TARGET LOVES US
Small Roar was on the verge of extinction when Mike and Stephannie Weikert received an e-mail from a buyer at Target.com. The couple had started their line of graphic onesies and baby T-shirts after their first child was born in 2004, but the small business was more hobby than career. With two children and other professional obligations, they’d started to wonder if the venture was worth their time.

Then their cheeky designs, ranging from a bright orange pacifier next to the word pacifist to a biker-style MOM tattoo strategically placed on a sleeve, caught the attention of the Target buyer, who was browsing online. “Our initial reaction was skepticism,” says Mike, who directs the Center for Design Practice at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. “I thought, ‘This is one of those e-mail scams. They’re going to want our Social Security numbers.’”

A quick phone call dispelled those fears, and the Weikerts soon found themselves working on everything from price points and fulfillment to bar codes. It took about three months to prepare for the mass retailer’s new online Baby Boutique, but you can now buy the tiny garments there for $14.99. Go mom and dad. www.smallroar.com

STREET LEGAL
If you wander down enough dark alleys, you might run across some mind-altering graffiti. But we think you’d be better off skipping the scavenger hunt and checking out the backpacks and messenger bags from Tatoot. The company tapped real-life street artists to create graphics for the line, even holding a competition where 10 graffiti heavyweights tagged blank bags. The winner received a cash prize and the art became part of the company’s offerings, which now include six designs from three different artists. You can sport a backpack giving props to NYC’s five boroughs or stick your laptop in a messenger bag that features a DJ spinning records. Bags start at $49.99. www.tatootbags.com

MYSTERIOUS WAYS
If the greatest mystery in your life is decoding your iPhone bill, it’s definitely time to order Life of Mystery: An Illustrated Guide. This capacious 22 x 28-in. poster by illustrator Ray Fenwick—possibly created under mysterious circumstances—recounts exactly how to introduce some Hardy Boys-style adventure into the everyday grind. Learn about the importance of paintings with eyeholes, secret passages, fake ghosts and goose bumps. Ready to get started? Go find an ornate key and hang it around your neck. Then send $12 to Tiny Showcase for more ways to cultivate mystery. www.tinyshowcase.com/learning/mystery

A [DESIGN] THINKING CAP
Willoughby Design Group turned 30 this year, but rather than mourning the loss of youth, the Kansas City firm launched a design innovation lab. “It’s both a place and a process,” says Ann Willoughby, president and creative director. The idea started back in the ’80s, when Willoughby designed a store identity for Bagel & Bagel (which later became Einstein Bros. Bagels), helping to launch the “fast casual” restaurant niche. Now the firm has created a more formal process for helping clients incorporate design thinking into their innovation efforts. A design lab might start with a brainstorming meeting at the company’s design barn and lead to rapid prototyping, such as Willoughby’s slate of packaging ideas for the Organicare skin line. “We look at possibilities beyond what’s in the market now,” she says. Sounds like a birthday present for the firm’s clients. www.willoughbydesign.com

PAY IT FORWARD
Unlike most participants in last summer’s Project M, Arvi Raquel-Santos wasn’t a recent college graduate. In fact, he took a sabbatical from his job at Weymouth Design in San Francisco to participate in the annual, month-long program.

Project M challenges young people to “think wrong”—use alternate problem-solving methods—to create a design project that makes a difference. To fund these efforts, each participant pitches in $2000. Even with a professional job, Raquel-Santos wondered how he’d swing the fee while taking a month off work. He decided to address the challenge by designing a poster with his friend, Justin Gonyea, figuring to eventually sell it to fund his efforts. But after returning from Project M, Raquel-Santos knew it was more important to pay things forward.

Now he’s selling his red-and-blue letterpress poster, which features a monkey under a thought bubble that reads THINK WRONG, for $35. He’ll use the proceeds to send someone else to Project M and donate any leftover funds to the Buy a Meter (http://buyameter.org) program, a campaign created by the 2007 Project M class to bring clean water to struggling Alabama families. www.designthatcares.com

POSTER POWER
There must be a creative elixir in the water at Project M. The 2008 group established a permanent lab in Hale County, Ala., where other designers can temporarily set up shop and create projects for the struggling area. Four M-ers decided to come back after the June program ended and embark on an illegal postering road trip to promote the lab. The activists set out for the East Coast where, at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, they hung up 80 posters on a large glass wall and stuffed one in each faculty mailbox. “We just walked in and acted like we were students,” says Serah Mead, who carried out the project with fellow M-ers Charlotte Graves, Katy McCauley and John Bogan. The group’s posters, each consisting of a full sheet of newsprint with the word wrong printed backwards in bold letters—so the word reads correctly when showing through the front—make a bold statement en masse, while small type promotes the lab. The group tried to recreate its success at Pratt Institute in New York, but a security guard’s presence limited them to four postings while they pretended to use the bathroom. But they also distributed posters all over Manhattan and Brooklyn, hanging them up around the city and sticking them in various free-publication boxes. projectmlab.com

AGENCY CO-STARS
You might call this perfect casting. New York agency SpotCo, known for its work for theatrical productions ranging from Rent to Chicago, is being purchased by First Artist Corporation. The new parent company also owns Dewynters, a British agency that occupies a similar niche to SpotCo, giving the firms a shared international foothold. “These days, whenever you work on a show, it’s a global enterprise,” says Drew Hodges, SpotCo’s founder and president. He’s looking forward to working with Dewynters to take productions around the world. While the two shops have collaborated in the past, the new arrangement allows them to freely compare notes on how they do business for show business. www.spotnyc.com

