Tech gadgets are always nice.  And when they succeed in combining crisp design with clever energy saving, they’re even better.  The following two concepts are some great examples we recently stumbled upon (thanks to Link Drop Today).

In search of new online talent, Adobe Italy organized a competition inviting graphic designers, video makers, photographers, web designers and developers to create a project with Adobe technologies. To participate in the Adobe YouGC Contest, competitors had to submit their work within nine weeks, after choosing one of six categories: tutorials, desktop applications, demos, white papers, flash websites or inspirational mood.

When you’re offered the possibility to attend a lecture by Ji Lee, you don’t hesitate. You grab it, you go and you scribble away to take in as much as possible from what he has to tell!  So here’s a little resume of his first lecture in Belgium, held at Design at Work in Kortrijk last month.

Sometimes you come across something on the internet that makes you want to share it with everyone you know.  This is one of those things: The Third & The Seventh is such an astonishing visual experience that it would be a shame to keep it to yourself.

And while we’re at it:

red sunsets, good company, homemade apple pie, unexpected encounters with old acquaintances, silly inventions, optimism, bbq parties, brown bread with chocolate paste, never ending inspiration, warm socks when you are cold, good friends, a really really really fast modem, beautiful things on your wall, crazy mails that make you laugh out loud, always a free parking lot, cute kittens at the neighbors, adventure stories, a daily hug, freshly squeezed orange juice on a lazy Sunday, that your bed is still warm when you crawl back in it at night after you went to the bathroom, tax windfalls, little rays of happiness, unexpected nice deliveries at your door, long days at sea with huge waves, savings for a rainy day, deodorant that actually works, conviviality, a remedy against senseless violence, pleasant birthdays, tasty sweet lemons, success in your work, breakfast in bed, beautiful memories but even more beautiful expectancies, someone to scratch your back when you can’t, butterflies in your stomach, a year full of confidence, lowering of the petrol prices, nights you slowly fall asleep with your book still open, profound conversations, giant snowmen and snowball fights, free internet, being able to walk on your hands, fresh strawberries, a bathroom with good acoustics, pulling funny faces to complete strangers, romance, great colleagues, a little pampering, no more traffic jams, the sound of summer rain on your tent, amazing nights under crystal clear starry skies, clouds with a silver lining, always a pen/scissors/tape/rubber band at hand when you need one, mind blowing theories, dancing in the street, an abundance of sunny days, hot showers, shoulder massages, sincere compliments, thunderstorm when you can look at the lightning from your bed, time enough to do something completely pointless and time wasting every day and presents with a big bow.

If one thing can be said about POSTRmagazine, it’s that it knows how to stand out.  Not only has this free quarterly magazine a clearly different voice than most traditional media, focussing on the other side of the story and encouraging its readers to form their own opinion; its most striking difference is the irregular format it’s printed on.

Imagine the human body as an illuminated walking billboard… Science fiction?

Not if you see the latest developments in bio-engineering. Researchers at the Beckman Institute (University of Illinois) and the Tufts University in Medford, have managed to build silk-silicon LEDs that can sit under the skin and might act as little photonic tattoos.

For the past thirty-one years, D&AD has been granting it’s yearly Global Students Awards.  All over the world, students in design and advertising are challenged to come up with mind-blowing creative answers to set briefings.

The emerging talents have a choice between 12 sponsored briefings and the results are judged by leading creative directors  and the participating sponsors.
It’s a win-win situation : sponsorship offers brands the opportunity to set a bespoke, creative briefing while supporting young talent.  The students on their hand, are given a chance to produce some of their most creative work, without the constraints they’ll be meeting in their professional lives.

For the launch of their new American Legend Pizzas, Domino’s Pizza teamed up with GreenGraffiti, a company specialised in greenwashing. Using a high pressure water sprayer and a template, 220 logos were created, leaving a crispy clean mark on the smudged pavements of  New York,  Los Angeles and Philadelphia. As people aren’t used to find inscriptions under their feet, the campaign gained a lot of attention and even became a newsitem on national television.

Each year The Marketing Foundation organizes a conference, discussing one particular segment of marketing, that gathers about 2500 attendees.

“Done before”:  you‘re likely to say, but this organization is all about teaching and offering experiences to students.  The whole event is set up by students who work on a voluntary basis, coached by some professionals. So while learning first hand, how to pull off such a major event from A to Z, they present keynotes by major players in the world of innovative marketing to their fellow students. Seems like everybody’s winning here, no?