In the early days of the internet, he set new standards for the global online distribution of typefaces through FontShop, leaving a lasting mark on the infrastructure of digital type design. As well as being a type designer, Erik has created the visual identities of major corporations and public institutions through his companies MetaDesign and EdenSpiekermann. He has been committed to preserving the tradition of classic lead typesetting and promoting letterpress printing as a vital foundation of typography and the art of printing for many years (check out Hacking Gutenberg). His book Stop Stealing Sheep & Find out how type works (1993), now in its 4th edition, remains a go-to guide for typographic literacy.

Erik and Remo chat about: old times, new times – and everything in between.

hackinggutenberg.berlin

Support Erik’s workshop. Become a Friend (Freunde) HERE

Listen to or watch this episode on: YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Gestalten Video, 2015

REMORANDOM Chapter | RR6 Coming Soon

PODCAST CREDITS

REMORANDOM is produced and published in Sydney by REMO Since 1988

Podcast co-hosts: Remo Giuffré and Claudia Chan Shaw

Contact us via email at hello@remorandom.com

Original Theme Music by Tom Thum … using only his voice. Watch his 2013 TEDxSydney talk HERE.

Copyright © EOLO Pty Limited. All rights reserved.

These were the Fugates of Troublesome Creek, better known today as the “Blue People of Kentucky”.

Though their unusual colour invited folklore and speculation, the truth behind their blueness is a result of genetics, isolation and the ways small communities can amplify rare traits over generations.

Martin Fugate was a French orphan who arrived in Kentucky in the early 1800s and settled along Troublesome Creek. [Ed: Amusing that one would choose to settle somewhere with that name.] When he married Elizabeth Smith – a woman who happened to carry the same rare genetic condition – the stage was set for a multigenerational medical mystery. Their children, and later their descendants, exhibited a spectrum of skin tones that ranged from pale bluish hints to an unmistakable, vivid blue. In a remote region where families often intermarried due to geographic isolation and limited population, this rare gene circulated, resurfaced and occasionally intensified.

The genetic cause is a hereditary condition called methemoglobinemia. In simple terms, it’s a disorder in which the blood produces too much methemoglobin, an oxidised form of haemoglobin that’s unable to carry oxygen efficiently. Normally, methemoglobin makes up less than 1% of a person’s blood. But in individuals with the recessive gene mutation found in the Fugate line, levels were far higher, giving their skin and lips a distinctive bluish cast. Despite the alarming appearance, most affected Fugates were otherwise healthy, living long and unremarkable lives by the standards of the time.

The scientific explanation did not arrive until the 20th century. In the 1960s, Dr Madison Cawein III, a haematologist at the University of Kentucky, tracked down the family after hearing stories about “the blue people”. Through a combination of genealogical detective work, medical investigation, and interviews with locals, Cawein unravelled the genetic puzzle. His work identified a deficiency in the enzyme diaphorase, crucial for converting methemoglobin back to functional haemoglobin. Without enough of this enzyme, methemoglobin accumulates.

Treatment, as it turns out, was surprisingly simple. Cawein discovered that small doses of methylene blue, administered orally or intravenously, acted as an artificial electron donor, helping convert methemoglobin into its normal state. Within minutes, according to accounts, affected Fugates would “pink up” before clinicians’ eyes. The treatment (requiring regular dosage) wasn’t permanent, but its effects were dramatic.

By the late 20th century, as roads, travel and intermarriage broadened the gene pool, the trait became increasingly rare. The last known blue-skinned Fugate was born in the 1970s, and today, the distinctive colouring has all but disappeared.

Postscript
While the Fugates’ condition was inherited, the case of Paul Karason – often nicknamed “Papa Smurf” by the media – was different. Karason developed argyria, a permanent blue-grey discolouration of the skin caused by long-term ingestion and topical use of colloidal silver. Unlike methemoglobinemia, argyria is not genetic, not reversible, and involves silver particles depositing in the skin.

REMORANDOM Chapter

REMO Design: BLUE | 1990

Maybe the shirt’s right and you’re wrong. Maybe you’ve always been wrong. Who’s to say? Look again. Think about it.

Charm your friends and perplex your enemies with this sensory circuit breaker.

Not suitable as gifts for the elderly or easily confused.

BLUE Merchandise HERE

Today is the first day of April: April Fools’ Day.

But where do we get the strange custom of playing pranks on 1 April? The short answer is that nobody knows for sure, and this ambiguity has in fact long been acknowledged.

