Things I Think Are Kinda Cool

Humans associate the color black with ‘evil’, and red with ‘passion’, no matter where in the world their culture exists. But things aren’t always so unanimous…click on this infographic by designer David McCandless and explore some of the differences.

Some observations:
-Re: ‘death’, Western/American cultures think of black, Hindu and Asian cultures think of white, Muslims relate to silver, and South Americans see green.
-Some cultures associate green with ‘luck’, while others think of red.
-Muslim and African cultures link silver to a ‘truce’, while the rest of the world thinks of ‘white’ (ie, a flag of surrender)
-Other concepts like ‘love’, ‘peace’, and ‘mourning’ have completely different color associations around the world.

-via Information Is Beautiful (via Neatorama)

If the letters MIA, LHR, JFK, & CDG conjure up images of jetsetting and beachbumming, take a look at Airwear, a cool new line of travel gear and accessories that turn your favorite airport codes into fashion statements infused with a healthy dose of wanderlust.  Owner Jason Solarek offers mugs, notebooks, messenger bags, hats, t-shirts, and more.  Each logo also incorporates the airport’s longitude and latitude coordinates into the design.  And don’t worry, virtually every airport is available, no matter how obscure you might think it is… (I’m looking at you, Kalamazoo!).

And last but definitely not least, Kalamazoo (AZO)…

-AirWear (via @SpotCoolStuff)

I used to be obsessed with optical illusions when I was younger (I spent WAY too many hours staring at them…maybe that’s why I have embarrassingly thick glasses today).  The first optical illusion I vividly remember was a “negative space” image…it was the one that looked like a vase and two faces at the same time.

The cool new book, “Negative Space” by graphic designer Noma Bar, is filled with modern and clever interpretations of these illusions.  These are some of my favorites:

-via Presurfer