How cool is this? I'll tell you how cool... FECKING cool!

1. Add your own sounds to the usb stick.
2. Place the stick inside the tape style gift pack.
3. Write your own message and playlist.
4. Give it to someone you love.

There are six different styles of tape to collect and you can order one online from Suck UK.

How many times have you seen that title on a forum or blog post and groaned, waiting for the nerd dogfight to unfold with a tedious inevitability?

This is different though. The internet at it's most brilliantly pointless has brought forth a piece of music made entirely from Windows system sounds. And not to be outdone the Mac community have made one out of OS X sounds too. The fabulous thing is, the Windows tune is complex, overblown and cheesy, while the Mac version sounds like a pretentious piece of stripped down jazz. It's as if someone has distilled the very essence of each platform into a couple of minutes of music.

Windows version:

Mac version

Picked up from Listening Post

More user–generated e–flyer business for Sancho. This time users lend a hand in brightening up dreary old February London.

Excellent ascii-tastic packaging for the "Bugged Out Classics" compilation by Zip Design, who have a tasty website. Head to the CR Blog for more images and info.

A funny and well made guide to the art of Sleevefacing TM. Found at Word Magazine.

I came across this collection of metal logos today via the excellent Fffound! feed.

Whereas bands like Radiohead and U2 reinvent their visual language with every new album, metal bands often carry the same logo throughout their careers. This observation led me to ponder whether any of them are what we pedantic designers would call genuinely good.

Here are some of the attributes which traditionally make up a good logo:

- It has a distinctive silhouette (the human brain finds this memorable – think Mickey Mouse's head)
- It's easily reproduced in black and white and at poor resolution (the traditional example is "does it survive being sent as a fax)
- It's original and well drawn (or typeset)

While most of the logos above fail these simple tests, a few of them are genuinely good logos. Metallica, Slayer and AC/DC are all well crafted, have great personality and stick in the mind. I'd love to say this was also true of Iron Maiden, but unfortunately the rubbish letterspacing lets it down - boo.

If you know of any more band logos which are genuinely good examples of logo design, please suggest them in the comments.

Following on from the sleeve art remix posters, John put me onto this brilliant collection of vinyl sleeve heads. David Essex (below) made me laugh. A lot.

After finally getting their entire music collection on one device, many digital music fans have discovered that there is simply too much choice. A smaller but still significant few will also have encountered the dreaded "shuffle loop", where, unsatisfied with the random tune your iPod has provided, you keep skipping tracks indefinitely until either you or your iPod dies of old age.

If you suffer from either (or indeed both) of these terrible afflictions, you may be interested in the Slacker Personal Radio – a device which has just become available in the U.S.



I'm a huge advocate of intelligent internet radio services like Pandora and Last.fm. These applications learn your music tastes over time in order to provide an effort-free stream of music containing both a mix of your favourite existing tunes and exciting new material. Last.FM is how I discover 75% of the new music I listen to. In fact my less technology–obsessed friends are convinced I'm on some kind of commission for encouraging new sign-ups, such is the fervour with which I evangelise about it's brilliance.

By the clever trick of caching the music on the device and updating it's contents each time you connect to wi-fi, the Slacker provides Last.fm style functionality on the move (it even has "love" and "ban" buttons). Early reviews are good, but I'm a little concerned that a whole new device is required for this kind of functionality. Perhaps if the iPod Touch or iPhone had a little more memory they could run this kind of software without the need for a whole new player. For this reason I'm putting the Slacker in the "stop–gap" category. Convergant devices aren't going to go away, but in the short-term it looks like good fun.

I spotted this great series of posters for Neuf Music which brilliantly illustrate the slogan "Make your mix". Shame the website they are advertising is particularly poorly designed.