I’ve been thinking a lot about QR codes recently, and how ugly they look. So, here’s a project which caught my eye over at Collate this week, from those clever chaps at The Chase. They’ve used QR codes to print Christmas wrapping paper, where each code contains a gift idea too. Blimey.

The sheets look pretty nice as posters too, right up my street.

I’ve been pursuing a little pet project do do with the oft-maligned QR code for a little while now which I hope to be able to reveal in the new year, so watch this space for more QR goodies…

This week’s fix comes from Victor Hertz, who has created these honest logos, which balance just the perfect amount of cynicism and levity for a Friday…

…see more in his Flickr set. Found via theinspiration.

Nice idea. Working in branding, I’m constantly reading the mythical ‘brand essence’ of various large corporations, which is always a statement which we are constantly reminded is never to be actually broadcast outside the building. I wonder how this exercise might go if you rendered various brand essence statements in the company’s logotype? Would the two match up or contrast horribly?

Two lovely examples of adding motion to what would previously have been static symbols.

This is the Current logo (the new Current logo, not the previous Current logo if you see what I mean), which in its previous incarnation had been animated from a static mark by the addition of a (bit dodgy) wave effect. Wolff Ollins and friends took this one step further and reimagined it as a flag.

Found over at Brand New where you can read the full story. Lovely…

Also, here’s a nice bit of 8-bit esque animation applied to a road safety sign.

Working within 2kb of RAM, the barbarian group animated the signage on hardware not intended for animation, to send a stark message.

Found rather predictably via the Creative Review blog…

Just a few things I spotted this week…

A modular typeface system which overlays different weights to build different combinations. Via typetoken

Lego walls! Via ohdeedoh

Milton Glaser on the fear of failure. Via Creative Review, where there are more from similarly wise people.

And finally, delightfully crazy Doctor Who T-shirts. Via GeekAlerts

I’m going to try and do a post like this every Friday. Juicy JPGs and creative clips without the burden of my tiresome opinion…

If you’re curious about how websites work, you’ve ever selected ‘view source’ to see the guts of the HTML, or you have wondered about the ominous ‘back-end’, then wonder no longer. Back of a webpage reveals the inner workings of your favourite websites and gives new meaning to pressing the browser’s ‘back’ button.

The photographic paper detail on the Flickr one is genius. Send you own submissions to backofawebpage@gmail.com Found via davidthedesigner – Made me smile too…

Tobias Bergdahl went to an Adrian Shaughnessy lecture and made notes. Except his notes weren’t the normal scribbly nonsense most of us manage, he formulated Shaughnessy’s “12 paradoxes of graphic design” into these: (and no, one of them wasn’t about going back in time to shoot your grandfather before he invents Comic Sans)