You never know when you might need a seat. Designer Jamie Wolfond brings you the Emergency Bench.

Simple is sweet. But if you’re looking for complicated agency-speak, then Justin Feinstein & Visakh Menon can help. They’ve created Jagonated for companies looking to (re)develop their brand.

Verbose? Yes. Sadly, a glance at the ‘About Us’ section of many business websites will reveal that verbose is just another word for mainstream.

The video runs for two and a half minutes.

Guy goes to a party. Guy drinks a lot. Guy blacks out. Guy wakes up in a hospital.

Guy develops ice cubes that beat to the surrounding music while measuring how much you drink. The ice cubes change colour as you consume more alcohol, eventually turning red when you’ve exceeded your limit. And it sends a text to your close friends if your drinking ‘gets out of control’.

A valiant effort, guy. But glowing ice cubes are a party in my cup. And a text to my friends means the party will soon spill over.

Watch the video.

We’ve alluded to some change coming for TheRichardandMartin before. But let today be the big reveal. We are, and always will be, one. But now we are also two… offices. Late last year, Martin travelled west to Vancouver to help me set up shop on the left coast. We are now operational. More excited and better equipped to show you the best this country can offer.

We’re making nice with the locals. Testing the waters. And taking in all we can.
The landscapes here in British Columbia really do bring you to the edge of religion.
The photo above this post is the view from our new digs. No, really. We could get used to this.

We’re also ushering in an exciting new year in this space.

In addition to the content you’ve come to expect from us, we’ve launched a new weekly Good Music feature, arrived on your desktop with our new calendar project and, for the first time, we’re ready to bring you new voices from Richard and Martin-approved guest contributors. The first will appear tomorrow as Eric Koreen examines an underappreciated piece of mad television psychoscience, Fringe, on the eve of the series’ finale. We were on set in B.C. for parts of the final season and can’t wait to share Eric’s conclusions.

So come west young men, living. Come west and grow up with us.

Illustrator Kelsey Dake combs through the beards of Silicon Valley for Wired Magazine.

We’re emerging from our holiday hibernation to wish you all a Happy New Year! Yeah, the night-of is usually the most anti-climatic moment of the year previous (note: making it a good note to go out on, in a way). But that gives way to a slothy, reflective morning-after where all that’s come is brought into rich perspective while all that lies ahead is sharpened into a focus you’ll struggle to find most other days of the year.

2012 was our biggest year yet.

It took us to countless parts of Canada and the U.S., Colombia, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Hungary, Belgium, England, Georgia and Turkey. All while we opened our new west coast TheRichardAndMartin bureau. With more destinations – and dispatches – to come.

It was a great year. It will be a great year. 2012 is dead. Long live 2012.

(And bring on 2013.)

The owl swallows its prey whole. The owl vomits the small animal bones. By Invite Only designer Trixie Khong collects the remains for her unique necklaces.

‘Your Last Shot’ is your very last portrait. A serene and fearless portrait that will be taken of you now and that one day will be used to remember you by on your grave.

Why would you have someone else choose a picture for you that you would have untagged yourself from? Your ‘last portrait’ will be finished in porcelain, so that it actually can be used when the time has come. Meanwhile: have a great life.

‘Your last shot’ is a limited project.

~Frieke Janssens

‘Love Will Conquer‘ is a real-time, interactive, 3D stream of tweets that mention either ‘Love’ or ‘Hate’.
The application collects geo-tagged tweets and maps them onto a 3D earth. Tweets from the last 10 hours are turned into a 3D structure whose properties are determined by variables such as the time the tweet was posted, how long the tweet is and whether the tweet mentions love or hate.
~ the creators, Imperial Leisure

I’ve spent quite some time hovering over the various spheres to read the love/hate tweets and watching these trees grow.

By PeaceMakers, for PeaceLovers: we are a social business which creates products from landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXOs) to support sustainability in post-conflict countries. ~Saught