If you have even a passing interest in international film, you already know all about the Criterion Collection and its unabashedly cachet series of expensive DVDs. This is a series that has set an industry standard for special editions, rich extras, essay-packed print inserts, and meticulous print restoration. They’ve also released several international classics in definitive editions that have destroyed the relevance of every single film studies faculty the world over (maybe I exaggerate slightly).

Take just some of the classics of Italian filmmaking as an example: Criterion has essential editions of The Leopard, Amarcord, and the lost classic Mafioso on the market, a crucial influence on The Godfather and a wonderful film, that until 2007 never saw a North American release. If in a single year you managed to watch every disc Criterion has put out (they’re up to 453 now, not to mention that Janus pack) you’d have taken one of the most comprehensive arthouse film courses in the world.

But it’s not just about what’s on those DVDs or in those luscious booklets that draws me to Criterion’s stuff. See, I used to work at a CD/DVD shop. My days were punctuated with small pleasures, like routine visits from various ‘prized’ customers temporarily off their medication, or rabid Frank Zappa fans out to steal 3 hours of my time (often the two were indistinguishable). When I wasn’t sneaking smokes by the dumpsters in the back, I was eagerly tearing open fresh shipments of new DVDs.

The Criterion ones were, without a doubt, the sweetest to discover. Before sadly entering them into the store’s vast inventory, where they were inevitably misfiled on a shelf, nestled among far less deserving brethren, I would cherish each disc, temporarily forgetting that my measly salary prevented me from ever buying more than one every two months. A lot of this perverse behaviour of mine was due to the cachet Criterion managed to create by being the most exclusive and expensive DVD producer around, but the rest of my silly obsession was all about packaging, packaging, packaging.

Criterion hired and continues to hire some fine artists to do great graphic design work for its small packages, and when they aren’t comissioning originals by various stars from the world of illustration, they’re finding and using as packaging the most perfect piece of vintage memorabilia from a film–that damn rare French poster you’ve never seen before and would kill to have as a reprint today. So here, for you, I’ve collected my favorite 10 Criterion packages. If some of this material was available in larger–say, poster-sized–formats, I’d be giving those jerks at Criterion even more of my business. As it stands, jpegs will have to suffice:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
10) The Battle of Algiers - A remarkable film with a beautiful piece of packaging. This is faux-documentary filmmaking at its best. Watching this is like reading 18 long articles about the “grey areas” of torture and terrorism.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
9) Pierrot Le Fou - Remarkable colour usage on this Godard classic. This is one of Criterion’s recent releases, and of late they’ve been branching out to various illustrators and comic book artists for some covers, while still managing to use one-sheets and various film stills to make the best covers in the business when necessary.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
8 ) The Bad Sleep Well - Many of the Japanese films Criterion releases have some splendid artwork, often far more detailed than this minor Kurosawa picture, but the design and execution, as it ties into what the film is about (an executive hunting down his father’s killer in the corporate environment of postwar Japan, thank you Criterion website summaries), is brilliant.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
7) Boudu Saved From Drowning - Here’s what Criterion does beautifully: if there’s a wonderful piece of artwork already available for a film, especially period artwork, they use it. They fix it up and they present it perfectly, using original typography or extremely close reproductions. This cover is an absolute joy to look at.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
6) Breathless - The best minimalist packaging they’ve ever done. Take a look inside to see the rest of the set, it’s equally beautiful and brilliant. Godard gets all the good designs, so he does.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
5) The Honeymoon Killers - My favorite of Criterion’s alternative-context covers (also see Ace in the Hole). Every ad that surrounds the circled one has a thematic link with the film itself. Seriously, when do you ever see DVD covers this good?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
4) Traffic - Not Soderbergh’s film, but the new release of an older Tati film. Here’s another example of some old illustration, freshened and updated to work perfectly. Beautiful typography and design. I’d pay for that on a shirt, I would.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
3) Contempt - Another one of my favorite let’s-use-an-old-poster covers, this image of Brigitte Bardot is so linked to the film itself that I’m immediately transported back to when I first saw it, in the one arthouse theater in Ottawa. I was in high school, I saw a quotation from Martin Scorsese (or Coppola) calling it “the best film ever made about film-making”, and decided to go. I’d never seen an arty French film before and at the end I had absolutely no idea what was going on, yet I can remember scenes from that film better than hundreds I’ve seen since. I love this packaging and require it on a poster immediately.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
2) Berlin Alexanderplatz - Another very recent release. I don’t have much to say about it, having not seen the film, but the design is seriously pushing me towards a nearby CD/DVD store, where in a few hours I could find myself at the counter, in a kind of consumerist trance, hastily paying for and running home with this set. It is 15+ hours or so… would a single day’s viewing time suffice?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
1) Le Samourai - A beautiful, dark, brilliant film, and my favorite cover of the list. Nothing but Alain Delon adjusting his hat before he goes out to shoot some people and live by a perverted version of the Bushido code, but in Paris, in the 1960s. Incredible.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Various Earth-conscious businesses in the USA and Canada, along with some small state and city level government branches are starting to reward eco-trendy consumers. Perks may include being able to pass in the car pool lane, free parking, tax breaks, discounts in your favorite stores and even educational services like tutors and online courses. Today’s Perkonomics lesson is “The Eco-Perks of Being a Hybrid Car Owner”.

