Santa's most iconic gifts

Our look at Santa’s most iconic gifts through the decades:

1950’s  barbie, elvis presley’s album, television

1960’s action man, beatles vinyl, tupperware

1970’s star wars action figure, abba’s new album, lava lamp

1980’s rubik's cube, michael jackson’s thriller tape, video recorder

1990’s pokemon, imac computer, spice girls’ cd

2000’s itunes vouchers, wii, ipod

Send us an email at create@designclarity.net with your own predictions for this decade’s iconic objects… best ideas to be posted here in Jan 2011

Festive DC windows attracting curious eyes

Our London Xmas window this year is dedicated to looking at the way our shopping habits have changed over the decades & how that has been reflected in the way we wrap our presents. The pictorial & illustrative images of the 1950’s gave way to a “pop art” aesthetic with the introduction of more stylised repeats & vibrant color combination in the 60’s. A more toned down, earthy & natural style with DYI detailing dominated the 70’s while the stuck on bow perfectly encapsulated the spirit of 80’s. The 90’s found us all so serious, monochromatic & minimal while in the 00’ s when retail went digital gift-wrapping in the traditional format would be no longer necessary.

Menu envy

When considering a new menu layout – here’s a few tricky design tips from the experts on ways to subtly sway the diner and maximise dining profitability for your restaurant:

1.     Eyes go to the upper right hand corner first – put the pricier items here

2.     The anchor – the role of the most expensive plate on the menu is to make everything near it look like a relative bargain

3.     Offer a smaller serving size of the anchor – still profitable and feels indulgent

4.     High profit dishes cluster near the anchor

5.     Columns are killers. Omit all $ or £ symbols too

6.     Add boxes to draw attention

7.     Menu Siberia – for low margin dishes or reliable orders

8.     Bracketing to offer size options – diners will tend to trade up

To read more, here’s a link to the Menu Mind Games article on the New York Restaurants site:

http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/62498/

Excerpted from Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It), to be published in January by Hill & Wang, an imprint of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. © 2010 by William Poundstone. All rights reserved.