Festive Greetings 2007

> Image courtesy.

The Bridge

In Argentina, a real estate developer wanted an ad campaign to promote a new project. Creative thinkers at an ad agency thought it would be better creative business idea to build a bridge with the millions budgeted for advertising. Not a figurative bridge - a literal one. Image the reaction.

Water Bridge

Even after you see it, it is still hard to believe! Water Bridge in Germany. What a feat!

• Six years
• 500 Million Euros
• 918 meters long

This is a channel-bridge over the River Elbe and joins the former East and West Germany , as part of the unification project. It is located in the city of Magdeburg , near Berlin. The photo was taken on the day of inauguration. To those who appreciate engineering projects, here's a puzzle for you armchair engineers and physicists.

Did that bridge have to be designed to withstand the additional weight of ship and barge traffic, or just the weight of the water?

It only needs to be designed to withstand the weight of the water! Why? A ship always displaces an amount of water that weighs the same as the ship, regardless of how heavily a ship may be loaded.

> Read more about this bridge here.

The Scream - Thao Le

No words - witness the sheer power of imagination!











Created by Thao Le - http://www.thaoarts.com

In search of coffee

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university lecturer. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the lecturer went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, some plain-looking and some expensive and exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the lecturer said: "If you noticed, all the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the better cups and are eyeing each other's cups."

"Now, if Life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change." "Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it."

So folks, don't let the cups drive you...enjoy the coffee instead.

Behind The Logo Lines

I am not sure how many of you have noticed a hidden symbol in the Federal Express logo:



Yeah, I am talking about the 'arrow' that you can see between the E and the x in this logo. The arrow was introduced to underscore speed and precision, which are part of the positioning of the company. However, they chose to keep it sublte, or in other words, a subliminal symbol. The creator of the logo, Lindon Leader, explains why this was done thus.

The power of the hidden arrow is simply that it is a "hidden bonus." It is a positive-reverse optical kind of thing: either you see it or you don't. Importantly, not "getting the punch line" by not seeing the arrow, does not reduce the impact of the logo's essential communication. The power of the logo and the FedEx marketing supporting the logo is strong enough to convey clearly FedEx brand positioning. On the other hand, if you do see the arrow, or someone points it out to you, you won't forget it. I can't tell you how many people have told me how much fun they have asking others "if they can spot 'something' in the logo."

Besides, FedEx is also an interesting case where the brand consultants convinced the company to shorten their corporate name and logo from "Federal Express" to the popular abbreviation "FedEx". Besides creating a shorter brand name, they reduced the amount of color used on vehicles (planes, trucks) and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in paint costs. Now that is some true 'value for money' consulting.



The SUN Microsystems logo is a wonderful example of symmetry and order. It was a brilliant observation that the letters u and n while arranged adjacent to each other look a lot like the letter S in a perpendicular direction. Spectacular.



The above logo is for an editing studio. I like the way the logo attempts to convey what they do.



The above are two magazines from the Readers Digest stable. Again, the attempt to communicate what it is about quite figuratively through the logo catches my attention.



I liked this logo of a hair stylist for the cheeky humour it brings to the (dressing) table.




This was a logo created for a puzzle game called Cluenatic. This game involves unravelling four clues. The logo has the letters C, L, U and E arranged as a maze. and from a distance, the logo looks like a key.



This logo is too good. For the name Eight, they have used a font in which each letter is a minor adaptation of the number 8.



Eighty-20 is a small consulting company which does sophisticated financial modeling, as well as some solid database work. All their work is highly quantitative and relies on some serious computational power, and the logo is meant to convey it. People first guess that 20% of the squares are darkened, but that turns out to be false after counting them. The trick is to view the dark squares as 1's and the light squares as 0's. Then the top line reads 1010000 and the bottom line reads 0010100, which represent 80 and 20 in binary. Kinda like the surreal green screen of The Matrix, they want us to read stuff in binary...



This was a logo designed in-house for some internal event at IBM. I like that they are quite relaxed about the logo, unlike certain other companies who do not like the logo to be tampered with in any way even for internal promotions.



You might think the arrow does nothing here. But it says that amazon.com has everything from a to z and it also represents the smile brought to the customer's face. Wow, that is quite deep.




As a parting note, I wish to leave with this marketing tactic that was used by an apparel shop:
Ha ha, the desperation of the shoppers of these days, I say. Have you people completed your festival shopping, hopefully from the racks and not from the mannequins on display at the window?

Copyright © All logos displayed above are copyrighted and are registered trademarks of the respective companies. Used here purely for reference purposes.

Interesting Anagrams

1. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
   When you rearrange the letters:
   FLIT ON CHEERING ANGEL
   
