This is a follow-up to my earlier guilty confession that I love to drink overly priced yuppy water. I can not stress that this is a personal struggle I have been dealing with for a long time. It is water. Seventy Percent of the earth is water. The stuff is literally falling from the sky for free yet some marketer and designer has packaged it up and brainwashed me to turn over cold hard cash for it. Some magical force comes over me and I BUY it. And buying it isn’t enough… I almost always am hypnotized to get the most expensive kinds. Flipping genius. Damn you Fiji!

Recovering from my rant I would like to share with you that I found this water while shopping (if you can call skipping around the store making fun of things that are too expensive to buy or too old to be real candidates for president) with Carly at Balduccis. This water is marketed online as being “fashionable” and “portable”. It is said to have been

“inspired by the military canteen, is designed around the principle of portability and utilization of space while maintaining a subtle harmony of form and function. The bottle is useful and fashionable; and the taste of SEI natural spring water is pure and crisp”

Brilliant. For pete’s sake… it is just water, but it on my desk in spite of my thirst… taunting me with it’s beautiful shape and making me feel unworthy of it’s elegant design. It has been weeks since I actually bought it and still I can not bring myself to drink it… it is far too lovely to look at 9.4 fl oz = 2 dollars.

For Christmas I wanted a Wii. I constantly hinted it to Jim and tweeted about it every chance I had. I am actually not a big video game person… I never could beat super Mario Brothers and only loved Duck Hunt because the ducks made funny little expressions when I killed them. Last summer Jim and I went to a friends house to play and I was hooked on the Wii. I still can’t win any of the games, but I enjoy the interaction… and especially making the Miis.

Jim managed to surprise me with a Wii on Christmas despite the grim televised reports that depicted thousands of sad Wii-wanters being turned away from Best Buys across the country. Wii is the bomb-diggity… I can not say it enough… I have made miis for my whole family and posted pics to flickr of bowling and boxing.
So when my friend Carly sent a link to this…

I jumped right on it.

I have been waiting for Valentines day to reveal my amorous surprise. With anticipation and excitement I watched Jim tear into the Wii box of Love to find…
two girl Wii Miis!

Thats not what I planned!
It was suppose to romantically symbolize my passionate devotion. Boy meets geek girl. A love story that could launch a thousand ships. But no…2 girls. Bummer. Its all my bad, seems I all Rick-Santorem-style forgot a couple could be something other than a man and woman and missed that section of the form.

I think these little Chocolate Miis are a Bad Ass Idea… and if you would like to learn more about them and their creator please check out Paul Papes Nouget page.
Please, someone I know get married and have one of his custom Wii Mii Wedding Toppers made.

An improvement to the classic Web Trend Map, IA in Japan has added a third dimension for extra flavor. I see some interesting additions this time around, including Swiss Miss and Ogilvy. What the map really says about either of them is pretty vague to me, but it is an interesting interpretation and stunning design. Perhaps this will be my next poster to order.
Another version of the Map can be found in 2-d here…

Since my interest in information design has seemed to blossom over the past year I created a new category so you can browse all of my past posts where it is featured.
Want a clarification to the practice of information design?

From Wikipedia

Information design has its origins as a subset of, or synonym for graphic design and it is often taught as part of graphic design courses. One of the first uses of the term was by the London graphic design consultancy Pentagram, who used the term in the 1970s to mean their graphic design, as distinct from product or other kinds of design. Since that time, the term has come to be used specifically for graphic design that has the purpose of displaying information effectively, rather than just attractively, or for the purpose of self expression by the designer as artist.

Recently IA Japan posted a response to Steve Clayton’s dissatisfaction with Microsoft’s placement on the map. Clayton boldly states:

Their recent Trend Map may have some delays on the line if the Yahoo deal goes through.

Along with a second blog post in response to Clayton’s statements, IA Japan included a revision to their map… which just made my day.

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Information Design raising eyebrows, stirring up discussion, making people think and making people talk. Its beautiful when design can raise awareness to a certain topic.