Owners of hybrids and highly fuel efficient vehicles are feeling the love all over the world. Hybrid car drivers can already get preferential parking spaces at IKEA stores. The Logan International Airport is offering free parking for hybrid drivers. Los Angeles has been offering free parking all over the city for the past three years to owners of hybrids and cars that get over 45 miles per gallon. Even New York is now considering letting hybrids off the hook when it comes to parking meters.

In Ontario, Canada’s most serious Earth-offender, they are considering a three-tier green program for hybrid and low-emission drivers. Their government is working on a “sliding scale” pricing system to determine which cars are the most environmentally friendly and therefore will get the most perks. The more fuel efficient your car is, the less you will have to pay for things like registration and parking. Canadian eco-friendly auto consumers can also qualify for an “eco-license plate;” a green plate which will entitle them to special eco-perks which have yet to be determined.

Many think that although some rewards, such as a fast ride in the carpool lane or reduced registration rates may be warranted, some perks like free or preferential parking are not. The argument is that no hybrid car owner is in more need of preferential parking than someone in a wheelchair or a pregnant woman. So far California and Colorado have both approved the use of the carpool lane for single occupancy hybrids. However, most major cities in those states have condemned of the idea.

There’s also an argument going on about who should qualify for eco-perks. What about the minivan full of commuting co-workers? Is someone who trades in their Hummer for a moped or motorcycle less worthy of a sweet parking spot? How about the Chevy Avalanche? It utilizes an Active Fuel Management system which according to EPA tests saves about 5.5%-7.5% in fuel economy. How are these solutions less worthy of eco-perks than owning a Hybrid car?

A lot of these eco-perks aren’t necessarily enforced anyway, but many think that it’s just the encouragement and recognition that people need to take a step in the right direction for saving the Earth. In order for any special program to have a long-lasting impact, it will most likely need to be backed by a considerable amount of businesses and at least a local or state government, much like Ontario did. Even then, Houston, Texas offered preferential parking up to the public and had only one citizen take advantage of it in a six month period.

So far in the USA, hybrid cars only make up about 3% of our morning traffic. So it’s understandable if there are some Perkonomic ups and downs while we make the switch to eco-friendly transportation. Frankly, the whole idea will be a lot more successful if we focus not only on people who own hybrids, but also on individuals who are trying to make a positive impact on the environment in other ways too. Hybrid cars are wicked cool, but there’s more than one way to offset a carbon footprint.

