Placemaking in Beijing

A new year often comes with hopes of new outlooks, new ambitions and new resolutions which aim to carry us beyond January, and in the case of the Dongcheng District in Beijing this transitional stage has been taken one step further. Research and Design Studio MAT Office has transformed a once dilapidated part of the Chinese capital, bringing together the artificial and natural though building a beautifully latticed courtyard canopy which surrounds a Scholar Tree. The new space aims to empower younger generations to take spatial ownership of the city while bringing vitality to the area through the long winter, definitely something we could do with more of!

Beat the January blues with these silly GIFs

January....a month of destroyed bank balances, social reclusiveness and worst of all, incessant yet short-lived commitments to new routines and behaviours. If we didn't know any better, we may think it strange that the passing of time from one specific day to the next can signal a complete departure from our usual ticks and desires. Alas, this is New Year's and we do know better. Thankfully, Kyle Platts, a London-based illustrator, has designed a series of hilariously immature, toilet-themed, New Year's GIFS, for those of us who can't help but be irritated by this bizarre trend. We particularly like the GIF in which a nondescript man urinates on to a 2019 sign....a masterpiece Kyle!

London’s Borough of Culture launches with a flash

Waltham Forest commenced their year as London’s very first Borough of Culture with an incredible three day festival of light, music and film curated by composer Erland Cooper. It was an electrifying start to what promises to be an exciting year for East London with an incredible calendar of events from art trails and music festivals to drag shows and theatre and the promise of ‘culture on every street corner’. Head to http://wfculture19.co.uk to discover more.

Feed this into your New Year

Fed up of social media but can't bring yourself to ditch it completely? New app 'Filtergram' was made for you. Marketed as the app “for people who want to see some Instagram content, but aren’t too keen on the Instagram Experience itself", Filtergram enables you to share and view pretty images without the pressure of a like or comment function. The feed also runs in chronological order, which makes sense... Instagram take note. Better still, you can type in hashtags to filter out posts you don’t care about (like #ad, for example).

Mastercard joins the elite few with a nameless logo

After a quick start to 2019, we didn’t think a logo for a bank card would become one of the most discussed re-designs entering the new year but amazingly this seems to have happened. Mastercard has unveiled their symbol-only logo, joining the likes of Apple, Nike and Starbucks to drop brand names and let emblems do the talking. With an influx of digital banks entering the market with creative branding, it’s no wonder Mastercard want to start thinking about their visual aesthetic and the logo that features on their cards.