During the Second World War, Walt Disney Studios designed over 1,200 insignias for military units — the 503rd Parachute Battalion, the 74th Field Artillery Battalion, the U.S.S. Hornet, etc. — as a way of showing support for fighting troops. The historical record for these designs has been scant, but the Disney-focused blog 2719 Hyperion has unearthed this incomplete catalog of many of them. They’re uniformly fantastic.

Interesting to note, though not reflected in what 2719 Hyperion was able to dig up, is the fact that Donald Duck was the most popular character, having appeared in over two hundred designs. I guess no one wanted to be the Mickey Mouse battalion. See all forty of the found designs here.

Last year I told myself, “I really, really want to go to next year’s Noir City, the annual San Francisco film noir festival. Sadly, there’s nothing quite like it in New York, as far as I know: ten days of screenings — twenty four movies — from the golden age of noir filmmaking. Several of these classic flicks have been newly restored, and all have been impeccably curated by The Film Noir Foundation. I’ve really become fascinated by this genre in recent years, and I can’t get enough of them.

Alas, this year’s festival kicks off tonight and runs through 30 Jan, but I won’t be able to make it. Next year, I gotta figure out a way to be in the Bay Area during the week when this happens. More information here.

A friend of mine put together this animation of the new HTML5 logo animated — with irony — in Flash. It got a lot of chuckles on Twitter so I thought I’d link to it here for good measure. (Anecdotally, it’s apparently crashed more than one user’s Web browser out there. Perfect.) See the animation here.

Thinking more about the logo itself, I’ve become increasingly perplexed about why the W3C and its designers, Ocupop, decided to make the “HTML” and the “5” two distinct elements, rather than joining them together. To date, the people behind this specification have gone through reasonably significant efforts to make it clear that the proper style for citing it is as a single unit, sans space. It’s “HTML5,” not “HTML 5,” right? Am I missing something? (I’ll admit, I’m not as fascinated by the narrative around these specifications as a lot of designers are.) Anyway, if that singularity is what they’re going for, it seems like an error in judgment to design a logo that doesn’t acknowledge it, that even suggests that the two elements can be broken apart.

The W3C unveiled an attractive new logo for HTML5 today. It’s nicely done work from a boutique studio I’m not familiar with called Ocupop. Don’t miss the interview with Michael Nieling, the creative director from Ocupop, as well. Overall, my only complaint is that the “HTML” part of the logo is apparently optional, as several versions of it feature just the “5” within its shield; to me that assumes a little too much that people really understand what this brand is or will be. That said, the logo page is terrific, providing all sorts of info and downloads, which is what every new logo should offer, in my opinion.

Like a lot of men, I never pay attention to dishware, but these caught my eye: from New York City-based design manufacturer Areaware, a line of bowls and plates that looks something like a collage of different dishware styles. Very different and quite smart, in my opinion.

It might seem like I’ve been bashing print publishers a lot in recent blog posts, but I don’t think they’re doing everything wrong. If nothing else, they’re learning smart lessons from their experiences in digital media, as demonstrated in this article that discusses publisher Hearst’s initiative to apply Web-like analytics to their print products:

“…Hearst held a competition to see who could build a better analytics model to predict newsstand sales for magazines. It’s a Netflix Prize-like approach to figuring out how well a magazine will sell at a given location, based off historical sales data. There were more than 700 participants in the competition, and last month Hearst and the Direct Marketing Association awarded a team US$25,000 for their formula, which generated magazine sales estimates that were nearest to actual newsstand figures. ”

Smart and savvy. Read more here.

Owners like me of the previous generation MacBook Air know that while they’re great computers, they’re plagued by slowness (unless you were smart — and wealthy — enough to opt for an SSD at purchase time). Other World Computing is offering new SSDs that will substantially increase the performance of these machines, as evidenced in the shootout comparison video. I’m tempted to do this myself, as the prices are not too outrageous. Pricing for the highest end model, 480 GB, has yet to be released though the 240 GB already runs US$580, so you can imagine the larger version will cost you nearly as much as a new, current-generation MacBook Air.

A novel idea in digital entertainment: Sifteo cubes are small, playful computers with full-color displays that wirelessly connect to your computer. The cubes are aware of one another’s presence and react differently based on proximity, arrangement and motion. They’re designed as a platform, so they can run a number of software games from Sifteo and presumably from third-party developers in the future. In a way they’re like consoles (albeit far less powerful than most) that have been freed from the console form factor.

It’s a great idea, especially for kids because they’re not just another screen. I haven’t gotten to play with the cubes yet myself, but in theory the fact that they’re highly touchable objects that are intended to be continually moved around gives them a physicality that’s entirely absent in the delicate nature of consoles, laptops, desktops and even tablets. That’s a small but important step forward in how we interact with digital media.

Unfortunately, Sifteo warns that the wireless dongle can pose a choking hazard for small kids and that “very rough handling may damage or destroy” the cubes themselves. The recommended minimum age for these toys is six years old, which makes my daughter, who is all of sixteen months, too young for them. It’s a shame because they really seem perfect for her; she responds viscerally to all manner of digital toys. Read more here.

A collection of amusingly enthusiastic banners promoting stereo technology, captured from old vintage records. I bet something similarly entertaining could be compiled from contemporary computer and electronics packaging, where logos and insignias tout quickly outdated technologies.