When French skin care company, L’Occitane, came out with a new limited edition shea butter hand cream, it departed from its usual simple packaging design and chose a colorful traditional African textile pattern, called mudcloth, instead.

Aside from the fact that the design is eye-catching and that tribal prints are in fashion, mudcloth, also known as Bogolan, seemed like an unusual choice for a company associated with the fragrances of Provence.

On second thought, from a branding perspective, it made perfect sense. The African-themed packaging gave L’Occitane an opportunity to remind consumers of their products’ much celebrated key ingredient -– shea butter, the ivory-colored fat extracted from the nut of the West African shea tree and used in fine cosmetics, chocolate and medicines. L’Occitane’s limited edition hand cream set also comes in three exotic African scents: Desert Rose from Morocco; Hibiscus Flower from Egypt, and Cocoa Flower from the Ivory Coast. Plus, mudcloth is a quintessentially African technique of dying and printing cotton organically and naturally without any chemicals –- just dyes from bark and leaves, mud to oxidize colors, and water from the Niger. As a brand story, it holds together.

Two guys from the London brand/design consultancy Wonderland WPA walk into a classy bar and ask for a soft drink that is not the kind you can get out of a vending machine or in the refrigerated section of a truck stop.

That may seem like the set-up for a joke, but it is how Story beverages came to be invented. Finding the choice of alcoholic drinks in fine restaurants and bars limitless, but the availability of upscale nonalcoholic ones few and far between, Wonderland WPA saw a market niche begging to be filled. They defined a new category of soft drinks that would be offered exclusively in bars, restaurants and hotels, and created a brand identity that looked stylish and grown-up. The simple, elegant packaging enhanced the perception of being sophisticated and worthy of drinking on a special night out. Launched in August 2011, Story will initially be sold only in the UK, with plans to introduce it into export markets in 2012.

World-renowned German industrial designer Dieter Rams defined the latter half of the 20th century with a parade of landmark products. Head of design for Braun A.G. until his retirement in 1998, Rams’ many designs — coffee makers, AV equipment, consumer appliances, calculators, radios, record players, office products – found a permanent home at many of museums, including MoMA. His Universal Shelving System for Vitsoe is still considered as contemporary and functional as it was the day it was introduced. Rams once described his design philosophy as “Less is Better.” In the early 1980s, he pondered the question: What is good design? The result is the 10 principles stated above.

A USB socket that doesn’t need an adapter? It’s about time!! Product designers and engineers have focused on extending the battery life of laptops, iPods, cell phones, digital cameras, wireless headphones and the like. That’s all well and good, but at some point, they still all need to be recharged. They still all require a clunky AC adapter to plug the device into the wall socket. Here’s a solution that approached the problem from another direction – not by redesigning the electronic gadget, but by redesigning the electrical outlet.

The U-Socket is a duplex AC receptable with built-in USB ports that can power any device that is capable of being charged via a 5V power adapter. Replacing the standard 3-prong AC wall socket with one that has two USB sockets alleviates users of the need to have an adapter. In addition to making consumers happy, it would seem that any portable electronics device-maker would welcome this change. Here’s the rub: You have to swap out your wall sockets if you want to live in an adapter-free world. The best place to start, in my opinion, is in hotel rooms. Not having to haul around a tangled mass of cords and adapters would free up space in your luggage and make it lighter to carry too. A USB socket would be a hotel guest amenity that beats having a piece of chocolate on your pillow at night.

As a senior project at the Kyoto Institute of Technology in Japan, designer Mika Tsutai came up with this manga comic drawing approach to decorating Japanese-style plates. It’s a sight-gag that really works best when dining Japanese style, where each dish is served on its own small plate, rather than served with side dishes and entrée placed together on one large dinner plate.

On Tsutai’s manga plates, the food itself becomes the “hero” or subject of the story — e.g., the fist drawing striking a pulverized food mass; the strawberry slices forming the woman’s earrings, a volcano erupting a red lava flow. The presentation is meant to be appreciated as a single visual image. Even the arrangement of plates imitates the panels of manga comic strips. This is just as Tsutai intended. “By placing these dishes in a particular manner, you can transform your dinner table into a story, just like that of a page from a Japanese comic,” he says. It’s an interesting concept for those who like to be entertained while eating, but it’s hard on the cook who has to plan the menu around the storyline. Via Design Boom.

This looks like a high-school science project, but it is really a commercial for Asics new Gel-Blur 33 athletic shoes, which Asics claims offers lightweight, cushioned comfort to all 33 joints in the foot. To illustrate the tagline “Gravity, Meet Your Archenemy,” Southern California-based creative agency, Vitro USA, strung multi-colored ping pong balls on fishing lines and pumped compressed air into a glass chamber, causing the balls to rise into the shape of an Asics 33 shoe and float in space. As with some of the amazing 3-D projection mapping videos now coming out, the behind-the-scenes making of this commercial needs to be seen to appreciate the feat achieved.

The REK bookcase, designed by Rotterdam-based architect Reinier de Jong, is ingenious both in its simplicity and functionality. Made in five parts, the zigzag-stacked components slide in and out of each other – expanding to accommodate more books or to fill a longer length of wall, if desired. Compressing the shelves together allows the bookcase to fit into a smaller space or avoid a half-empty look if there are only a few books to display. The zigzag construction automatically creates sections of different height — big ones to fit tall books, artwork or sound systems, horizontal slots for magazines or a DVD player. The owner can play with the design to customize a look or add more bookcases to create a larger library or architectural pattern. Finished with a high-gloss white laminate on the outside and a warm gray stain laminate on the inside, the REK adapts to most any décor. The more we studied it, the more we admired its smart, flexible design.

