Text modules?

Another one I found while looking at Comm Arts...



This one is designed by Samia Saleem. I feel like I've been seeing text arranged like this a lot lately. The McDonalds ads look like this right now, and I think I saw a Ford commercial (actually, I'm not sure... I just know it was a commerical for a car...) and it had moving type that would line up/fall like tetris pieces into these module sort of configurations sometimes.

Pinkberry

I really enjoy the branding for Pinkberry! :] It's so cheerful and happy, without being circus-y. I like the soft colors... they look really delicious.

Plus, froyo is yummy and healthy. Yay us!

Coa (Design Firm)

I was surfing on the Comm Arts website and saw this piece here:



I thought it looked pretty amazing. I'm curious as to what this book is, and I want to read it. They seem to have made information design look innovative and fun. It really drew me in with this little picture.

Provinces of China

Have you ever wondered how about all those provinces in China? Well... when I was little, I didn't know that China didn't have "states" like we do here. When I got older, I learned that they were provinces... and I always wondered how they were separated and how they looked like. Well, now wikipedia offers an easy-to-read map of all the provinces in China :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:PRC_provinces_big_imagemap

I like that the colors are subtle and don't distract. As far as communicating the provinces go, this map is successful.

However, the thing I don't understand are the blue and red lines; what do those mean? And why is Taiwan in white? Maybe it's a political thing... maybe the creator of this map thinks that China and Taiwan have "wiped face" (I'm not sure how to translate that phrase in English!) and so, they made Taiwan look invisible! Hahaha oooh the questions, they burn. I'm going to have to pace around my room dramatically until I figure out the meaning of those lines.

Or maybe someone else will figure it out and let me know.