The annual DWR Champagne Chair Contest brings a healthy dose of MacGyver to the realm of furniture design … except these brave DIYers don't have the luxury of duct tape. Instead they must hold together their original chair designs—crafted from the foil, label, cage and cork from two champagne bottles—with a little glue. The results are always as awe-inspiring as the stakes: Prizes include a $1000 gift card to spend on Design Within Reach furniture and the opportunity to be featured in a traveling exhibition. You can pick your favorite chair starting Monday—voting for the popular choice winner runs from Jan. 28–Feb. 1 online.
http://www.dwr.com/champagne/

For creative people, an invitation to attend the TED conference is like a ticket to the ultimate in-crowd. Those tapped to speak might as well print GENIUS on their business cards. Even if you didn't get the nod for 2008, you'll still want to check out the speaker lineup, which revolves around "the biggest questions out there." Writer Dave Eggers is slated to tackle "How Can We Change the World?" while designer Isaac Mizrahi will try his hand at divulging "What Stirs Us?" For a little payoff right now, watch last year's talk by J.J. Abrams—the man behind Lost—on the subject of his "Mystery Box."
http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/48

Even when the results aren't jaw-dropping, it's still fascinating to look at a major company's rebranding efforts. This month Xerox rolled out a new logo and brand identity, the results of a two-year collaboration with Interbrand. You may not wish the new logo was in your portfolio, but the updated mark is a respectable step toward shedding the company's narrow reputation for copiers. Sticking with red, the new logo takes the Xerox word mark from all-caps to lowercase and appends a sphere decorated with crisscrossing lines.
http://www.interbrand.com/portfolio_details.asp?portfolio=3096&language=ID=