   
2. DILIP VENGSARKAR
   When you rearrange the letters:
   SPARKLING DRIVE
   
   
3. BARA THEDA
   When you rearrange the letters:
   ARAB DEATH ( Read more )
   
   
4. PRINCESS DIANA
   When you rearrange the letters:
   END IS A CAR SPIN
   
   
5. MONICA LEWINSKY
   When you rearrange the letters:
   NICE SILKY WOMAN
   
   
6. DORMITORY:
   When you rearrange the letters:
   DIRTY ROOM
   
   
7. PRESBYTERIAN: ( Read more )
   When you rearrange the letters:
   BEST IN PRAYER
   
   
8. ASTRONOMER:
   When you rearrange the letters:
   MOON STARER
   
   
9. DESPERATION:
   When you rearrange the letters:
   A ROPE ENDS IT
   
   
10. THE EYES:
    When you rearrange the letters:
    THEY SEE
    
    
11. GEORGE BUSH:
    When you rearrange the letters:
    HE BUGS GORE
    
    
12. THE MORSE CODE:
    When you rearrange the letters:
    HERE COME DOTS
    
    
13. SLOT MACHINES:
    When you rearrange the letters:
    CASH LOST IN ME
    
    
14. ANIMOSITY: ( Read More )
    When you rearrange the letters:
    IS NO AMITY
    
    
15. ELECTION RESULTS:
    When you rearrange the letters:
    LIES - LET'S RECOUNT
    
    
16. SNOOZE ALARMS:
    When you rearrange the letters:
    ALAS! NO MORE Z'S
    
    
17. A DECIMAL POINT:
    When you rearrange the letters:
    I AM DOT IN PLACE
    
    
18. THE EARTHQUAKES:
    When you rearrange the letters:
    THAT QUEER SHAKE
    
    
19. ELEVEN PLUS TWO:
    When you rearrange the letters:
    TWELVE PLUS ONE
    
    
20. MOTHER-IN-LAW: (Winner)
    When you rearrange the letters:
    WOMAN HITLER

Letter Writing - The “Old School” Way

Do you remember the days prior to the age of email? Think back to the time when you owned ten or more sets of pretty stationery. I know, many people still own ten or more sets of pretty stationery, but it (having/using email) begs the question: Do you actually use it?

In a time filled with electronic data and multitudes of input begging for our attention everyday, some people may enjoy communications of an older form (or an “old school” way) instead. My snail mailbox is wrought with bills, credit card inquiries and TONS of junk mail! I personally think it’s exciting to find a handwritten letter or card waiting for me at the end of the day. It’s a welcome change to the typical junk that greets me everyday but Sundays and holidays.

Read more from the original article by Payton.

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Inspiration: Chrisann's Favorite Books
Ref' Original content: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum

An excerpt from the book : Robert Fulghum writes in “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten - “The inspiration for brevity came to me at a gasoline station. I managed to fill an old car’s tank with super deluxe high-octane go-juice. My old hoopy couldn’t handle it and got the willies--kept sputtering out at intersections and belching going downhill. I understood. My mine and my spirit get like that from time to time. Too much high-content information, and I get the existential willies--keep sputtering out at intersections where life choices must be made and I either know too much or not enough. The examined life is no picnic .”

Lessons from the Book I learnt:

1. Live a balanced life : Work and Play, Eat and Exercise, Speech and Silence, Pleasure and Prayer and so on… lot of things in life to be balanced.
2. Wash your hands before you eat : no explanation required.
3. Don’t take things that aren’t yours : very important. Know what you want, take what you need and keep till you need. This is one habit that would have avoided all wars happened so far and are about to come in the future. Be it world wars, Pandavs and auravs, Ram and Ravan, India Independence, etc. all arose just because someone wanted to pick somebody else’s things.
4. Share everything : This is something we start doing on our own when we are very young, no hidings, no differentiations, and no hassles in sharing at that time till we grow up and learn what is not to be learnt.
5. Put things back when you found them : love, hatred … run your own imaginations…
6. Play fair: very important but equally difficult. Try, it returns lot of happiness.
7. Clean up your own mess : As and when you are the part of a mess, clear it, else…
8. Don’t hit people : hit the cause of pain, you can’t hit the pain directly. Similarly don’t hit the people, hit the problem. Philosophy of life is hitting on people will bounce back on you and hit you.
9. Flush : Flush your anger, bad habits, wastes, ill feelings… keep flushing.
10. Take a nap every afternoon : if not possible, take a break from your regular work, by sitting idle for a while – blank, meditate, relax, close eyes, and walk a little. Just give yourself a break.
11. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you : enable cookies in your browser, which makes browsing faster. Jokes apart, just try fresh, warm cookies with cold milk.
12. Learn some, think some, draw some, paint, sing, dance, play, and work everyday: don’t hesitate, you can do it, do it and see the difference.
13. Say you’re sorry when you hurt someone : no need to explain, but only to realize it in time and say… else it becomes too late sometimes…
14. Be aware of wonder : discover, encounter, face, welcome and be aware of wonder. Lot of things happen around, but goes unnoticed. Look around, wonder may be a perception taking a 360 degrees turn or anything else…
15. When you go out in the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together : how lovely this statement is…
16. Remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why , but we are all like that – ponder, think, imagine and explain to yourself…
17. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we – the crux of the matter, the reality of life, the completion of lifecycle…
18. Remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all – LOOK - yep, look around, keep eyes and ears open, let sensory nerves not sublimed under the burdens of life, be light and absorbent every moment.
    

And so on…and on… and on… read the book…

Philosotainment

In order to be happy, you must be successful in all three of these areas:

1. Relationships
2. Health
3. Income

Realistically, you will only have time to accomplish any two of those goals while bitching about the third. The day isn't long enough to do them all.

When I see a well-dressed, chubby, 40-something guy in a nice SUV with his family, all happy and laughing, I know he gave up health. He'll be dead in 10 years. When I see a totally fit person in the gym, I always wonder if he's a lonely loser or just underemployed. It's one or the other.

There are rare exceptions. A friend of mine makes a great living by working a few hours per day from his home or his boat. He has a great family life and an ideal body mass index. I expect the universe to smite him any minute. He's violating some sort of natural law and it's only a matter of time before things revert to the mean.

Which of the three requirements of happiness are YOU giving up?

We all die...

The goal isn't to live forever,
the goal is to create something that will.


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