you’re in an unpaid work placement that isn’t meeting expectations, and it’s not going to change no matter what you say to the employer, get out of there. You’re better than that.

Brand identity inspiration on Identity Designed.

I created three design options for my client, and you can view more info about the chosen direction over on the Virtulos portfolio page.

Brand identity inspiration on Identity Designed.

“Women are their own worst beauty critics. In fact, only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful. Dove is committed to building positive self-esteem and inspiring all women and girls to reach their full potential. That’s why we decided to conduct a compelling social experiment that proves to women something very important: You are more beautiful than you think.”

For this latest experiment in the Real Beauty campaign, Dove and Ogilvy hired Gil Zamora, an FBI-trained forensic artist, to sketch women two ways: the first in their own words, the second in the words of a stranger.

The resulting three-minute video was uploaded to YouTube on Sunday (embedded below).

It’s a powerful message.

There’s a longer six-minute version, as well as shorter interviews with each participant, on the Dove Real Beauty Sketches website.

Via lots of people, and Adweek.

Related, from the archives: The twisted reality of fashion advertising.

—

Update: 18 April 2013
Another from the archives that I forgot about: The hypocrisy of Unilever advertising.

—

Brand identity inspiration on Identity Designed.

I don’t know what a big thinker is, and Forbes isn’t exactly a regular read, but this was interesting: The world in 2033: big thinkers and futurists share their thoughts.

A bird ballet. Beautiful.

“It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to.”
— JEAN-LUC GODARD

Quoted from designmadeingermany.de.

As a healthier old age is supposed to await (most of) us, a professor argues that we should only work 25 hours a week.

“The way it is today, young people are slaving their way through work, looking forward to a long retirement. But why not move that retirement period around a bit so that young people get more valuable time off work?”

I wonder if he’s been listening to Sagmeister. Via @karj.

Clear night skies fascinate me, which is why I like this series of photo composites where French photographer Thierry Cohen matched darkened cityscapes with star-filled skies captured from remote locations. Via Kottke.

“Our creativity is incredibly affected by the environment we work in.” Definitely.

Learn CSS Layout. Teaches the CSS fundamentals used in any website’s layout. Via @jasonsantamaria.

Branding’s cult-like culture. Danny Rogers, editor of advertising industry magazine Campaign, explained to the Today programme presenter John Humphrys that there is “an extreme version of living the brand.” Via @MatDolphin.

Here’s a great quote from an interview with Ricky Gervais. Via swissmiss.

“You should bring something into the world that wasn’t in the world before. It doesn’t matter what that is. It doesn’t matter if it’s a table or a film or gardening — everyone should create. You should do something, then sit back and say, ‘I did that.’”

A five minute video of Dieter Rams in conversation with Dejan Sudjic, via AisleOne.

If I wore a cap, I’d doff it to Spencer Watson and his amazing indoor kite artistry.

It’s awful reading about how women are treated in India, so it’s a step in the right direction to see The Times of India giving attention to the issue with this spread: What’s the definition of manhood? Seen over on Social Design Notes.

A few good thoughts about working for prestige over on Luke Jones’ blog.

The logo that almost replaced the roundel. Thankfully, it didn’t.

Who made that Pantone chip? Via @hexanine.

Finally, this Google Street View Hyperlapse is awesome, courtesy of teehan+lax.

Previously: From the reader #17

Brand identity inspiration on Identity Designed.

One of them — The Kabel — has a few lovely application shots, like this…

Not that I’m religious, or having a bad day. Nice Photoshop skills though (timelapse below).

Not to be confused with Rudolph Koch’s Kabel type family from the 1920s, the one above was digitised by Mathias Nösel who was inspired by the superb typographic work of Buenos Aires-born designer Pablo Alfieri.

You can see what other free fonts are available on the Fontfabric website.

Related, from the archives: Blanch font family, free download.

Brand identity inspiration on Identity Designed.

