Modern Residence Making The Most Of A Fantastic Location: The Bridge House in Cape Town
The Bridge House was designed by Van Der merwe Miszewski Architects and is located in City Bowl, an area of Cape Town, South Africa. Here is the official project description from the architects: “The site slopes, in places steeply, from Glen Avenue down towards the North. There are views of Table Mountain, Devils Peak, Lions Head and Signal Hill, the adjacent Pine forest, the City, the Harbour, the Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At the uppermost end of the site, a bridge was placed across the Donga, allowing the Donga to remain below. A pool and stream, flowing to a pond, were inserted into the dry riverbed. The flow of water is dammed by the POOL, then runs freely in the stream and settles in the pond at the base of the site. Intensive planting will regenerate the garden. Found pathways and steps have been reinstated and added to. The Bridge is the “Main House” (site 1); containing entry, living spaces and main bedrooms. Adjacent to the bridge are the Garage and Guest quarters (site 2). At the base of the site, the Donga House (for visitors) spans over the pond (site 3)“. The impressive villa is up for rent here all year long, with prices ranging from $700 to $2,700 per night.
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Town & Country Goes Back to the Future
First published in 1846 — eighteen forty-six, people! — Town & Country (T&C) is officially described as “America’s premier lifestyle magazine for the affluent.” Thankfully that’s at least not in its tagline, like Petco, “where the rich people go.” But I digress. Published by Hearst Corporation, T&C covers fashion, travel, design, beauty, health, the arts and antiques and has a circulation of more than 450,000. T&C has been going through some changes this year with a new Editor-in-Chief, Jay Fielden, named in January and a new Design Director, Edward Leida, last month. With the release of the September issue, T&C is introducing a new logo and a redesign of the magazine.
“Like any good creative in the magazine industry, I’m aware of the legacy and history of Town & Country, and it’s extremely rich,” said Leida.” What Frank Zachary brought to Holiday and Town & Country from a design standpoint was extraordinary. And many of those vintage and historical foundations that occurred way before I was born are milestones in the design world, as far as I’m concerned. I’m trying to embrace and process them for Town & Country today. I’d like to bring back some of those very distinctive ways of looking at design and imagery.”
— Interview with Edward Leida, Design Director
Sample magazine covers from the 1970s.
The new logo is not quite new, it goes back all the way to the 1930s when T&C started using an all uppercase sans serif in its cover and remaining that way through the late 1990s with some modifications along the way, including an Optima-ish version that added some thicks and thins. Eventually the logo evolved into a very unsophisticated lowercase treatment that had lasted until this redesign. The new logo maintains the quirky ampersand and, in homage to former T&C art director Frank Zachary, the logo comes with alternating colors in the letters just as Zachary did at Holiday. On its own the color alternation might be dopey but in the context of the magazine cover it looks rather nice and that’s also where the logo shines best, rather than on its own. Placed on top of a hero photograph and surrounded by lots of delicate serif headlines, the simplicity of the logo makes it stand out. When you compare the two covers above, this is night and day, and the magazine is now better positioned to attract all those affluent folk.
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Gears of War limited edition Xbox 360 paints the town crimson, coming September 20th for $400
The E3 2011 announcements from Microsoft just keep on coming, though this one’s a little more superficial than the rest. An Xbox 360 console, specially refashioned with a set of blood-red Gears of War 3 visuals, is set to launch on September 20th, equipped with a 320GB hard drive, two matching wireless controllers, and the obligatory copy of its headline game (plus some DLC goodies). The whole bundle will set buyers back $400, but if you already have a 360 of your own and just want one of those snazzy-looking crimson controllers, your wait and expense will be significantly reduced — you’ll be able to buy the GOW3 control pads for $60 on August 11th. See a closeup of it after the break.
Gears of War limited edition Xbox 360 paints the town crimson, coming September 20th for $400 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Jun 2011 04:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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There is a New “W” in Town
Originally home to the Washington Senators, not one (1901 – 1960) but two times (1961 – 1971), Washington’s current Major League Baseball team is the Nationals, who were originally the Montreal Expos before they relocated to the U.S. as an expansion franchise. On November of last year, the Nationals announced new uniforms and new logos.
“From a brand perspective, our ability to develop the curly ‘W’ into something that’s iconic and instantly recognizable and understood is exactly what we’re about,” COO Andy Feffer told the media. “And the more equity that we can build in that simple, easy to understood symbol and what it stands for — youth energy, authenticity… If we’re able to communicate that in an authentic way that really resonates, it’s a much more effective play. And oh, by the way, it looks great. You’ll see it on TV, it’ll pop, it’s simple to understand.”
— The Washington Post
The “W” has been part of the Nationals’ identity since the beginning, when it appeared on the cap. Now it’s the main identifier. The original logo wasn’t too bad and it communicated “baseball” with the conviction of a denying steroid user. The new logo looks like a baseball logo in that it celebrates the scripty nostalgic goodness of the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers logo — emphasized blatantly and annoyingly in the new wordmark, above. In a way, the new identity fits better with the rest of baseball logos, where script lettering is more common than spiky beveled sans serifs — it’s almost as if the new one identity is a throwback/retro version to a Nationals era that never existed, which is funny, in a manufactured sort of way. Nonetheless, it’s a perfectly acceptable execution of all the elements. Except, perhaps the super American “W” below.
Thanks to Jay-Michael Sutton for the tip.
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