The beginning of the school year is creeping up quick. Many of us Future Know-It-Alls will be heading to (or back to) college in the next couple of weeks. This year, why not get everything you need, and help save the Earth as well? Here’s a list of the hottest new eco-trendy items that you can either buy or make yourself!

First on your list: School Supplies.
GreenEarthOfficeSupply.com has absolutely everything you could possibly need. They offer Recycled Denim Pencils, Biodegradable Cornstarch Pens, Remanufactured Inkjet Cartridges, and Ergonomic Computer Accessories. You can even get some free stuff from their website like soybean crayons and a banana-paper rainforest journal.

Carry it all in these eco-trendy backpacks and Satchels. Ecolution’s hip and trendy Hemp Hiking Satchel is waterproof and sturdy enough to carry your pencils, iPhone, or some small books and a journal. Comes in four fab colors.

Need to carry more than just a couple pencils? Hempys’Hemp Deluxe Backpack is made from recycled cotton and a soda bottle lining, and is completely durable so you can carry all those heavy books you’re going to get this year.

Juice Bags by Reware are a thing of the future with solar panels on the outside that can charge your laptop in between classes, or while you get your work done in the park. Juice Bags makes backpacks, messenger bags and other super sacks in a very wide variety of colors.

Are you a do-it-yourselfer? Go to Threadbanger.com to find out how you can make your own notebooks, pencil cases, and even a backpack out of Dad’s old blazer. (Just make sure it’s one that your Mom hates.)

Thirsty?
Don’t waste oil and plastic by using one of those 30 billion plastic water bottles that are consumed and thrown away every year – that is sooo 20th century! Instead get a water bottle that’s not only biodegradable, but also compostable. Belu, a socially and environmentally friendly company makes just that. Demand it on your campus and put a major dent in your college’s carbon footprint.

Dress to the nine’s (or 3R’s)
All Saints offers an environmentally conscious, high fashion clothing line for men and women. Made for the fashionably daring as well as the more conservative crowd.

Attitude Clothing offers Gothic, Punk, Sk8r and Rockabilly threads for less carbon. This is a UK site, but it offers some of our favorite USA brands like ZooYork and DC Shoes.

Secret Sales is no secret, in fact you can tell all your friends if you want to. With deep discounts on high-end fashion and design labels such as UMA, Versace, Criminal Damage, Laguana and Elvis & Jesus, this is probably one of the most fun and Earth-friendly ways to hit the campus in style.

Other hot-spots for environmentally friendly gear:

• ShotDeadInTheHead.com for tee shirts, bags and other stuff.
• ProgressiveKid.com has tons more back to school supplies, plus some other stuff too including cutesy bath time sets.
• Nickel-free, platinum and sterling silver jewelry by GabrielXXO
• Ladies can look and feel their best because Lancôme is a strong supporter of CarbonFund.org.
• GoCarbonFree.com offers everything you could possibly think of to help you reduce your carbon footprint. Whether you need to decorate your dorm, dress for the party, or type your notes down quick, GoCarbonFree has your gear. Plus, you can earn “Carbon Credits” for everything you buy to put towards more carbon friendly stuff!

Back when I biked to work on a regular basis, one of the biggest annoyances about each trip (besides those horrible clouds of bugs every biker occasionally hits) came from my resoundingly inelegant bike helmet. That was back in the mandatory-safety-land better known as Canada, where I felt slightly embarassed not wearing one, and was never sure whether I could be subjected to a fine for going without.

The reason my specific helmet was so damn annoying was partly due to the puffy-yet-thick mess of hair that rests ontop of my oversized head, ensuring no helmet ever looked anything but stupid and silly, but also because, for the life of me, I couldn’t find a helmet I liked to look at. I wanted a matte finish, simple, black, understated, like a skateboarding helmet. “Oh, you’ll sweat like a madman with that,” people told me. I didn’t care. I sweat anyway.