Photo by Cheryl Yau

• Chinese rights licensed to Posts and Telecommunications Press
• Russian rights licensed to Piter Press
• Korean rights licensed to Ji & Sons
• Polish rights licensed Helion

The Chinese, Russian, and Korean companies had previously bought translation rights for Logo Design Love, and as I don’t have any involvement with managing the rights, that’s definitely a benefit of working with an established publisher. My books are published by Peachpit, a part of Pearson, and Pearson has a team of “rights managers” responsible for different territories around the world, with managers dealing with publishers in different countries.

Based on Jason Hand’s experience, an international rights manager for Pearson, it’s expected that the Chinese translation will publish first, likely in May or June, followed by Korean in the third quarter of 2013, and then Polish and Russian toward September/October.

If you’ve yet to read the book, the free chapter on pricing (in English) has been downloaded more than 7,000 times, and includes contributions from Alina Wheeler, Ivan Chermayeff, Nancy Wu, Ted Leonhardt, Andrea Austoni, Karishma Kasabia, and Mike Reed.

Thanks very much, by the way, to Posts and Telecommunications Press, Piter, Ji & Sons, and Helion, as well as those working behind the scenes at Pearson and Peachpit.

Brand identity inspiration on Identity Designed.

The book’s described as “an attempt to debunk the various misconceptions, half truths and, in some cases, outright lies which permeate the industry of design.”

It’s excellent, mainly for Craig’s opinions, but also for the visuals he uses to express them.

“When a headline or piece of communication is presented in such a way that you can’t imagine it ever looking any other way; when you can’t pick a hole in the kerning of a single pair of letters; when you are struck between the eyes by a treatment so perfect that it seems almost familiar, and the elegant colourway and choice of typeface is pitch perfect… That is effortless design. To the casual observer, it may look like a simple task — and the tools we use are getting better and better (and making us lazier and lazier). For the rest of us, we have to work at it. We have to squint at the screen and stay up late. Walk away from it for days at a time, come back to it, start again, change things up, throw it away and try different typefaces in various combinations before finally — often begrudgingly — sending the work to print. Shaking our head as the file uploads wondering if there were something we could have done for it to be better.”

More visuals are shown on Behance.

Publisher Actar told me that although the book’s currently sold out, it’ll probably be reprinted, and at the time of writing you can still buy copies here:

on Amazon.com
on Amazon.co.uk

Craig Ward is a British designer and typographer based in New York. On Twitter here.

You’ll find a short interview with him over on Thrash Lab (from October 2012).

Other recommended reads.

Brand identity inspiration on Identity Designed.

So what to do?

I could switch to MailChimp for email subscriptions. It lets me migrate email subscribers from FeedBurner, (update: Aweber looks like a better bet) but I don’t know of anything similar for RSS subscribers. It’d be handy if there was one.

I’ve never believed those subscriber numbers (200,000?), so there’s a poll below to give me a quick idea about the most active readers (it’s my first time trying the Yop Poll plugin, and if it doesn’t appear in your feed reader or inbox, come on over to the website).

Thanks for that.

—

Update: 27 March 2013
Here are the results after a week or so.

—

If FeedBurner does close, at least something good will come from it — the “Creative Design” feed title can make a sharp exit.

Related news elsewhere:
Why RSS matters, by Kevin Potts
The Google Reader shutdown is yet another nail in FeedBurner’s coffin, on TechCrunch
RSS can’t fill Google Reader void, by Michael Surtees, on Mashable
Apple’s RSS reader, on 512 Pixels
Why I love RSS and you do too, by Brent Simmons
Five best Google Reader alternatives, on Lifehacker

Brand identity inspiration on Identity Designed.

“Everybody is fundamentally, the ultimate reality. Not god in the political kingly sense, but god in the sense of being the self – the deep down basic whatever there is. And you’re all that… only you’re pretending you’re not.”
— ALAN WATTS

Alan Watts (1915-1973) on Wikipedia.

A CD collection of the Out of Your Mind sessions is available to buy.

on Amazon.com
on Amazon.co.uk

Video edited by Tragedy and Hope, via Chris Glass.

Brand identity inspiration on Identity Designed.