The Core 77 Design Blog has occupied a special spot in my Bloglines feed list for lo these many moons. Definitely the best place on the internets to find design snobbery, fun projects, blue foam, kinetic sculptures, eye candy, and more blue foam.
Besides, where else can you find Blu-Foam sneakers?
(Not that I can afford them. cough.)
In any case, it’s via Core 77 that I find McDonald’s tagging food packaging with QRCodes. I mean… what?
Picture and more after the cut.
Of course, this is happening in Japan, where people tend to view the digital world through the lens of their keitai (“mobile phone” to the gaijin among us …like, um, me). So this particular technology (of 2d barcode links) feels more natural in that environment. It’s not a big leap to ask people to make, especially in an environment where QRCodes are found on business cards.
And really, it’s not all that far removed from vanilla UPC barcodes on consumer products; it’s a lookup for manufacturer’s information.
Still, kind of funny to see.
Elsewhere in the Core 77 empire, Colin Schaelli’s Freitag Hangtag tickled my aesthetic snob nerve, my paper-fetishist nerve, and my information design nerve all at once, producing what I can only describe as a designgasm:
I have no real, rational explanation for why I think this is the best damned thing I’ve seen in a long time. It just is.
There’s more information at Colin’s webpage. I would point you right at that information, but his website is all done in Flash. Sigh. Instead, please enjoy this screenshot of a nifty flash animation of the tag being folded:
(And now, an aside.
Dear product designers: Flash is pretty, but DON’T USE IT FOR YOUR SITE STRUCTURE. It makes your websites really suck for people who want to point someone at something cool you’ve done. It’s like not letting anyone see your portfolio unless they do the magic dance and watch a puppet show, first.
See also these comments from Merlin Mann, entitled Five Mistakes Band & Label Sites Make.
Change “band” to “designer” and you’ve got my favorite pet annoyance on the web. This applies to to designers in general, not just Colin, whose site is very lovely and has some excellent animations. It would just benefit from being an actual web site.
End rant.)
So, um, yeah. I feel totally outclassed, and I don’t need a bag but I’d really like one of those tags.
And I still want some blu-foam sneakers.