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My supplier of never-heard sentences just hit me again. This time, a free-falling kitten was involved.

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If you buy royalty-free stock photos, you might have a job here.

At first, the joke was on Dell and Gateway, both targeting back-to-school students with inexpensive computers, both using the same image. Then, it turns out, someone found out that the two computer companies were far from alone with their love for the Dell girl. In fact, this is beginning to look like a movement; Dell, Gateway, Amazon, Microsoft, Encarta, Brown College, Visa, just to mention a few followers.

If it isn’t so already, this is an opportunity for a worldwide ad version of All your base. To participate, buy this, this, this, this, this, or this and put it in your ad.

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You probably never thought of it, but there’s an entire industry thinking up names for businesses, brands, products and services. A few years ago, the naming industry’s standard prizing was around 45,000 USD. And that’s for the name. No logo. (Not that No Logo)

So the companies, Lexicon, Catchword and more, gather small groups of people with completely different backgrounds. Some are actors, some Scrabble champions, business journalists, word puzzle creators or experts on linguistics. Together, they empty their brains for one day, get paid a few hundred dollars and go home. Sounds like fun.

Word craft is a bit wordy, but definitely worth the time – especially while travelling (it seems to be available in your average airport bookshop), its light-weight narrative style considered, if you’d care for a peek into the naming industry, or ever thought why a Powerbook is not a Blackberry and why in the world the SUV Porsche is called Cheyenne. No, hang on, the author never quite got that story.

The Catchword company has an unfrequently updated blog.

And by the way; it’s Cayenne. Porsche Cayenne. Not Cheyenne. 45,000 dollars for one name.
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This and nine other then-and-now, illustrating what the author thinks is ‘the decline of western magazines design‘. You be the arbiter of taste. Or commercial value.
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Styrelizeren spiser en hjemmeside, fordøjer den og spytter den ud igen, bare anderledes. Alle nettets brugere kan køre alle nettets hjemmesider gennem den maskine. Næsten.

Og man kan vel godt forstå manden i det travle jakkesæt med den oprørte telefonstemme. Det svarer jo til, at vi maler skæg og runde briller på alle billederne i Politiken, og udgiver den (hvilket er en glimrende idé).

For nu at bevise pointen, så kan al verdens teknik aldrig helt blokere, at nogen styrelizer kunde.dk. Sådan er reglerne, og dem der ikke spiller med, er ude. Nettet er alles.

Det ved Politiken.

Andre har også mærket blodet i hjernen efter en omgang i styremaskinen.

I sidste ende, så er den slags vel det sjoveste, der kommer ud af Styrelizeren.

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If your name is Harry Beck, you might be into underground trains. And if you’re into coffee, you might be reading this at one of the 7,569 Starbucks stores (Baresso, more likely, but there’s a point. There are nine, by the way).

If your name is Winter, you must be reading this at Starbucks (not Baresso). A few years ago, he decided to do something…different. Visit each and every Starbucks on the surface of the Earth. That’s a lot of Starbucks, and so far, Winter has injected himself with caffeine in 4,361 stores in USA, UK and Japan. To keep on-topic with New York City, here’s his log from that city.

Harry Beck of Brooklyn, New York, completed his mission two years ago. He travelled 370 kilometres (or 230 miles) in about 40 hours (or 1,6 days) – passing 468 New York subway stations on his way. So did Paul Theroux in 1982 and even more people during the years. The world record is 20 hours. You decide what’s more peculiar – the 20 hours, or the fact that there is a world record.

Harry Beck (yes, that name again) of London has married his name with underground trains, too. In 1933 he drew what would be a very famous collection of coloured lines.

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Wired: It’s just the ‘internet’ now
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According to NYT travel reporter Ken Chowder, Vesterbro is a great place to be young. And that’s not the only great thing, in fact Chowder has so many great things to say about Vesterbro that this could be a paid-for piece (not that this has happened before, and never in Wallpaper).

But there was one thing that shocked me.

I had no idea.

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But they look happy, don’t you think? Maybe he gave himself a fine after he captured this rather unusual moment in Lower Manhattan yesterday.

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When people nag you too much you a) tell them to shut the hey up b) do what they want you to, then the shut up part again.

The toolbar upgrader had no “shut up” button. Only a “do what I want or see 20% of your screen eaten by illegal occupation. ”

Obviously, Viewpoint is not as evil as the Searchweb2.com, which haven’t gotten around to implementing the cool, new feature ‘Uninstall’. Viewpoint even ask ‘Why do you want to uninstall’ with the appealing option of “I never wanted it in the first place”.

One solution. Another.

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But you certainly can drag it into iTunes directly from your favorite one and only browser.

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Mark writes about typography. Meanwhile, book designers in a blog collective write elsewhere. They may or may not have anything in common.
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