I finally found one halfway to those specifications and figured that was the best I could do. Eventually, I kept thinking, if only due to their increased proliferation, style will have to become a consideration when we talk about bike helmets–otherwise why even bother colouring them, if you’re not going to put some thought into what your head looks like while you’re biking around?

From what I can gather, bike helmets are generally divided into two depressing camps: the light, ugly racing ones, and the heavy, less-ugly BMX ones. Until recently I’d never seen any kind of radical re-design that brought any great aesthetic innovation to bear on the bike helmet, but new Danish company Yakkay has miraculously come up with a god-that-seems-so-obvious-in-hindsight concept that works wonders on the style front. If only they’d existed back when I was biking a lot, I could have been travelling around with what looked like an actual hat, albeit one that happened to contain a small strap coming out the bottom, saving my head from certain injury.

The reason Yakkay’s idea is a little bit revolutionary–and it’s something I’d never thought about before, but probably should have–is because it asserts that the shiny/matte finish of a normal bike helmet isn’t what we need to see. We don’t have to see all the plastic and foam that’s in place to protect our head, because it’s there to protect, not to be looked at. If we fall off our bike, it’s time to get a new helmet, anyway, so why not put some less-than-indestructible material on there to make it look good for the duration?

Yakkay decided the best thing to put overtop of the helmet was a fashionable hat. Genius! And not only have they done it with their wonderful Paris-style helmet, they’ve even gone and produced what they called the Izmir, which looks just like a jockey helmet. I think it’s a sly joke about bike helmets–if you’re going to wear a stupid round black thing on your head, at least look like an elegant, bourgeois horse-jumper while you’re at it.

It’s an idea that now seems ridiculously obvious. I’m sure I’ve seen someone who’s bought an oversized hat of some kind and popped it on top of a bike helmet, and yet Yakkay are the first to take it one step further–streamlining the process, fitting a series of different and stylish hats to the helmets, and releasing them to market. Innovative and simple as anything–love it.

With global warming and landfills on the rise, it’s nice to know that people like Shelly Spicuzza are finding unique ways to recycle. Her new ReGlow lamp design is not only funky and stylish, but allows us to reduce and reuse our waste in a most tasteful way. These trendy light fixtures are made out of recycled plastics and metals. The center is a thin aluminum and plastic sphere that is lined in Styrofoam. It splits into two parts so the three standard light bulbs can be placed in the middle. Once pushed back together, the ball has several threaded holes where recycling savvy consumers can screw in any standard sized plastic water or soda bottle.

Spicuzza said the original prototype was “made from a hamster ball that I drilled holes in for the placement of the water bottles.” People can screw in any color plastic bottle that they can find, after they pull off the label. Presently there is a limited amount of choices as far as color goes. It’s pretty much a toss up between “Mountain Dew Green” and “Coca-Cola Clear.” But if the lighting fixtures become popular enough, someone is sure to create multi-colored recycled bottles that fit into them anyway. It would be easy to capitalize off this bright idea by introducing plastic bottle variations and accessories for it.

Once you have all your recycled bottles in place, you can arrange your ReGlow lamp anyway you can think of. ReGlow can be hung up in a vertical line, or horizontally on an aluminum poll and users can put as many or as few ReGlow Lamps as they want in a row. When light filters through the bottles, it produces a shimmer around the room that might even make Steve Dahl want to trip the light fan-plastic. While we don’t know how much these spectacular spectrums cost just yet, it seems like Spicuzza is planning to price it so classy urbanites, college kids and hobos alike will be able to afford them.

Shelly Spicuzza is a Senior majoring in Industrial Design at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. She has already created several exceptional and unique inventions with very practical uses including her award winning Baby Foot Rattles, the Fossil Watch, and a new sports drink bottle design called VLo. When she finally graduates and is unleashed into the world as a professional, her designs are sure to make “Shelly Spicuzza” a household name.

