Here it is again the list of my 10 favorite readings of the week.
Let’s start.

• Most brilliant is new Zippo advertising campaign. Even if message clearly exaggerate the amount of space taken by discarded lighters, it shows an interesting point of view that probably few of us had considered before. Read a full article on StillAd ;
• Most Useful is The 13 most essential plugin for WordPress by Net-tuts. Even if I don’t agree to all of them because I think some plugin in list are not strictly necessary (don’t forget that each plugin you activate eats resources and slows a bit your wordpress!), there are some I didn’t know. I would add to list Login Lockdown: detect and record IP addresses of every failed login attempt and if more than a certain number of attempts are detected within a short period of time from the same IP range, then the login function is disabled for all requests from that range;
  
• Most stunning is Step into my Cardboard Office from CR Blog. Their article tells about Nothing, a new Amsterdam creative agency that built its internal working spaces with cardboard. Article has plenty of amazing pictures of the studio;
• Most funny is Comments you won’t have seen by DavidAirey.com. I read this clever and wit blog very often and surely there are a lot of graphic design post to point out (I especially like the “Logo of the month” series), but this one was, really, exhilarating;
• Most Interesting is Achieve your goals with Incremental Persistence. I’ve found this article on DevLounge. Very powerful explanation about how persistence conquers all. You can’t miss the linked John Reese article on Income.com too;
• Most Beautiful is a showcase of SmashingMagazine of 40 typography-related websites and blogs. Astounding creativity and a lot of knowledge here;
• Most Inspiring is a DesignM.ag Showcase about landscape photography. Incredibly, the shot of the cypresses has been taken not far away from where I live. Those trees are really famous among photographers here;
• Most Valuable is The Ups and Downs of Business by Chris Tomlison. I’ve found by chance this 5th and last article of an interesting series, so, my advice is to read them all;
• My favorite artist is Jay Horinouchi creates dreamy and intriguing worlds filled with Japanese-inspired creatures. Amazing painting technique. He is having a solo exhibition at Möbius Gallery in Los Angeles until April 7, 2009.

It is possible that my couple of reader will think that I am a soft drink addicted now (if so I Would never tell, LOL), but surely I couldn’t let this news unnoticed.

Coca-Cola launched about a month ago a limited edition design for the Coca-Cola Light bottle. And a very coool and eye-catching one, I have to say.

Bottles have been styled by Natalye Rykiel, daughter of the talented end eclectic French stylist Sonia Rykiel, ex model, actually art director of the family griffe.

Rykiel’s creations mark the 20th anniversary of Coke Light and the 40th year of her mother’s fashion house.

Lovely colored Diet Coke bottles are customized according the typical style of Nathalie Rykiel, the same way some time ago was done by Roberto Cavalli and Patricia Field.
Cavalli embellished 300,000 bottles with three of his typical animal prints.

Patricia Field edition (the designer became famous because she was the costumer of “Sex and the City”) had four color designs, that aimed to represent some aspects of a woman life: Career (gold), Love (pink), Passion, and, naturally, Fashion (the light blue bottle).

Nathalie Rykiel collectors bottles are sold at Monoprix and Grand Epicerie de Paris for 1,25 Euros (about 1,60 USD) but in EBAY there already is collector war, and there are some sold for 15 Euros and more!

Visit official Coke website presentation of the design HERE.

Tate Liverpool has announced an upcoming event starting from 29th May to 13th September 2009 addressed to all graphic, fashion and interior designer.
The exhibition Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today will show role of color in these main areas of desing from post-war to nowadays.

Taking the commercial colour chart as its point of departure, the exhibition emphasises a radical transformation in the post-War Western art that is characterised by the departure from such notions as originality, uniqueness and authenticity.

Colour Chart celebrates a paradox: the beauty that occurs when contemporary artists assign colour decisions to chance, ready made source, or arbitrary system.

Colour Chart is really the first major exhibition devoted to this pivotal transformation and offers an alternative survey of mid to late twentieth-century art, emphasising the significance of colour as an indicator of shifting conceptions around art, commodity and creativity.

Exhibition has been organized by Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) of New York and will feature more than forty artists, including Ellsworth Kelly, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Frank Stella, Yves Klein, Richard Serra, John Baldessari, Dan Flavin, Damien Hirst, David Batchelor, Jim Lambie, Angela Bulloch and Cory Archangel.

Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today was curated by Ann Temkin, Curator of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. At Tate Liverpool the exhibition is organised by Christoph Grunenberg, Director, and Sook-Kyung Lee, Exhibitions and Displays Curator.

You can read the complete press release of the presentation of the event HERE
or
visit Tate GallerY Official Website HERE.

While we’re waiting for this event to happen in Old Europe, we can watch dedicated space (a flash website you can preview in pic) of the exhibit that already took place in New York 2 March to 2 May 2008.
To go to Color Chart MOMA website and preview artist featured click HERE

It makes one week that Creative Freelancer Conference (an event from HOW MAGAZINE) in Chicago closed its doors.

As its crew itself defines it, it was “the first gathering of its kind, covering marketing, client retention, proposals, contracts, time management, work/life balance … everything the solopreneur needs to know, by creative-business experts who’ve built successful solo careers themselves”.

As stated in the official Website more than 200 creative attended the first edition of this event, where all aspects of a creative business where covered.

If you regret you missed the conference (I do, too, but I’m in Italy, not exactly round the corner after all!) you got to know that now all the resources, links, slides and speeches have been uploaded to the event official BLOG.
This is a real collection of business and creative ideas for solopreneurs that anyone should read!
Let’s only hope this blog will keep on staying alive!

If you want to visit the Creative Freelancer Conference event Website click HERE, while if you want to go to their resurceful blog click HERE.