Figure 1.

CARL HAS LEFT THE BUILDING
Forget the loyal customers who had bellied up to the counter since it first opened in 1966, the legendary family-owned Carl’s Donuts of Las Vegas is venturing into the wholesale business. It deserted its popular storefront shop and moved into a warehouse to cater to local 7-Elevens, hotels, and hospitals—the three unusual bedfellows of the visceral Vegas scene. Hometown studio Aquea Design is spreading the word with a new logo featuring the classic glazed pastry. The cleverly chompedon emblem now adorns the new facility and also brands the sides of a fleet of delivery vans albeit to the dismay of Carl’s forlorn, displaced regulars. www.aqueadesign.com

Figure 2.

BASKING IN THE SUN
There’s something creepy about referring to the exterior design of a children’s museum as skin, but when environmental designer Ned Kahn speaks about the fluttering membrane he wrapped around the recently reopened Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, well, it’s slightly less disturbing. It’s clearly just healthy humanizing. Tens of thousands of translucent plastic panels, patterns of five-inch squares, buffer the exterior and create an image similar to a giant Noguchi lantern. The sheer polycarbonate screen called “Articulated Cloud” is not meant to block light, but rather absorb it and change color according to what’s absorbed. Koning Eizenberg Architecture of Santa Monica, Calif., collaborated with Kahn to produce the wind-activated epidermis, which also haunts visitors inside with a sound like birds flapping their wings. www.pittsburgh kids.orgwww.nedkahn.com

Figure 3.

THE NINTH LETTER
What may sound like M. Night Shyamalan’s next psychological thriller is really the name of the new University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign literary magazine. The Ninth Letter, as in the letter i and the Fighting Illini, is a collaboration of the school’s creative writing and graphic design departments. In fact, the three MFA design students selected each year for U of I fellowships are expected to contribute, under the supervision of assistant professor of graphic design, Jennifer Gunji, who has introduced the art section to the biannual publication. In just three issues, they’ve been able to attract heavy-hitting writers like Dave Eggers and Robert Olen Butler, and artists like Jay Ryan and Ben Rubin. www.ninthletter.com

Figure 4.

THE SEXY LIBRARIAN
Misunderstood and underestimated librarians everywhere are getting a makeover. Or at least their image is. The American Library Association teamed up with Designfarm of Takoma Park, Md., to produce a guide depicting librarians in everyday copyright law predicaments. Designfarm’s creative director Jodi Bloom commissioned Jessica Abel, aka Brooklyn graphic novelist Artbabe, to concoct a cartoony cast of characters like the sexy librarian Lola Lola to spice up the reading of dull federal law. Even the really boring stuff is stylish: The 50 pages of pure legalese are printed in the back on bubblegum-pink paper. Funded in part by a grant from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.www.studio405.com