Millions of people spend the first moments of daylight fighting with their alarm clocks. On a good morning, the alarm clock will win and all those night owls will roll out of bed to face the daylight. Occasionally though, we win (or lose?) and hit the snooze button just enough times so that the alarm clock surrenders and stays silent. The wake-up war aftermath often leaves us with lack of time and sanity, clothes that barely match – if at all, a bad hair day, and on the worst days can even cause loss of job. Yes, war is ugly.

Lucky for us, designers and clock companies have been working around the clock to shake up your wake up routine. Your bedroom will be a battlefield no more! The strategy: New alarm clock designs are meant to get people moving around. Once awake, they couldn’t go back to sleep even if they wanted to.

The new tossable alarm clock by Toyo Trading allows you to throw your alarm clock at anything you want. It has a motion detector on it that puts the alarm in snooze mode when it hits the wall. (Or cat, or picture frame, or whatever.) The catch? It’s just on snooze so you’ll have to get up and look for it if you want to turn it off again. The alarm clock comes in hand grenade, soccer ball and baseball models, and is made of soft PVC material, so you can’t shatter your television screen (or seriously injure your cat,) by mistake.

Wanna feel like an action movie star every morning? Then you may like the DangerBomb from Banpresto. When the alarm goes off, the user has to diffuse it by “cutting” the right wire which is randomly selected each morning by the clock itself. Pick the wrong one and the clock goes “KABLAMO!” If that doesn’t get your juices flowing, you may want to see a doctor.

If all that is just too much excitement first thing in the morning, then you could try the Silent Alarm Clock by Johan Brengesjo. Yes that’s right, silent. The clock comes with two rings for you and your significant other, or you can just put one on each hand. When it’s time to wake up, the rings will vibrate silently. The only way to put them on snooze is to shake your hand around. Every time you delay the inevitable, it takes more effort to shut them off next time until finally you are jumping around and shaking your hands like a monkey. The best part is that each ring can be set to different times so even though you may be shaking your jazz-hands at 6:00 a.m., your lover can rest comfortably until 7:00 a.m.

Is food your primary motivator in the morning? If so, then the Wake n’ Bacon by trio Matty Sallin, Daniel Bartolini and Hsiao-huh Hsu should do the trick. Simply put a frozen slice of bacon into a metal tray built into the side of the clock. Ten minutes before you have to get up the clock will start to cook your bacon, filling your entire room with the smell of a nice hot breakfast. Granted you only get one slice of bacon, but the guys are working on one that gets you an entire meal. Considering that there are no buzzers, bells or vibrations people will have to be EXTREMELY motivated by the smell of food in the morning for this to work.

Morning light is the instigator of many battles, making alarm clocks one of life’s necessary evils, and snooze buttons their wicked minions. Hopefully new technological breakthroughs will help those morning protestors and heavy sleepers find the perfect mix of bells, smells, and vibrations to get them up in time.

The Olympic Games are a consistent magnet for design criticism–professional and amateur alike–as seen most clearly in last summer’s messy reaction to the London 2012 logo. Personally, when speaking of an event as universal as the Olympics, I tend towards the “better a weird logo” camp than the “obviously designed by committee” one, so I found the harshness directed towards the London logo (it does have its defenders, too) far preferable to the usual collective shrug/ignorance meted out to high-profile logos like this.

Last year in Brussels I saw a great shirt with the Moscow 1980 logo on it, and I realized there’s a dearth of products out there that take advantage of the wonderful design history of the Olympic Games. Whether it’s the concentric lines of the Mexico 68 logo (the closest thing I own that’s similar is this killer shirt from iso50) or the beautiful simplicity of the Tokyo 64 logo, this is a heritage of design ripe for a wide-scale reintroduction–something likely blocked because, for legal reasons, any old designer can’t slap a classic Olympic logo on a t-shirt and start selling it.

