One of my favorite things about Christmas is the increased quality and frequency of ads in the end of the year. I don’t always mind how much more frequent the message is hammered home if the ads doing so are of a higher quality. GAP has just released a slew of new commercials that fit right into this description. Combining various celebrities you might not know that well/have thought of in awhile and updated versions of classic Christmas songs these ads are right in my wheelhouse. I’m a sucker for Christmas music.

You would think that in 2010 popular TV and movies are not sexist. In many ways that’s true. There are strong female protagonists and female actors are very respected. Then you hear about something like the Bechdel Test and you start to wonder.

Named after Alison Bechdel, a lesbian cartoonist from the 80s, the Bechdel test asks three questions about a movie or TV show:

DJ Stout has redesigned the magazine Dairy Today that is launching this month. In addition to a bold new logotype, the magazine will feature a stylized “portrait” of a dairy cow on the cover of each issue in an effort to differentiate it from its competitors.
I think these new covers are beautiful. Maybe it’s because I grew up around them, but I’ve always found cows to have a pastoral beauty. If you’ve ever spent time …

This is great. I wish I’d had this video to refer people to when they ask me what being a designer means. That it’s more than graphic design or industrial design. You don’t need a beret or a drafting table; a compass or a set of paint brushes. It’s just telling a story. Also, this is an important video to refer to those egotistical designers, the ones who think people need to learn to use …

Rita, a multidisciplinary Montréal design studio, has created a new series of t-shirts:
Carry less. These T-shirts are printed with every day items and accessories, the way they’re worn. Our debut series, “Beverly Hills 1980s-style”, includes a classic Walkman, roller skates, Ray-Ban shades and luckily a holster, complete with a gun.
These are cooler than cool. I especially like the sunglasses shirt, it’s the simplest but seems to work the best.
T-shirts are available in the Rita Boutique …

Besides this collection of outdoor furniture’s beauty, I was taken by the odd art direction in these photographs which look like they were styled by Anna Faris’s boyfriend from Entourage, dawg. Models with animal heads lounge on the pieces in these dramatic photos. I wouldn’t say I’ve had a recurring nightmare, but it’s always been easy for me to picture a person with an animal’s head and it kind of freaks me out. When I …

Not pictured: your mom.
View them all