I'll start off by saying that I'm as far from organized religion as you can get (I'm still spiritual). Almost everyone I know celebrates Christmas and it's pretty hard to avoid the commercialism in general, what with Scotiabank in Winnipeg Square putting it's tree up in September, for example. I truly want to believe that Christmas is a time to come together, to decorate with blinking lights, and Irish coffee season, but today's news out of America regarding Black Friday "Christmas" shopping is just ridiculous. Here's a small overview: someone pepper sprayed 20 other shoppers at Walmart in numerous departments, 2 people have been shot and 3 people have been robbed. This gives "Macy's" a whole new connotation. There's also been reports of crippled websites, with one person commenting on a forum "screw them. I'm not ordering jack if they can't get their system to work properly. Sent off a nasty email which I'm sure they'll ignore." EARTH TO AMERICA: I'm pretty sure you're doing this Christmas thing wrong. I'd be incredibly embarrassed about this international news, just as I was for Canada with the Vancouver riots. I'm well aware Christmas has nothing to do with it's roots anymore—that's not the point of this post. The point is that in an overly-communicated society, this behaviour becomes more common place and sets an example for younger people. Christmas now dominates 3 months of the year and cheap plastic crap will ALWAYS be available on store shelves. At the very least, could we try to be nicer to each other? It really doesn't take much, nowhere near as much as it does to premeditate a pepper-spray attack; it actually feels kind of good. Forgive me for skipping gifts this year. I'll be with my family, in my house-coat enjoying Irish coffee.

The snark, formally referred to as the point d’ironie, deserves serious consideration for a punctuational revival. Originally used in the 16th century, and more recently in 1899 when French poet Alcanter de Brahm suggested its return, the snark signifies what it’s name suggests - sarcasm.

Come to think of it, there are a lot of punctuation needs that have emerged through our increased use of the written word for day-to-day social and professional interaction. It’s not a need to clarify wording, but the need to convey the intended tone.

I would love a visual cue I could use for the follow up email, something that emits the feeling of being desperate to know when you’ll get what you need, understanding of the difficulties the other person faces, but clearly and politely running out of time.

I don’t know what that would look like, but if it’s anything like those ridiculous sideways winky happy faces, forget it. When I was a six year old girl I didn’t dot my i’s with hearts and I’m not about to start now.

So bravo to Henry Hitchings, who, in the Wall Street Journal, suggested revisiting lost and struggling punctuation candidates from the recent and distant past. We need linguists, graphic designers, bored desk jockeys and keyboard manufacturers to suggest and deliver snarks, interrobangs, their cohorts and their offspring to add depth and contrast to the monotone landscape of texting and email.

:) place snark here.

This is one of those pieces of work that you come across once in a long while that feels full and complete. I love it when I experience something like this because it happens so rarely. The Spike Jonze and Olympia le-Tan co-created Mourir Auprès de Toi, is a beautifully torrid little love story that fits humour, suspense, tragedy and love into the span of a perfectly paced few minutes that leaves you walking away from the table fully satisfied while at the same time wanting more. Thanks to Ed Huot for posting this on Facebook and introducing me to Nowness which will surely become one of my regular web haunts from now on.

It has been a whole week since my last day of work placement at Honest. I am so sad for that adventure to be over. Before I go on to gush about my wonderful experience, I will say a quick introduction. My name is Anja and I am a 2nd year Graphic Design student at Red River College. You may also know me from my brief fame from an appearance in the CBC online video about the Assent Works grand opening or the Honest tweets about the apple pie cookies I baked (recipe can be found on smittenkitchen.com).

I had the great privilege of being placed at Honest for my work experience this year. Thanks to their website, I already had a big crush on the agency even before I set foot in the office. I became even more besotted with it after I stepped off the elevator into their beautiful studio space. I was immediately greeted by Dexter, the mannequin and then of course, the rest of the staff. They had cleared a desk for me to work at and even though it was "off in the corner," said corner had 3 windows looking down on Portage and Main from eight stories up. Between the cardboard deer heads, the clean white design of the work place and the incredible talent oozing from everyone within it, I was head over heels... and completely intimidated.

The first day was a blur, and now thinking back, the whole 2 weeks seem like they went by very quickly. I was tremendously excited to work along side them on a couple of projects, mostly attempting to soak up as much of their magic as possible in the short amount of time I had. I was teased about being quiet on many occasions (good-hearted teasing only) but I believe this was due to my acute focus on learning as much as I could from them. And learn I did. I learned that I only want to work at a place that allows pets, making clipping paths on fur hats is annoyingly tedious, field trips are fun, lunchtime is best spent watching Two Broke Girls, Fridays are the best day of the week because you go to King's Head for lunch (and you only order the cajun chicken pasta), you drink beer, and you play 30 second DJ. I also learned never to succumb to peer pressure when everyone wants you to participate in a little game called "Spin and Slap."

In all honesty, I was more than pleased with my time at Honest. Callum, Kerri, Charity, Erin, Andrew and Sherril, thank you so much for taking me under you wing and spoiling me with such an awesome work placement experience. You guys are the bomb diggity. Miss you lots! -Anja Hladky

Last week Design Milk did a post on this beautiful foldable magazine cover by Hamburg-based agency Paperlux. I'm a sucker for anything multi-coloured, but it's the 140 die cuts that makes the cover of the German design magazine, Novum, so impressive. To read more about this project and to see more amazing images visit Design Milk.