“The first of April some do say, Was set apart for All Fools’ Day: But why the people call it so, Nor I nor they themselves do know,” begins an article in the San Francisco Call from 1 April 1900, discussing the history and customs of “April Fools’ Day”.

Some have proposed that the modern custom originated in France, with the Edict of Roussillon (promulgated in August 1564), in which Charles IX decreed that the new year would no longer begin on Easter, as had been common throughout Christendom, but rather on 1 January. Because Easter was a lunar and therefore moveable date, those conservatives who clung to the old ways were referred to as the “April Fools”.

There are variations between countries in the celebration of April Fools’ Day.

In Ireland, it was traditional to entrust the victim with an “important letter” to be given to someone. That person would read the letter, then ask the victim to take it to someone else, and so on. The letter when opened contained the words “send the fool further”.

In France, the fooled person is called poisson d’avril (“April fish”), perhaps in reference to a young fish and hence to one that is easily caught. On this day it is common for French children to pin paper fish to the backs of unsuspecting friends.

The timing of the prank is relevant. In many countries, a person playing a prank after midday on 1 April is considered the “April fool” themselves.

Newspapers and other media throughout the world often get into the trickster spirit and participate with false headlines or news stories. In one famous prank in 1957, the BBC broadcast a film in their Panorama current affairs series purporting to show Swiss farmers picking freshly grown spaghetti, in what they called the “Swiss spaghetti harvest”. The BBC was soon flooded with requests to purchase a spaghetti plant, forcing them to declare the film a hoax on the news the next day. Decades later CNN called this broadcast “the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled”.

Two more examples:

• The National Geographic announced via Twitter in 2016 that they would no longer be publishing photographs of naked animals.

• In 1978, newspapers and radio stations were abuzz when Australian businessman and adventurer Dick Smith towed what appeared to be an iceberg into Sydney Harbour. He said he’d towed it from Antarctica to solve Sydney’s water shortage.

When genuine news is reported on April Fools’ Day, there is a risk, of course, that it will be misinterpreted as a joke and ignored. The lesson there is to try not to be born or to die on the first day of April, if you can possibly manage that.

Videos

REMORANDOM Chapter

Tucker Viemeister (born 14 August 1948, and named after the car that his father Read was designing at the time) is an American industrial designer who helped found many important design businesses: Smart Design, frog design’s New York studio, Razorfish’s physical design group and Springtime-USA. He was also chief of Studio Red at Rockwell Group in New York.

While at Smart, he helped design the influential and award-winning Oxo “Good Grips” kitchen tools. He holds 32 US utility patents, and his work is represented in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt; National Design Museum, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; and the Staatliches Museum, Berlin, Germany.

Tucker has also been a friend and a key REMO design collaborator for 38 years.

We’re not here to talk about Tucker’s accomplishments over many years, but rather the global toothpaste collection that adorns the bathroom wall of his loft in New York’s West Village.

Toothpaste has been around for a while. Since 5000 BCE, the Egyptians made a tooth powder, which consisted of powdered ashes of ox hooves, myrrh, powdered and burnt eggshells and pumice. The Greeks, and then the Romans, improved the recipes by adding abrasives such as crushed bones and oyster shells. In the 9th century, Iraqi musician and fashion designer Ziryab invented a type of toothpaste, which he popularised throughout Islamic Spain.

Tucker’s international collection is something to behold, and our favourite thing about it is its functionality. Each tube of toothpaste is clipped and hangs from a nail. He can choose to brush his teeth using any one of the 439 toothpastes currently on display.

As we’ve already maintained with reference to the Fortune Teller Miracle Fish [RR1:25], some ideas are really quite wonderful, and it’s not always easy to articulate why.

Finally, and by way of providing an apt ending to this story, the beautiful big smile REMO Smile design from 1995 was originally lifted from a tube of Italian Kemphor toothpaste hanging on Tucker’s wall that was given to him by shoe designer Martha Davis.

Video Podcast

In this episode Remo speaks with Tucker about: his famous toothpaste collection (see above), odd ball motor cars, industrial design, AI and other interesting things. It’s a fun chat. Tucker is possibly best known for his work on OXO Good Grips kitchen tools at Smart Design, a company he helped found in 1979. He also founded the Lab at Rockwell Group, and was VP of physical design at the digital agency, Razorfish – and before that at frog design. His collaborations over the years are too numerous to mention. Tucker has also been a friend of REMO (and Remo) for a very long time.

