BerkleyTradingCo.

Custom painted Vans for Shipley & Halmos

British architectural firm Make Architects have created a prefabricated retail kiosk for London’s Ice Sculpting Festival. The geometric structure takes its inspiration from origami and uses aluminum panels that can expand and contract as needed.

Branding strategy and design firm Lippincott creates new brand identity for Black + Decker. The company known for it portable power tools is rebranded with a new logo and updated packaging. A minimalist design was used to reflect instinctual nature of their products and helps the resonate across geographic borders.

Union Square Partnership reported that the neighborhood ended 2013 with one of the lowest ground-floor retail vacancies in the city—just 1.2 percent

The flagship store only takes up 64 square feet of space in what used to be a tire and service station but is full of distressed tees, hats, patches, sweats, leather jackets as well as “asphalt-resistant denim” their flagship product. The denim are woven with 16% Kevlar fibers and are designed to be resistant to heat and abrasions.

"even if you’re just looking to drive pre-orders, giving your potential customers a live demo or walking them through how your product works is a great way to get through to those early adopters."

Nordstrom doesn’t detail its Web sales, but it said in late 2012 that digital revenue had passed the $1 billion mark. Factoring in the latest 30 percent increase would suggest that the Internet is responsible for slightly more than one in every three dollars the company collects.

- Downtown Raleigh Alliance, AIGA: Raleigh, HQ Raleigh, Redress Raleigh

Freelance copywriter Jon Ryder created a fictional pharmaceutical package to promote his services to agencies. The package was promoted to provide “effective relief from creative pain” coming complete with a faux patient information leaflet explaining how his copywriting skills could help an agency in need.

New York City’s MTA transit system has released the second phase of its On The Go! program (OTG), a collection of interactive touchscreen kiosks that provides users with travel information in real time. Each OTG was initially setup to let travelers know of any planned work or changes to scheduled services as well as help identify places of interests near the station. MTA has since partnered with technology and design consultancy firm Control Group to allow users to lookup routes, train arrival countdowns and receive service alerts. Systems can be found in major stations such as Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal and the Barclays Center.

For Wal-Mart, becoming more relevant to consumers means becoming more convenient. You could run in and out of a dollar store in about the time it takes to find your car in a Walmart Supercenter parking lot. And smaller stores might—just might—be more palatable to cities that have fought against the big-box stores.

Amsterdam-based Concrete architecture firm designs the interior of the new W Hotel in Verbier Switzerland. The brand’s first alpine and ski resort was inspired by the impressions skis leave in the snow and sits at the base of Verbier, Switzerland. Four wooden chalets are joined by glass atriums and use contrasting materials to offer guests a ski-in, ski-out retreat in the middle of the Swiss Alps.

New mobile app Crowdpilot guides users through conversation with crowdsourcing. The app is the first of its kind and is the product of a partnership between designer Lauren McCarthy and tech design firm Perceptor. Users can choose between strangers, Facebook friends or paid assistants to receive advice from and then picks the topic of conversation. Users then receive feedback after providing background information.