A largely unsung design aspect of any city is its food vans. Hats off to New York Magazine for doing a great feature on these ubiquitous elements of the NYC experience.

The 25 Best Food Trucks – Eat Cheap 2010 — New York Magazine.

From  Bryan Boyer via flickr:

Around Harvard you can tell the MBAs in the rain because they’re the ones with the giant umbrellas. Those are are nice about it raise their umbrella and generally play well with others on the sidewalk. The jerks are the ones who barge through the city hitting the umbrellas of others at will.

It’s because of them that I’ve invented the Urban Combat Umbrella which lets you exact virtual revenge by putting them in your sights and making shooting noises until you heart’s content. Watch out!

Photo and comments on his flickr page.

Alternate post title: Facing Chalk Shortage, Australian Police Improvise

Australia’s NSW Police commissioned agengy DDB Sydney for this campaign to alert people to the dangers of crossing the road while listening to your iPod. I’ve seen several close calls in various cities myself of people almost getting hit, while getting their groove on, while crossing the road. Australian police claim that the number of teenagers dying as a result of this is beginning to reach “epidemic proportions”. It’s a shame though that the ad frames the iPod as the Angel of Death. It’s only a matter of time before someone gets really tasteless and starts in with the whole “I’d rather die with an iPod than live with a Zune” thing. Whoops.

Still, nice art direction, a good campaign for a very serious problem, presented in a fresh way.

Fantastic piece in the New York Times detailing ways in which Japanese designers are appropriating urban imagery as camouflage:

On a narrow Tokyo street, near a beef bowl restaurant and a pachinko parlor, Aya Tsukioka demonstrated new clothing designs that she hopes will ease Japan’s growing fears of crime. Deftly, Ms. Tsukioka, a 29-year-old experimental fashion designer, lifted a flap on her skirt to reveal a large sheet of cloth printed in bright red with a soft drink logo partly visible. By holding the sheet open and stepping to the side of the road, she showed how a woman walking alone could elude pursuers — by disguising herself as a vending machine.

Read the rest of the article here. Or just keep scrolling for some quick fix images, taken from the slideshow.

My car spends most of its time in Montreal. It would like to come with me to the London flat, but carry-on restrictions these days… [pause for groans of disgust, mostly from the author]. While Montreal is a stellar city, so is its bike and car theft rate. So for those of you who would rather not take my unintentional route of making your car less attractive to thieves (a technique I recently employed, also known as “slamming your shiney black Jetta into a brick wall”), these stickers are for you.

Created by the superb British designer Dominic Wilcox, the stickers offer a quick and easy DIY downgrade to the attractiveness of your ride, be it two or four wheel. You can order yours here. And while you’re there, check out the rest of his work. Good stuff.