Whether or not Colloco’s new PVC-leather Olympic Logo Bags are legal is beside the point–they’re fantastic. The aforementioned 64 and 68 designs are beautifully represented, and the Munich 72 games are rendered with the iconic sport-specific pictograms created by Otl Aicher specifically for those games (good thing, as those symbols are more enduring than the actual Olympic logo of that year, although it’s good too). There’s also a re-imagining of the Los Angeles 84 logo, and the great Moscow 80 one as well.

It’s an Olympic Year, which means it’s time to either protest, embrace, observe, or simply ignore the Beijing Games; I’m not sure which one I’ll choose for August (probably the complicated ignorance through vacation route), but should I decide, on a whim, to express my Olympic Spirit through a woman’s handbag, I’ll stick with the classics.

One wonderful new book gaining strong traction in the world of design and advertising is Rob Walker’s Buying In. The weekly columnist for the New York Times Sunday Magazine stands and delivers a book-length meditation on the 21st-century consumer, along with a perfect antidote to any under-researched column or study that tells you marketing “as we know it” is dead, or that the modern consumer is so over-informed and intelligent that all old strategies or ideas have jumped (or must be thrown) out the window.

Advertising is changing in fundamental ways–this, no one denies–but some rules of the game still remain, and Walker is here to chart the way all the various agents (producers and consumers alike) have adapted.

Besides the immediate appeal to anyone involved in advertising or design, the book has a transcendent draw that comes from its central examination of brand attachment. Walker coined the term “murketing”, to describe a 21st century mix of murky and marketing that he describes as being a two-part system, one which is made up of the “increasingly sophisticated tactics of marketers who blur the line between branding channels and everyday life” and the consciously “widespread consumer embrace of branded, commercial culture.”

Read the introduction to the book here and tell me you’re not hooked by his anecdotal reference to Chuck Taylor’s All-Stars: he says the book “was inspired by the disconnect between what the experts say [about consumer behaviour] and how we really behave,” and the first example comes from his very own experiences. Perfect for me, as I only started wearing All-Stars a year and a half ago, and since then I’ve already bought 3 pairs. Why? Lots of reasons, surely, almost all of them connecting to self/group identification, and (almost) all to be found in this book.

One of the most fascinating parts of Walker’s theory, the pieces of which you can put together through all the entries on his murketing blog or his “Consumed” columns (all available online), is the “Desire Code”, his examination of how we come to desire what we eventually buy, or how logo/brand/product desire is created.

His idea rides on a “fundamental tension of modern life,” one that extends far past marketing and consumerism but is essential to his understanding of it: the tension between the individual and the group. Hardly a new concept, but that’s the point–the game hasn’t changed so much to be unrecognizable, rather all its participants are (apparently) a little more self-aware. A fine sampling:

When I was in grade school, we watched a lot of films. Perhaps they were a relatively easy way to quiet the children down for a while. But remembering this period as an adult, I’m struck by the realization that those films all had one of two themes.

One was: Deep down, each of us is different, unique, and special.

The other was: Deep down, we are all just the same.

For years I shared this observation, for laughs, before it finally occurred to me that this was no joke. In fact, it articulated what is more or less the fundamental tension of modern life.

We all want to feel like individuals.

We all want to feel like a part of something bigger than ourselves.

And resolving that tension is what the Desire Code is all about.

Summer is here, and from anecdotal evidence in various popular magazines, I’ve heard it’s the “reading” season, although reading on the beach does nothing but hurt my eyes. If you, however, can keep yours relatively unsquinted, Walker’s book is an essential purchase.

Fresh off the theme of yesterday’s Whitney Biennial article, in which contemporary visual artists tried their hand at t-shirt design, let’s take a look at another example of an artist (an architect, in this case), justly famous in his own medium, testing a new mode of expression.

Frank Gehry’s buildings are widely known and celebrated worldwide, with his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain taking a large piece of the credit for that city’s newly achieved prominence on the world stage (photo courtesty kurtxio).

Although designing a line of jewelry for famous NY-based jewelers