“This is a uniquely 21st Century branding story—the reinvention of a government-owned bureaucracy, to compete in the marketplace with some of the world’s sharpest marketers.” Read the review on Identityworks.

“France Telecom’s Orange said in a one-sentence statement that it will sell the handset in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and African markets later this year.”—see the Associated Press release. Via Brandly yours.

Lovemarks, the book: “aimed at six-year-olds”—rarely does bullshit get exposed with such clarity and wit. Forget brands. What you need is an intimate bond with your dandruff shampoo. Read it.

“By choosing to compete on design instead of technology alone, Apple seems to have found a loophole in the Innovator’s Dilemma.” Why Doesn’t Apple Face The Innovator’s Dilemma?

“It seems that with admirable loyalty, management returned to Wally Olins, whose 1988 team designed Akzo’s ‘Reaching Man.’ Wally’s post-Wolff Olins firm is Saffron.” Read more at Identityworks.

“Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network.” From Vodafone’s press release cited by DF.

Today CEC Bank, the oldest Romanian bank, unveiled its new identity designed by Brandient.

See the press conference video record (link in Romanian, free registration required).

The product of an 8-week helicopter expedition from Hamburg to Cape Town: Eyes Over Africa by Michael Poliza.

“It’s like casting off the signs of youth to embrace adulthood.” More at Identityworks.

So many blogs are crap that the two substantives—blog and crap—will soon be synonymous. But every once in a while you find a post so honest-to-goodness and beautiful that it single-handedly exonerates the whole damn category.

“Our designers, production and client facing people are living dog-years. They live seven years to any normal designer’s one year” — Attik’s new NoiseBlog.

“I think people are really noticing the difference between Mac OS X and Windows to a greater degree than ever before.” Steve Jobs about Apple’s 51% increase in Macintosh sales.

“I finally realized: living life is more important than blogging about design.” Khoi Vinh in his post My Time Away from Blogging.

For many companies, Orthodox Easter is a great opportunity for sending tons of crappy e-mails that are written worse than most unsolicited mass mailings commonly known as “spam.” The Easter greetings filter cries to be invented.

“Intelligent information is alive”. More at Identityworks.

Bumbuț posts an incredible image. Ironic and depressing at the same time.

The Rolling Sones, as you’ve never seen them before—Shine a Light, a concert film by Martin Scorsese, shot with 17 cameras by an all-star team of cinematographers headed up by Robert Richardson, whose fellow directors of photography include Emmanuel Lubezki (“Children of Men”) and Robert Elswit (Oscar for “There Will Be Blood”). Trailer.

So intense it’ll crush you.

I’ll be in Scotland this weekend for a Portishead live performance. Not very far from the real Portishead, actually.

Laugh until you cry. And, as my colleague Iancu says, “don’t you ever complain again”.

The “Feature Photography” 2008 Pulitzer Prize goes to Preston Gannaway for her intimate chronicle of a family coping with a parent’s terminal illness. To see the feature, go to PrestonGannaway.com → Stories & Essays → Remember Me. Via TOP.

Noteworthy even given that I’m against design competitions: a 26-year-old first-time currency designer redraws UK coinage. And Jonathan Hoefler’s bitter perspective. Via Kottke.

An image is worth a thousand lies, when Photoshop gets involved.

“Engineers meet branding and get it! Fantastic.” More at Identityworks.

Starck went on to say that he believed that design on the whole was dead. This “I’m so ashamed to make this job” story is hardly new, but what about fighting “barbaria”?

“Notice what’s special and important around me. […] Now that I’ve noticed, care about it.” I enjoyed Randy J. Hunt’s latest article on Speak Up: Pay Attention & Give a Shit.

Pritzker Architecture Prize-winner Rem Koolhaas’ high-tech Maison à Bordeaux as seen from the perspective of Guadalupe Acedo, the housekeeper and the person who actually has to take care of keeping all this amazing design alive.

Was perfectly happy flying under the radar for a while, but the time had come to look like a leader. More at Identityworks.

“If you want options, go talk with other people! I’ll solve your problem for you.” 1993 Steve Jobs interview about working with Paul Rand at paul-rand.com.

Photographer Cosmin Bumbuț puts bumbutz.ro at work by launching a photo-blog. His regular web site remains at bumbutz.com.

Aneta Bogdan—Brandient’s Managing Partner—speaks about Brandient and Romanian branding market in Mimi Noel’s interview The Brand Way for Money Express. Link in Romanian, sorry.

“Publishing is not about selling newspapers or magazines to consumers, it’s about selling consumers to advertisers.” Wired Magazine.

This new brand will saturate roadside Ireland, replacing both the Shell and the Statoil brands on some 350 petrol service stations. More at Identityworks.