Best Of MetaFilter

Famous renamed Crayola crayons, via Wikimedia

In Ask Metafilter, signal is looking for examples of or resources for identifying inherent biases in different kinds of design (industrial, service, interface, graphic, etc.)

IMG_20140630_110754 by anadem (cc by-nc-sa)

anadem asks advice in Ask Metafilter: I made a little boat, a skin-on-frame canoe. It floats nicely when empty, but when I get in it tips me out. I want to make another boat that's more stable with me in it.

Don't miss the cool photos of the building process linked in the post!

The Letter Carrier short film

Furnished: Film and Furniture furnishes you with fascinating facts about the décor in your favourite films

Unfurnished: This Is The Most Filmed In Alley In NYC

Selling the sizzle: This Is Why You Can't Stop Watching Movie Trailers

Selling the steak: Why Dwayne Johnson is the new Schwarzenegger

Crossed: "A Report Of Connected Events," short film blurs the lines between reality and our favourite stories

Double-crossed: Wild Things ... 12 double-crosses in a movie with a runtime of 108 minutes

Defining: Polish Radio Experimental Studio influenced animation soundtracks for generations to come

Redefining: a three-part essay series on costume design for heroic female characters

Time and space: This May Be Stanley Kubrick Explaining the End of 2001

Time and place: "The Letter Carrier," exquisite, chilling fable in a short film

...sometimesnowhere.. by *ines_maria

Take a moment to look around you. Really look. See the city — the streets, the buildings, the spaces between them — and realize for a moment that virtually everything you see has been designed and shaped by men. Now imagine what it would be like if it were women-led. — Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman

supercrayon's Cities of ladies post is a stunning collection of great links about women-built cities, gender, women and urbanism / city planning.

Belle Shore Deco Detail by Atelier Teee (cc by-nc-nd)

What do Art Deco and Archaeology have in common? Quite a bit, if you look at enough Art Deco architecture. Another fabulous deep-dive post from filthy light thief!

Steampunk Pirates cards by Nat Iwata at wopc.co.uk

misteraitch reveals a full house in his post on the World of Playing Cards, "a living encyclopaedia of the history and visual art of playing cards"

Dog Intelligence by alicejamieson (cc by-nc-nd)

Learning a thing or two, recently in Ask:

How can I improve my vocabulary?

What are some self-help, therapy-ish books that have really helped you?

Where do I learn how to give an injection?

I need to improve my skills at making mobile apps (and websites) usable and beautiful.

What puzzles, games or new activities can I do to keep improving my critical thinking, analytical, and logical abilities?

In 140 characters or less, tell me one tip/trick/event that helped you understand how to use and/or like Twitter.

And in Mefi blue, Start Your Art Journey Today: a series of drawing lessons for free for all beginners and anyone looking to refresh their artistic skills

Ramses condom package design

Ramses condoms are named after Ramses II, who had almost 160 children. Condoms are kind of all about preventing lots of kids ... And the Trojans famously let a large object inside their city which discharged a swarm of invaders that destroyed it. Again, isn't this exactly the opposite of what a condom should do? – Sangermaine

Arousing, spacey, spicy and dashing design recently on Mefi: Vintage condom package designs; An extravagant symbol of a man who can’t hide his true nature – A brief history on Spats; Taxi Fabric connects young Indian designers with taxi drivers; When Airlines Looked Cool and Showed It, posters from flying's golden age; In the '70s, NASA commissioned a redesign of their "meatball" logo... unfortunately a lot of NASA engineers hated it. And of course, Mefites weigh in on the Google logo redesign.

and in the Green: Who originated the ubiquitous laser/neon grid design of the '80s?; Cool examples of generative art?; How can I make beautiful Powerpoint Slides?; "The best way I can describe it is 'whimsical'" – Where can I get more plates like this?

Design Faves Logo Design by The Logo Smith (cc by-nc-nd)

In Ask Me recently:

Online resources for teaching basics of good document design?

Give me your colorful, cute, glam office supplies yearning to be free

Looking for the best dish drying rack ever

concept sketch of shoe art

Member rodeoclown shares an incredible story of designing custom Nike shoes along with a young diabetes patient, and the extra lengths they went to make it really great.

One "on the side" project I've been lucky enough to do was creating a special shoe for a 10-year-old boy as part of a long-running fundraiser (for the past 10+ years, Nike has worked with kids from the Doernbecher Children's Hospital here in Portland, letting them design custom shoes, actually bringing them into production, then selling and donating all proceeds to the hospital... ~$8 million dollars raised so far.)

New MeFi Modern design is live by mathowie (cc by-nc-sa)

We've launched the new Modern template at MetaFilter for all users. If you spot any bugs, feel free to hit our contact form or post to the ongoing MetaTalk discussion about it. If you're logged out and miss the Classic theme, there is a link in the footer.

Madison at Clark, in the Loop by heyho linda

MetaFilter member heyho shares why she chose to live in Chicago and all the bits of art and architecture that convinced her to stay there forever.

Granite Installation by granite-charlotte (cc by)

The word granite has come to mean any stone counter top which is unfortunate because the many different types of stone that react in very different ways when confronted with typical kitchen usage. So let me try and shed a little light on the subject. This is not intended as a geology lecture but we'll go part way there.