US Grants Patent on Snowman Design

Hide the carrots and your marshmallow and popcorn ball snowmen. On September 6, 2011, inventor Ignacio Marc Asperas of Melville, NY was granted a US patent on the Apparatus for Facilitating the Construction of a Snow Man/Woman. Mr. Asperas, who now owns the man with the long orange nose and funny hat, insists this is no snowjob. His revolutionary method for creating a better snowman and woman is outlined here in a 25-page US patent report.
      With many years of experience in building snowmen, Asperas had enough of premature melt problems causing oddly shaped snowballs, misshapen torsos, adornments falling off because of deformities, or not enough snow to make a snowball because of declining snow levels. He describes having a flash of genius, when he determined a snow boulder could be lighter in weight just by rolling the snow around a hollow sphere, and made with a minimum amount of snow so it could be easily moved. The perfectly symmetrical snowballs would avoid the unevenness that results in a "big caboose" and allow for easy stacking on top of one another.
      Asperas insists he has no plans to sue young children who infringe upon his new patent.
:: My thanks to Buster for this important Winter alert!

Grounds For a Makeover at Starbucks?

Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz announced this past week, yet another transformation of their mermaid logo—this time removing the Starbucks name entirely from their familiar identity. Design writer, Steven Heller writes about the public's reaction to branding changes in the Sunday New York Times and poses the question, is it necessarily good design? If the trend continues as artist, Felipe Torres has predicted in his editorial illustration for Heller's article, Starbucks may be looking at just a solid round green logo in their future. Read what others have to say about it on the Starbucks' blog.