Hasta La Ideas

2011 has been a hard year. Revolutions the world over! Natural disasters! Bankruptcy! What’s next?

We’re not hedging bets for 2012 just yet, but in case things don’t turn out the way you’d expected, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

In our 7th edition of the Ultimate Gift Guide, Core77 has 77 things you need to get through these hard times and survive through the. . .end times? Free or Thrifty, DIY or downloaded, we have ideas for everyone on your holiday gift-giving list.

Start a fire with just an aluminum can and a piece of chocolate, snuggle up in this outdoor survival blanket for two, signup for a new $19/month unlimited wireless plan or have a global backup plan in case of emergency—this gift guide something for mom, the kids and even Uncle MacGyver! It’s 77 must haves for hard times!

Browse through all 77 selections or view by each curator.

» Hand Eye Supply – Portland’s Finest Haberdashery of Vocational Goods
» David Auerbach – Curator of design + electronics retailer Dijital Fix
» Allan Chochinov – Editor in Chief of Core77 and Chair of Products of Design at SVA
» Jennifer Leonard – Author and Design Leader at IDEO
» Dave Seliger – Core77 Clogger
» John Watson – One-man show behind the cycling blog Prolly is not Probably
» Matt Wolfe – Tinkerer and Interaction Designer at Teague
» Core77 Editorial Team – your humble servants

A special Thank You to this year’s Gift Guide sponsor: Felt & Wire Shop!

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Inside awards: as part of our series of Dezeen Talks filmed at the Inside awards in Barcelona, Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs talks to James Russel and Hannah Plumb of JamesPlumb about their interior for outfitters Hostem, which won the retail category. Watch the movie »

Fast-food giant McDonalds have commissioned designer Patrick Norguet to redesign their restaurant interiors across France.

While the chain has come to appeal primarily to teenagers, Norguet wants to rebrand it as a place for families.

The space is divided by plywood cabinets, shelving and booths, and furnished with his own Still metal chair for Lapalma.

Customers can order at the counter or from digital terminals in family booths.

The neutral pallette is highlighted with orange and yellow metal storage boxes, plus red and dark green upholstery.

Other designer updates to fast-food restaurants include a Little Chef outlet by Ab Rogers and a chicken shop in Munich by Ippolito Fleitz Group.

Here are some more details from Patrick Norguet:

New interior design for McDonald’s restaurants in France by Patrick Norguet

Mc Donald’s has put Patrick Norguet in charge of designing the new architectural identity for its restaurants in France. A project which is exciting in terms of its scope as well as in its technical and sociological constraints since it concerned McDonald’s returning to its founding myth: familial fast food. If the brand was originally founded on the family, its image has little by little slid towards a more urban and adolescent tone. A return therefore to McDo’s DNA with this new interior design that Patrick Norguet, literally and figuratively, matches with getting back to roots.

The plant metaphor, with its branching development, this root common to the brand and to the family, is transformed here into an architecture which is transversal and expansive: birch plywood takes root and branches out in the restaurant in order to create areas, functions and moods for different social requirements without compartmentalising.

This organic and functional furniture/architecture offers several possibilities, several eating choices from eating standing up for lone teenagers, alcoves providing privacy to family table service, a small revolution at Mc Donald’s with digital control terminals integrated into the base and distributed throughout the restaurant. Henceforth, a mother can settle with her offspring at a table, order from a nearby terminal and wait for the meals to be brought to the table.

Patrick Norguet’s design, which as always hits the spot, uses contemporary white which he counterbalances with fun colours without falling for “toy” conventions like for example the storage elements with the painted metal boxes included in the base template. The luminous ambiance and the quality of the acoustics are exceptionally meticulous and offer customers a comfort which is rare today, whilst the quest for a certain radical nature is revealed through the choice of materials (plywood, sheet metal, concrete, etc.), tested in conditions of heavy passage to respond to the constraints of such a popular restaurant.

The designer is using his “Still” metal chair for Lapalma for the seats with a new high stool version specially designed for the occasion. The ceramic floor also designed by Patrick Norguet for Lea Ceramica immediately lends a distinctive tone to the venue. These huge, ultra-slim 2 metre slabs break with usual visual conventions: warm and graphic without being carpet, they change our habits in terms of flooring to create a brand new typology.

Piloted at the start of the year in the Villefranche-de-Lauragais restaurant 40 km from Toulouse, the concept was immediately appealing and spoke volumes. 6 restaurants are currently in the pipeline throughout France.

Finally—a music video starring pencils! Motion graphics wizard Dropbear (also known as Jonathan Chong, whose pseudonym is that of a vicious yet imaginary marsupial) has outdone himself with a colorful feat of stop-motion animation for Hudson. This video for the Melbourne-based indie-folk band’s “Against the Grain” will delight viewers of all ages, falling somewhere between Surrealist film festival fare (we’d put it right after Hans Richter‘s Dreams That Money Can Buy) and Sesame Street interstitia:

Wondering how he did that? Here’s a quick behind-the-scenes look at the 920 pencils and 5,125 images required:

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Usually more heavily weighted toward the east, we have the good fortune today of having Philip Johnson news from both coasts. First, in Los Angeles, the legendary architect’s Crystal Cathedral, which he co-designed with John Burgee, has been sold to the Catholic Church. The LA Times reports that the televangelist-heavy ministries who had originally commissioned the building and had used it for the past 30 years (for things like the “Hour of Power” program) have gone bankrupt and were forced to give it up. On the other side of the country, if you’d like to see Johnson as an apparition, on Friday, December 2nd, starting at 7pm, the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects will be hosting a reading of a new architecture-and-Johnson-related play by Bob Morris (though not the same one who has sculptures at Johnson’s New Canaan masterpiece), entitled “Glass House.” Here’s a description:

Anthony is an architect who idolizes mid-century modern design. When he and his wife, Abby, move into a glass house in the suburbs, Anthony’s obsession with order surfaces as his persona begins to shatter. The play features giants of design who comment on how style, substance and organization affect our daily lives. The great architect (and Nazi sympathizer) Philip Johnson makes a special ghostly appearance.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.