Tourists’ photos all look the same don’t they?

That’s what Corinne Vionnet thought, in fact she went and proved it by overlaying hundreds of tourist photos from the internet. The result is a series of ghostly images of famous landmarks. They’re really lovely and make you wonder how people assess the optimum view of the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben. There’s a sort of collective agreement that they should be seen from a certain perspective. Perhaps it’s something to do with symmetry or an obvious vantage point.

But she must have been pretty selective, as we all know most tourists prefer to stand in front of iconic landmarks they’ve waited their lives to see and obliterate them with the head of their mum/dad/daughter/son who they see every day. Funny that.

Whenever I come back from holiday and offer to show my snaps to my Dad, he always asks me if there are any with people in them this time, knowing that otherwise he’s going to have to sit through hundreds of bits of found type, buildings, signs and overhead wires. Perhaps I should stick my head in the way more often then…

Found via Design Taxi

I love this new 8-bit map of London by Brett Camper, showing what happens when the vintage graphical power of the NES meets the cutting edge GPS data of Google maps. You can zoom in and out and search for your house, although obviously it doesn’t really have the resolution of the Google original, so you’re not going to be able to see your car parked outside or wave to your Mum. (or see your house.)

He’s also done New York…

I enjoyed reading the Guardian article this week on the significance of the letter ‘O’ to designers, but having seen this in New York, it’s certainly a double edged sword…

…more from New York soon.

Illustrator Christoph Niemann has been playing with his sons’ Lego set. He’s created these lovely vignettes of New York life.

There are more here. I wonder what the London equivalents would be?

When my girlfriend and I were in New York last year we found a great Diner where we went back a couple of times for breakfast or coffee. Well, I just heard via some incoming searches to this site, that it’s closing down. We found the Cheyenne Diner as it was opposite the world’s largest photographic store, B&H, and so heavily laden with new lenses etc we staggered in for some pancakes.

It had been there for 19 years, but now the commercial pressure for development is forcing it to close its doors. Even so, the landlord says “I don’t want to knock it down. I want to save the building,” so perhaps it will become a trendy trainer shop (sorry – sneaker store) or something. At least we got some great shots of it while we were there. Click the images here to see more on Flickr…

Last year we also had to come to terms with the closure of the New Piccadilly Café in London, another place we had just started visiting before the owners were priced out of the area. That had been there for half a century and has just been lying derelict ever since it shut down.

Well, if you’re looking for the few remaining places to enjoy an affordable no fuss bite to eat and nice retro cup of tea, there are lots of sites around which can point you to somewhere a little more imaginative than Starbucks. Remember to support your local independent shops and cafés, otherwise pretty soon it will have to be Lattés and Ciabattas all round…

…got a suggestion? Post it here…

Plastic bags needn’t hasten the end of the world, they can be fun too. Artist Joshua Allen Harris tied some to the subway grates in New York, and look what happened when a train sucked past…

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