Today eBay announced the relaunch of green.eBay.com, a hub for all things green at eBay.

Green.eBay.com aims to be a first-of-its-kind site that combines community-generated content, green products and projects, and related news—all designed to help people live a greener lifestyle on a leaner budget. It fuses what was previously two sites -- the editorial-focused eBay Green Team site and the shopping-focused beta version of green.eBay.com -- into one comprehensive experience.

The new green.eBay.com is a one-stop source for some of the most environmentally-friendly products from around the eBay marketplace and a platform for eBay's 300,000 Green Team members to share stories and ideas for living smarter and greener.

Office worked with eBay to create the new experience, including the architecture, content strategy, visual design that's aligned with eBay.com's overall look and feel, and style guidelines.

Today at the National Retail Federation's conference in New York, Disney Store announced that its award-winning store design will be opening in Shanghai, China, this fall. By the end of 2012, the newly-designed Disney Store will be in 12 countries around the world. This includes a showcase store in Milan, Italy, opening in February.

Office collaborated with the Disney Store team to re-imagine the retail experience, with the goal of becoming the best minutes of a child's day.

“We have laid a solid foundation and set a new standard for specialty retailing since launching our new store design in 2010,” said Paul Gainer, senior vice president of Disney Store North America. “Our momentum continues to grow."

The Tokyo Type Directors Club selected Office's Stag print from more than 3,200 entries from around the world. The print will appear in the organization's design annual, The Best in International Typography & Design, published next year.

You can buy your own Stag in our Shop.

We live and work in an amazing design city. Here's some of what's inspiring us this season.


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Office's latest art print, "Stag" is now available in our online Shop.

Created with illustrations of a deconstructed doily, a big deer head is hot-stamped on heavy black paper. Better than taxidermy, it's packaged in a glassine envelope and printed label for easy gift-giving.

Get yours here, if you want.

At a ceremony held in San Francisco last night, Office was recognized by Cause/Affect, a biennial international design competition that honors the work of designers who set out to make a positive impact on society.

The awards recognized Sesame Workshop's annual report, which Office concepted, wrote, and designed. It highlights how the nonprofit organization is helping kids around the world -- from slowing the spread of AIDS in Africa, to teaching respect and tolerance in the Middle East, to fighting childhood obesity in the U.S.

The report will be part of an exhibit at the AIGA SF Gallery from Nov. 3 - Nov. 30, and will be entered into the AIGA National Design Archives.

Hola, Picasso
Lucky SF, Picasso seems to be everywhere these days. And by everywhere, we mean the de Young and SFMOMA. We were blown away by both exhibits.

The de Young shows 100 masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso in Paris (through Oct. 9) -- a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit only possible because the Paris museum is closed for renovations until next year. Blue Period. Rose Period. Cubism. Surrealism. Rattle off what you remember from your art history class over a carafe of sangria in the de Young Cafe. (It's really good sangria.)

At SFMOMA (through Sept. 6) "The Steins Collect" features Picasso works, along with other Parisian avant-garde. We're inspired by the story of the young Steins (from Oakland), who lived in bohemian Paris and supported Picasso, Matisse, and other modern artists, fueling an artistic revolution.

Check out our complete Eye Spy list here. 

AIGA, the professional organization for design, recognized Office in its AIGA 365 Design Effectiveness Awards.

Four of Office's projects were selected as examples of outstanding design produced in 2010. This included the eBay Box, IBM Smarter Planet Business Services campaign, Sesame Workshop Annual Report, and the Coca-Cola Latin America Water Brands repositioning. 

The work will be part of a public exhibition scheduled to open at the AIGA National Design Center in New York in September 2011, and then travel to galleries throughout the country during 2012. The selections will also be part of a permanent historical record of notable graphic design, in the AIGA Design Archives at the Denver Art Museum.

The Chicago International Poster Biennial Exhibition opens tonight at the Harrington College of Design, through July 28. It features 185 posters from around the world, curated by an international jury of renowned designers, including Paula Scher (US), Holger Matthies (Germany), François Caspar (France), Marta Granados (Colombia), Emek (US), Rafal Olbinski (Poland), and Takashi Akiyama (Japan).

Office's "Missing Limbs" poster for 826 Valencia's Pirate Supply Store was selected for the exhibit. You can buy it here. All proceeds benefit 826 Valencia, a nonprofit tutoring and writing center for youth.

Office is honored to be part of the Plywood for Good art auction benefitting Japan's rebuilding efforts.

Collective Good asked 30 local artists to use blank skateboard decks as a canvas for their thoughts on Japan's earthquake and tsunami devastation. The decks will be auctioned off this Thursday, July 14, at Project One, with all proceeds going to Direct Relief International.

Office's skate deck is a painted illustration of a Japanese dragon -- a sign of good fortune -- that loops around a Shinto shrine to spell the word "hope."

Get your tickets here.

Communication Arts, one of the most influential global graphic design competitions, selected the eBay Box among the best design of the past year. The eBay Box also won Third Place in The Dieline Awards, a global competition that recognizes the best in packaging design.

Office collaborated with the eBay team to develop a unique new box that encourages greener shipping. The work will be featured along with other winners in Design Annual 52, the September/October 2011 issue of Communication Arts and on The Dieline, the most visited website on packaging design in the world.

A series of IBM posters designed by Office were selected to appear in D&AD Annual 2011: The Best Advertising and Design in the World.

Office partnered with Ogilvy & Mather New York on the series for IBM's business services, as part of the company's Smarter Planet campaign.

D&AD's book will be published next fall and feature approximately 500 of the best in advertising, design and interactive, selected from more than 20,000 entries from around the word.

Today Google released the Chromebook, a new kind of computer built for the web. No programs, no desktop, nothing to start-up. It's faster, simpler, cheaper, and more secure than ordinary computers because you can do everything on the web. Check out the video. Office collaborated with Google's Creative Lab to design the Chrome logo.

We feel pretty lucky to live and work in an amazing design city. So in honor of SF Design Week, we'll be posting some of the things, places, spaces, and experiences that inspire us. If you're interested in checking them out, follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook. And let us know what inspires you in SF -- tweet and tag #eyespydesignsf to join in.


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Cloud computing -- accessing data and applications through the internet rather than keeping it on your workstation -- is quickly becoming the new model for smarter IT.

As part of its vision to help build a Smarter Planet, IBM highlights examples of the power of cloud:

"The city of Wuxi in southeastern China developed a 'cloud services factory' to provide computing resources to local companies. Software developers can access new resources in minutes, and new businesses can hit the ground running. Wuxi now has the potential to provide services to hundreds of small and medium-sized companies, which represent the future of a city that sees itself as an engine for growth."

"Thanks to a private education cloud, the 12-year-old computers of the Pike County Schools System in eastern Kentucky now behave more like 2009 models. That has enabled the county to cut 62% of its schools' end-user support costs, while providing equal access to education content across 27 schools. Most importantly, Pike's 10,000 students can now access new courseware instantly—something that used to take more than a year."

"Following Hurricane Ike in 2008, Houston was plagued by downed trees and power lines—but the nonprofit human services agency Neighborhood Centers Inc., with its system data backed up in a cloud, didn't suffer a single business disruption at any of its 20 facilities. Following the storm, the agency was back in business, providing support to families in need."

Office created an icon to visualize smarter cloud computing, which appears in IBM's print advertising and on its Smarter Planet website.