REMORANDOM Chapters

Tucker Viemeister Designs at REMO

Browse more Tucker’s designs HERE at REMO

Greetings from REMORANDOM HQ here in North Bondi.

I’m the founder Remo Giuffré – and I come bearing news of the most generous REMORANDOM offer ever. More on that in a minute. I also wanted to take the opportunity to give you a bit of an update on where we are with the book series, and to tempt you free subscribers into upgrading your subscription to paid, and I’ll be explaining why it makes so much sense to be doing that right now.

Subscribe now

Firstly, to the update, I trust that you’re enjoying your daily doses of uncommon knowledge. It gives me a lot of pleasure to curate those for you, so I hope that some of them are making you smile … or think.

I’m soon to receive some advance copies of REMORANDOM 6 from our long time printer in Hong Kong. This dark blue book is the penultimate volume in the printed series. That’s exciting. It’s a cracker. The book will be mailed to all “paid” subscribers in early May.

Our printer is also sending me a sample of an embossed black slipcase that has been designed to house the complete set of seven printed books.

Check it out. It’s gorgeous.

That set will become available in October – and indeed on the 20th of October we are going to be hosting a launch party and shindig here in Bondi for our subscribers and VIP friends – in real life, face to face; just like in the old days.

Those of you who are subscribed to the printed book series, either via the REMO store website or by having a paid subscription on Substack, will have already received your early bird invitation via email.

Over 100 people are already registered. It’s going to be a great night.

For the rest of you, I’m here to announce a big time incentive to upgrade to an Annual Paid subscription, and moreover, as mentioned, to do that NOW.

Here’s that deal in a nutshell:

For the A$80 annual subscription fee (equivalent to somewhere between A$6 and A$7 per month) you will become entitled to a 50% reduction in the price of all 5 current printed books. That’s a saving of A$100.

Note that this deal must end on the 30th of April, which is just before we’ll be sending the next volume out to our paid subscribers – maybe you.

Subscribe now

This will get you right up to date with the printed book series – which is the originating source of all of the posts that many of you are currently receiving via email.

This April Bonus is on top of all of the regular benefits. And, what are they?

As a paying subscriber you get to receive all of our printed output – collectible souvenirs of our culture and shared experience as humans. In 100 years who knows where we will be digitally. However your books will still exist somewhere in the world – ready and able to inform and inspire the curious.

So, as a paying annual subscriber, you would also be entitled to FREE copies of both REMORANDOM 6 (May 2026) and REMORANDOM 7 (October 2026). There’s another A$80 in value.

Come October you’ll also enjoy FREE access to our famous Tempus Fugit wallplanner PDF – A$20 value.

Psst: So far we’re up a A$200 return for your A$80 investment :)

Subscribers also enjoy a discount applied to everything on sale at online REMO – not just the books. We’ve been serving customers with unique t shirt designs and thoughtful gifts for almost 40 years now.

Nearer the end of the year that discount can work well for you.

As a paid subscriber you also get unlimited access to the full archive of posts and the interactive PDFs for all of our books.

Subscribe now

Finally, and this is relevant, your paid subscription will help me continue my work and enable me to be publishing the printed books. Keeping the home fires burning.

REMORANDOM is a truly tiny solopreneurial endeavour – and it is only subscriber support that makes it sustainable. I’m super grateful to those of you who decide to come along for the ride.

Become a paid subscriber NOW, either HERE on the REMO store website or by upgrading to PAID via the REMORANDOM.com substack platform HERE.

Cheers, thanks for watching and I look forward to sending out book sets to all newbie paid subscribers.

Remo
North Bondi, 30 March 2026

Australian Cameron McEvoy’s recent 50-metre freestyle world record swim of 20.88 seconds is all the more remarkable given what he was wearing – or rather not wearing.

In 2004 the research and development division of swimwear company Speedo conducted a computational fluid dynamics study. What it told them was that viscous drag represents around 25% of the total retarding force faced by competitive swimmers.

Shortly after the Olympic Games that year, Speedo approached NASA to help them design a swimsuit that could radically reduce drag. There was no shortage of internal scepticism. According to Stuart Isaac, senior vice president of Team Sales and Sports Marketing at Speedo at the time: “People would look at us and say ‘this isn’t rocket science’ and we began to think, ‘well, actually, maybe it is.’”