Whether the trend is being driven by improved automated postal sorting machines or the insatiable demand of stamp collectors for ever-more novel designs is unclear, but lately more nations are issuing commemorative stamps that arouse the urge to lick, sniff and touch.

Austria has been a pioneer in this area. In addition to joining forces with Austria’s famed Swarovski Crystal to create a swan stamp imbedded with bits of real glass crystal, the Austrian post office honored the UEFA European Championship by creating a soccer ball stamp out of a synthetic mix of rubbery polyurethane. To immortalize Andi Herzog’s winning soccer goal in the 1998 World Cup, it put a three-second moving image of the goal on a postage stamp, and to honor simultaneously a native craft and national flora, Austria issued embroidered stamps featuring its Edelweiss and Clusius flowers.

Austria isn’t alone in its novelty stamps. Brazil promoted the fact that it is one of the world’s foremost coffee bean suppliers by creating a coffee stamp coated with a varnish containing microcapsules of coffee scent. A great companion to this stamp is France’s chocolate-scented stamp issued to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of cocoa beans to the country. And to draw attention to its cork industry, Portugal issued a stamp printed on very thinly sliced cork.

This may seem over-the-top for something that goes on an envelope, but commemorative stamps have long generated significant revenue for the issuing country (not to mention an investment opportunity for collectors). For some tiny island nations, the creation and issuance of beautiful commemorative stamps is an industry itself, a primary export product.

Now as email cuts into postal profits, the competition to appeal to collectors worldwide with exotic commemorative stamps is becoming intense.

“It’s strange that the bulb, an object synonymous with ideas, is almost entirely absent of imagination,” comments Plumen on its website. The UK-based compact fluorescent (CFL) bulb maker is determined to change that. Calling its product the “world’s first designer energy-saving light bulb,” Hulger, the British electronics company that designed Plumen, has challenged the notion that CFL light bulbs can only come in three shapes and must, by necessity, look unattractively utilitarian.

Plumen — which draws its name from “plume,” a bird’s showy feathers — is bending the gas-filled tubing the way a glass blower manipulates molten glass into sculptural forms. Like other energy-saving bulbs, Plumen products use 80% less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs and last about eight times longer. The savings may not just be in the electricity usage; consumers may decide to forego the cost of a lampshade and just enjoy the decorative style of the bare bulb. Right now Plumen bulbs are only available in the UK and Europe, but the company says they will be introduced in the U.S. soon.

The must-do gift of the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival season, mooncakes have become more luxurious and lavish in their presentation than ever. In China, mooncake gifting is a multi-billion dollar industry. Opulently packaged mooncakes, typically sold in boxes of four, cost upwards of $45, with each cake elegantly displayed or nestled in its own container. As pricy as this is, Chinese social etiquette pretty much demands that everyone give these sweet delicacies to friends, family, co-workers, clients and sometimes even government officials during the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as Moon Festival.

According to legend, the custom of mooncake giving dates back to the 14th century when Chinese rebel leaders used these treat-filled pastries to organize a massive insurrection against the Mongol invaders who oppressively ruled the country. Knowing that Mongols did not eat mooncake, the rebel leaders sought permission to distribute mooncakes to Chinese residents, arguing that it was their way of blessing the longevity of the Mongol Emperor. Unbeknownst to the Mongols, each mooncake contained a secret message that urged kill the Mongols on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, when the full moon would be at its brightest. As directed, the Chinese populace rose up as one and overthrew the Mongols, ushering in the Ming Dynasty. Thereafter, the Mid-Autumn Festival was celebrated with mooncakes.

Traditional mooncakes are dense round pastries, wrapped in a thin glazed crust and filled with lotus seed paste, lard and a whole salted duck egg yolk (symbolizing the full autumn moon). Like the Western tradition of giving fruitcake at Christmas, mooncakes are considered more an expression of friendship and respect than a food craving. But for most Chinese if you don’t give and receive mooncake, it wouldn’t feel like a Mid-Autumn celebration.

If anything mooncake-giving has become more popular than it was in the 14th century. Businesses and hotels have developed their own exclusive lines. Nouvelle cuisine chefs have introduced all kinds of new flavors including mixed nuts, ham, fruit, chocolate ganache, green tea, and champagne custard. Haagen-Daz has even created an ice cream-filled mooncake. Starbucks has also recognized the demand and come out with its own mooncake interpretation. Other traditionalists have incorporated really expensive ingredients like shark fin and bird’s nest.

The intricate molded pattern on the face of the mooncakes are often works of art in themselves. High-end products feature beautiful custom designs that are proprietary to the brand. Then there is the packaging for these presents, which, at times, is more befitting a $500 an ounce bottle of perfume, than pastry. In recent years, the Chinese government has become so concerned about overpackaging, it even mandated that the package couldn’t cost more than 25% of the product itself. Some manufacturers skirted this rule by categorizing its product as a “gift set” that happened to contain mooncakes.

With the Mid-Autumn Festival fast approaching, this year landing on September 22, mooncakes are selling like hotcakes, but there will always be some people who wait until the very last minute to complete their holiday shopping. For them, scalpers lie in wait, ready to sell them a few mooncakes at exorbitant prices from the back of their trucks.