Macy's

For as long as I can remember I have never liked Macy's logo. Every thing about it I don't like, the type set, the red star, and the way they use the star instead of a '. I appreciate their tradition as a holiday season type store and the Thanksgiving Day parade they sponsor every year in New York. They might use the color red for the star in that manner, relating it to the Christmas season and also the star itself could resemble the star over Bethlehem. "Come to Macy's, follow the star." It gives it a nice feel holiday feel to it. But the reason I think I don't like this design, is because of that same star, and I'm surprised it didn't get changed around 50 years ago. The five pointed red star is the symbol for communism and also socialism which our country went to war for several time. Every time I see the star I think of Vietnam, and the Cold War with Russia. Not exactly what you want to relate your logo with. I feel it would be similar to a company today creating their logo that is similar to a Taliban or other terrorist organizations symbol. That is just bad advertising.

xbox 360 Laptop

Someone decided to design a xbox360 that would function as a laptop with full keyboard and hd display. I really like this design, possibly because I love video games, for the idea of being able to play video games where ever I go. I don't think that Microsoft licensed this product, but for future products should consider it. The laptop, I wouldn't consider, is not fully portable. You do have to plug it in where ever you go. I figure this is because of the huge amount of energy it takes run an xbox 360 and there probably isn't a decent sized battery that could handle the load and fit inside. I also read it weighs about 12 pounds which I don't think I would want to lug around. It is fully functional with the USB ports and 4 wireless controllers. It was also upgraded with the wireless Ethernet adapter. With 21.2 million people already owning a 360 and about 40% of Americans owning laptops, I wonder how many more would cough up the money to purchase one of these if they were available in retail stores. As much as I like this design, I don't think I would buy it until they found away to make it lighter and cheaper.

The coke bottle

The coke bottle I would consider an icon of American culture. When you look at it you know exactly what it is without even having to read what is on the label. For some reason I love the coke bottle design. It design with the red cap and cursive writing makes it look elegant and trustworthy. I know exactly what is inside of the bottle is going to taste like. The whole thing has a nostalgic feel to it. I did a some research and found that the famous logo was made in 1885 with Spencerian script which was the dominate formal handwriting for that time. I'm assuming they were marketing the drink to a classy to drink. The bottle design was made by Earl Dean via a contest that Coca Cola set up with its bottle distributors. They wanted something that would be recognizable immediately even if the bottle was broken. Dean was inspired by the cocoa plant pod, which in the original formula cocoa was used, and it's shape so he used that idea to form the bottle including its ridges. They have used logo and bottle designs ever since.

Megabus

You may have already seen these buses around town or possibly even ridden on one. The design of the Megabus is great, getting passengers from point a to point b cheaply and conveniently. They travel between Midwestern cities and I believe one other group of locations in the east. Their fare system is based on a first come, first served bases, where if you are the first to sign up for a seat on a specific day your fare can be as low as a dollar, where as if you are the last you would have to pay significantly more. The most I've payed for a two way ticket to Chicago was 26 dollars. That wouldn't even get me a tank of gas in my car. Great deal. They don't have bus stations and they don't have ticket counters. They use an online system for their ticketing and designated pick up/drop off site for their "bus station". They are designed to keep prices low for their customers by sticking to the basics, bus and bus driver. I would recommend Megabus for your next trip to a nearby city.

Ebooks

Electronic books, or better known as Ebooks, are a new trend amongst people who have a problem with paper, or just flipping pages maybe. The device that you have to buy to read an ebook can run from 100-300+ dollars. The ebooks themselves run on average about 10 dollars. To me, this design for reading books is ridiculous. Have these people never heard of a library? You can read all the books you want for free. However, I do have an Iphone, as do many people, and a growing trend is buying ebooks through the app store. I can say I've looked through the list of books and many of the classics are for free, but there is a limited amount of popular best sellers and authors. I feel the cost of an ebook reader is way over priced but since I have an Iphone I would probably buy ebooks from the app store on a limited basis. The cost of the ebooks themselves are reasonable since you should still have to pay for the content to support the author and publisher, and besides you save 5 to 10 dollars per book by not buying the physical version. I found a sales graph for ebooks and they have risen dramatically in the past 2 years. My guess is that the Iphone played a major roll in that.

Space Truckers

Space Truckers

I found this article on the NPR website about "space truckers". The idea of it is to have private companies eventually being the ones, instead of NASA, to move equipment and people back and forth from Earth and the International Space Station. At first I wasn't sure if I liked the idea of this much. Corporate America, in my mind, shouldn't be messing around in space. But, the more I looked into the design it actually seemed to make sense. The government operated NASA can spend more time and money towards exploration and science while the corporate world can compete to see who can make the best craft for two way space travel and do it more efficiently and cost effective. My concern is with the training that would be involved with operating the crafts. Would these private companies use existing astronauts to move their goods, or would they start a new training program for any qualified individual? And who would be considered a qualified individual? After looking into this change of space travel I feel it is a good idea, but needs to be very carefully done.

Digital Ice Maker

This is a high capacity digital ice maker that makes a tray of ice in no more than 10 minutes. They designed it for RV's, game rooms, and home bars. I like the idea of the design to have ice where ever you can find an outlet, but how often do am I asking myself, gosh I wish I had some ice. I feel this was designed as more of a luxury item for people who can afford things such as a RV, or game room. At a near 300 dollar price tag I think I will stick with the ice maker in my fridge or the bags of ice at the grocery store. I did find that Americans on average use about a pint of water as ice a day. The energy consumed to turn that water in to ice turns out to be about 5,000 tons of coal or 17,000 barrels of oil. That energy is used to take the energy out of water to turn it to ice. When Ice melts it regains that energy, so in the process of making Ice it seems we are just wasting natural resources. If Americans want to start conserving energy more I would not recommend this product.