Mixed Drinks

Ready for your work to get the recognition it deserves? Check out the design awards program from Core77, which will honor the best professional and student work in 17 categories ranging from products and graphic design to "food design" and “Never Saw the Light of Day” (swell projects completed, but killed, in 2011). The online submission invites designers to show off their pitching skills by uploading a two-and-a-half minute video as part of their entry, and all judging takes place in teams that will later reconvene to discuss their top picks in live webcasts. You have until April 10 to claim your rightful place in the global design world.

Signage sticklers, gird your eyes! Dave Stopera of Buzzfeed has assembled this amusing list of "20 Supermarket Fails." The collection of blunders by food-selling establishments from around the globe includes logic-defying aisle markers ("Baby Needs" shelved beside "Beer & Wine") and dodgy math (one store proclaims to be open 9 days a week). Other photographs document outside-of-the-box thinking, as when a shelf of lemons is tagged with a sign trumpeting the fruit as a "lunchbox winner" that any kid will enjoy.

Take a whirlwind tour through contemporary graphic design in a major exhibition opening tomorrow at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. From posters and branding to typography and film titles, "Graphic Design: Now in Production" explores how graphic design has broadened its reach dramatically over the past decade. Tune in tomorrow at 2 p.m. ET for a webcast chat with the curatorial team, who have rounded up a stunning selection of design-driven magazines and infographics along with designer produced goods and some of the freshest logos out there. Meanwhile, those who can't catch the exhibition in Minneapolis before January 22 can see it in New York over the summer. The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum will bring the show to Governors Island beginning in June.

Last week, the Artists for Haiti auction organized by actor Ben Stiller and gallerist David Zwirner raised an extraordinary $13.7 million, all of which will support the ongoing work of select nonprofit organizations in the earthquake ravaged nation. The charity sale featured artworks donated by the likes of Raymond Pettibon, James Rosenquist and Marlene Dumas, whose stunning portrait of her late mother sold for $2 million. And there's still a way to help the cause, even if budgetary constraints kept you out of the bidding for Jeff Koons' steel bikini bottom. New York-based handbag company M Z Wallace -- co-founded by Zwirner's wife, Monica -- has created a special Artists for Haiti tote ($125) that features Pettibon's original lettering for the initiative. Each sequin-dusted nylon bag comes with a bracelet handmade by Haitian artisans and the assurance that all proceeds will benefit children's education and health programs in Haiti.

After 16 years in Berlin, the annual TYPO design conference is returning to London for a three-day inspirationfest and creative boot camp that kicks off on October 20. Among the speakers that will tackle this year's theme of "places" are Neville Brody (Royal College of Art), Michael Bierut (Pentagram), Chip Kidd (Knopf) and Tom Uglow (Google Europe). And don't let the "typo" title fool you. Along with typography, the deliberately broad program will include aspects of visual communication, film, emerging media, design, education, technology and information. According to conference director Robin Richmond, "Our aim is for people to leave the event with strong talking points, controversies, new favorites and, most importantly, new perspectives and knowledge."

Why and how does color motivate, trouble, persuade, and feed our spirits? Find out at Print magazine’s first ever Color Conference, a three-day confab that kicks off on October 4 at the Art Directors Club in New York City. Among the creative thinkers and experts in visual culture slated to “reveal their passion for color, their processes, and their ideas on how color connects us all” are Leatrice Eiseman of the Pantone Color Institute, Pentagram partner Eddie Opara, and Bill Moggridge, director of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. Come for the color trends, stay to get touchy-feely with dyes and swatches, and leave with insights into your color perception.