CREATIVE RECYCLING
You’ve probably heard the question “Paper or plastic?” so many times at the grocery store, it’s stopped having any real meaning. An art project at this year’s Burning Man festival might jolt you out of complacency. The design team at MSLK in Long Island City, N.Y., strung together enough plastic bags to represent one second of U.S. consumption. This art project, known as 2663 Urban Tumbleweeds, stretched roughly half a mile in length beside the event’s trash fence, which keeps debris from escaping into the desert at large. Along the colorful string, designers placed 22 vinyl signs with telling facts about the ways our bag habit impacts the environment. It’s more expensive to recycle a plastic bag, for instance, than to make a new one. “These free things come with a cost,” says Marc S. Levitt, a principal at MSLK. “We pay for it every time we see a bag tumbleweed rolling down the street.” Sadly, reports MSLK’s Sheri L. Koetting, an event worker came along during a massive dust storm and tore it down, mistaking the assemblage for trash and thus prematurely ending the exhibit. “I can’t even describe my anger and frustration,” she says, “but not everyone understands art, eh?” Maybe the exhibit’s fate will help you remember to bring a cloth bag the next time you shop. www.mslk.com

A MAD, MAD LOGO
Nicknames aren’t always all they’re cracked up to be. The Museum of Arts and Design is commonly known as MAD, but this moniker was carrying some baggage when it came time to design a new logo. “The acronym MAD isn’t like MoMA or BAM,” says Michael Bierut, partner in the New York office of Pentagram. “It’s the name of a satirical magazine for 12-year-olds.” To make the right impression, his team needed to decontextualize the word while still connecting it to the museum.

Ultimately, the designers settled on a concept that plays off the institution’s new digs on Columbus Circle. This address places the square building on one of the only complete circles in Manhattan, so Pentagram decided to create a logo using only these two shapes. In the finished mark, each letter in MAD starts out as a solid square and becomes a letter through the application of sections of circles. The final letterforms are reminiscent of the chairs and vases inside the museum, and the geometry is compelling enough that the design team created a whole alphabet around the idea. www.madmuseum.org

ROCK POSTER DOC
To make Died Young Stayed Pretty, a documentary about rock poster designers, Eileen Yaghoobian spent three years filming solo. “The deal was if they could put me up, I would come to their town,” says the director. Her DIY approach makes this 95-minute film feel as authentic as the featured artists, who range from the Ames Brothers and Print Mafia to Jay Ryan. Yaghoobian’s travels also led to some spine-tingling adventures: She missed Hurricane Katrina by a day and one time found herself locked in a St. Louis cemetery with famed poster designer Art Chantry. Come to think of it, watching her film is sort of like showing up on these artists’ doorsteps—or favorite graveyard—and hanging out with them for revealing conversation. www.diedyoungstayedpretty.com

GOOD BRAND CAMP
A typical summer camp is about making memories, but the first-ever Good Brand Camp focused more on making memorable brands. “I want to demystify this process for companies trying to do good in the world,” says Cheryl Heller, CEO and founder of Heller Communication Design. In late July, she led a one-day seminar in New York to help nonprofits communicate their identities more effectively.

Ten participants from groups focusing on everything from the environment to aging paid a nominal $100 fee to learn about branding fundamentals, such as writing a clear and simple brand promise. And what was the biggest revelation of the day? “People don’t come to you caring what you do,” Heller says. “Just because you communicated doesn’t mean you got through.” It’s a message she plans to continue spreading at future Good Brand Camps. www.hellercd.com

READING IN PLACE
There’s a simple yet intriguing premise behind Field-Tested Books. “The book that you read somehow affects the place where you read it,” says Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners, the Chicago creative firm behind the project. “And the place somehow affects the book.” To explore the premise, this collection’s contributors write essays based on their globe-trotting reading habits. They relate how William James and Buenos Aires affect a breakup, and how George Orwell’s Animal Farm can feed the paranoia experienced while living in an isolated cottage. This year actually marks the biannual project’s third go-round, but it’s the first time the essays have taken the form of a printed book. Read all the pieces online, or for $17 you can field-test your own copy. www.coudal.com/ftb

THE HUMAN TOUCH, IN TYPE
Sometimes the hand is mightier than the keyboard. To show how the Calgary Society for Persons with Disabilities (CSPD) supports its clients, WAX broke out a dry-erase marker for the organization’s annual report. The design team at the Calgary firm shunned traditional type in favor of scrawling on everyday objects found at one of the group’s assisted-living facilities. This approach created a powerful human touch, and while the marker type washed off , it communicated how CSPD’s efforts have a lasting impact.

The annual report’s cover kicks off with an image of a van with writing on its side that begins, “Imagine finally being able to go for a drive.” A page later, the slanting sentences on a throw pillow tout the value of a dishwasher and clean, crisp linens. Art director Jonathan Herman lent his handwriting to this pro-bono project, but while he managed to make it through the two-and-a-half day photo shoot without hand cramps, he admits “writing on the side of a kitchen sink was really difficult.” www.waxpartnership.com