We had a great time at the annual AIGA Chili Cookoff in Grant Park. Congratulations to Hunters and Gatherers for its “Best Chili” award. Our own Crossroads Chili brought home “Best Presentation” as it portrayed five cross-cultural spirit figures believed to preside over the gateway between the living and the dead. Spooky.

While you're out getting your daily caf fix, pick up a GOOD Sheet—a free paper from GOOD Magazine dedicated to the issues central to the upcoming election. Iconologic designed the first in the series, one dedicated to carbon emissions. It’s called C02 World: A Field Guide to America's Favorite Greenhouse Gas, and it presents the complexities of the issue in an information-rich graphic. Starting September 11, the GOOD Sheets will be available in every Starbucks around the country, as well as at good.is. See what the New York Times had to say about the program here.

Congratulations to our good friend and client, David Butler, Coca-Cola VP of Design, who Business Week recently interviewed regarding “Coke's New Design Direction”. David and his team have done an excellent job with the brand over the last four years, and we're happy to have played a part (see more of our WE8 and Olympic Sponsorship work in the article’s slide show). Also, here’s a related story from the Wall Street Journal featuring more of our Olympic work.

HERE is a yearly 150-page publication created by Iconologic for architecture and planning firm Cooper Carry. HERE No.3 is The Energy Issue—a wide-ranging exploration on the topic of energy and the environment. Visit heremag.com

Check out Brad's daily reports from Beijing:

One of the most exciting chapters in the story of how we’re shaping Coca-Cola’s presence in China comes with the launch of WE8—a limited-edition set of collector's bottles and music tracks celebrating the growing connections between East and West as the Beijing Games approach. WE8 pairs eight Chinese visual artists and eight musical artists from the West to express one of eight themes central to both the Coke brand and Olympic values. To create the program, we identified the artists and designers in China, and developed the brief that guided their bottle art around themes like Happiness, Uplifting Moments, and Global Harmony. We also designed the entire package—from the identity to the bottles, to packaging, poster, brochure and CD booklet. The set will be available in select countries leading up to the Games, and at a few retail locations and Coke stores. Get one while you can: www.coca-cola.com/we8.