In the past few months, some of India’s leading brands goes for a brand makeover. Major retail store Lifestyle and Shoppers Stop changed. Shoppers Stop now boldly says ‘Start something new’. The ‘Born tough’ tyre brand CEAT goes for a more streamlined logo and the poor rhino is nowhere around. Godrej group of companies, now has a dash of color in their font logo.

Indian bank Canara bank rebranded to a more upmarket color. Joining in, UTI Bank morphed from its old school logo to a more jazzy AXIS bank. I guess they felt the need to stand up to the competition of the multinational banks with an image makeover and a better brand positioning.

Has anyone thought about the AA in Anil Ambani’s Reliance logo. Think about it. Sometimes it could be that dying need to make the presence felt.

Image: Hasselblad Website

When was the last time you felt you’d seen something and it blows you away. And you felt the urge, specially if you’re blogging or those office water cooler chats, to shout-out-loud that what this stuff is packed with. Offered in 22 and 39 megapixels, Hasselblad are the cameras you stop talking about megapixel and any of those silly little jargons. With it’s history spanning a century & half, that includes the portraits of our planet from space and a moon trip with NASA.

Hasselblad H3D is rumored to have a price tag around $25,000. Its not for everyone or the average consumers, we can call it Rolls Royce of cameras. If you’re those few people to own this camera, you better be making masterpieces not simply take pictures.

Image: 100 Hands

I’d stumble upon this URL in my old Google bookmarks. 100 Hands showcases the works of Bangalore based designer/filmmaker/musician Premjit Ramachandran. Quite an array of inspiring works in design, music & film. My only concern is the amount of popups, which some visitor might find it annoying.

But looking beyond the popups, this site is my library of inspiring Indian designer.

Photo: Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Bob Dylan turns 67 on May 2008, and Lou Majaw from Shillong, has been celebrating Dylan’s birthday for the past 37 years. Catch The New York Times coverage of the man, the land and the music.

…he laughed aloud at how Mr. Dylan might react to the news. “Who this Lou Majaw is? What’s wrong with him? He doesn’t have better things to do in life than celebrate my birthday?”

An Outpost of Rock – narrative audio-visual photo story supporting the article. Photos & audio recording by Ruth Fremson from The New York Times and narrated by Prabhat Sawyan, prominent industrialist and architect of the Ri Kynjai resort.

“God has given us a special gift — the gift of singing” – Rev. J. Fortis Jyrwa of the Khasi Jaintia Presbyterian Assembly

Screenshot: Seventh Incorporated

Inspiring work, great portfolio from Bangalore based design firm Seventh Incorporated. In my quest to find the best of the web from an Indian perspective. ladies & gent – Seventh Incorporated. In their own words…

Seventh Incorporated is a multi disciplinary graphic design studio, born out of a partnership of several years, between an Information Architect and a Graphic Design Professional.

AT&Ts advertising campaign to support AT&T Wireless International Roaming “Works in over 200 countries”, concept developed by BBDO Atlanta.

I finally get to watch Indiana Jones over the weekend. When the first Indy – Raiders came, I was still in school, and I can remember watching it in a local theatre without understanding a single words. But the bolder chase & the truck scene are still fresh in my head. I don’t want to write some review of my opinion on the movie. But if you ask me whether I like the new Indiana Jones after 19yrs, I’d say, I’d grown older not Indy.

The adventure continues :)

Photo: Kalyan Varma

Couldn’t help but post this picture. Got this from Gizmodo, finally drilled down to the original photographer Kalyan Varma. From his blog…

While coming from Mysore, we suddenly saw a big Firefox logo pasted on a bus. We stopped the car and and stopped the bus which was about to leave and took these photographs. I wonder if the artist knew where the logo came from :)

Well, Mysore is a place close to Bangalore, the technology hub of India. I’m not sure if the bus owner or the artist is aware of Mozilla Firefox. But then any publicity is good. Rediscover the web ;)

Virgin & Google team up for human settlement on Mars, from open source to open source planet on this auspicious day of 1st April 2008. www.google.com/virgle

Screenshot: Adobe Photoshop Express Site

I’ve been hearing this for quite sometime, that Adobe is coming out with an online photo editing tool. The day finally came, and if you haven’t seen, you can check out the beta release of Adobe Photoshop Express. It would be unfair to compare this with the full version of Photoshop, its a great utility for people who wish to store & brush up photos online.

Photoshop Express v/s Picnik

Now, the battle heat up. While PS Express lets you import & edit your Picasa, Facebook and Photobucket photos. It’s not surprising to note that the ever popular Flickr is missing. I guess, Picnik smelled whats Adobe’s cooking and teamed up with Flickr. Now you’ve Picnik in Flickr or Flickr in Picnik, beside Picasa, Photobucket etc. Beside that all premium features are now FREE.
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