For three years, they worked with everybody from universities and sporting institutes to NASA scientists to create the “LZR Racer”, a next-generation full-body swimsuit that reduced drag, increased buoyancy, maximised muscle support and helped keep swimmers free in their range of motion.

The LZR Racer was made up of two types of material, one woven and coated with water repellant, the other an extremely smooth polyurethane membrane – both engineered to create very little friction when water flows over it. Another feature of the LZR is compression: it is designed to hug the body 70 times tighter than other suits. This has the effect of squashing the body together like a corset to make it more streamlined. [Ed: no pain, no gain.]

These suits had a significant impact on performance, leading to numerous world records being shattered. At the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, LZR swimmers won 94% of the gold medals on offer and broke 23 of the 25 records set at the games. “I feel like a rocket,” said swimming superstar Michael Phelps, who helped test the suits and subsequently won an unprecedented eight gold medals at the Games.

The use of these suits sparked debates over fairness and the legitimacy of the new records. Critics argued that the suits provided an artificial advantage, undermining the integrity of the sport and making it more about technology than athletic skill. Opponents of the hi-tech suits argued that the buoyancy they create amounts to “technological doping”.

Also, the high cost of the suits (US$550) and the fact that they that were so fragile and only lasted for a few wears, also raised concerns about accessibility, as not all athletes or national swimming federations could afford them … potentially creating a disparity in competition.

In response to the growing controversy, the International Swimming Federation (FINA) implemented regulations in 2009. They banned full-body swimsuits and set limits on the amount of coverage (waist to knee for men) and thickness of swimsuits. The new regulations required swimsuits to be made of textile fabrics and banned non-permeable materials like polyurethane. After the ban, the performance boost seen during the “swimsuit wars” era declined. Swimmers had to adapt to the new regulations, and the focus returned more to athletic skill and training.

The period left a lasting impact on the development of competitive swimwear. While the high-tech suits have been banned, companies continue to innovate within the new regulations, focusing on optimising suit design for performance.

Videos

REMORANDOM Chapter

A balikbayan box is a large and sturdy cardboard box that Filipinos living all over the world send to family members who are still living in the Philippines. The word balikbayan literally means “returning home” in Tagalog.

Four hundred thousand of these balikbayan boxes arrive in the Philippines from around the world every month. But the holiday season is the busiest, with mothers sending to sons, brothers to sisters, and hundreds of thousands waiting in anticipation in the Philippines to receive their box.

There are specialised freight companies all over the world who offer consolidation services to their local Filipino populations. Due to the volumes involved and the modularity of the boxes, sea freight charges are relatively affordable.

The tradition of sending balikbayan boxes can be traced back to the 1980s when the Philippine government implemented the Balikbayan Program. This program aimed to encourage Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and Filipino migrants to maintain strong ties with their families and contribute to the Philippine economy. The program granted special privileges and exemptions to OFWs, including the ability to send tax-free packages or balikbayan boxes containing personal items, gifts and essentials to their loved ones in the Philippines.

Balikbayan boxes serve as a way for overseas Filipinos to show their connection, love and support for their families back home, despite being physically distanced while working hard and fighting the good economic fight for the Philippines.

The boxes are often filled with a variety of items such as clothing, shoes, electronics, household goods, canned goods (SPAM is popular, see [RR1:76]) and other gifts; and may also contain items the sender thinks the recipient would like, regardless of whether those items can be bought cheaply in the Philippines.

In A Hard Look at the Balikbayan Box: The Philippine Diaspora’s Exported Hospitality author Katrina Hof points out that the value of a balikbayan box is less about the specific contents than it is about the perceived “otherness” of things that come from abroad. That grass is traditionally greener – and indeed the SPAM that is made in the United States is apparently also tastier, the local version being suspected of including caribou and horse meat. Apparently that’s not a good thing.

It’s also the deliberate act of of the giver choosing a box’s contents that make it so special for both giver and recipient. Says Singapore-based Filipina Emmylou Almeda:

“It is from my heart. It is coming from my personal choice and also my hard work. I miss my kids. I cannot go back, so the box is my representative.”

The tradition of sending balikbayan boxes has become deeply ingrained in Filipino culture and continues to be a significant aspect of the relationship between overseas Filipinos and their families in the Philippines.

Video

REMORANDOM Chapter

A test pattern, also known as a test card, is a television test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no program is being broadcast (often at sign-on and sign-off).

Used since the earliest TV broadcasts, test patterns were originally physical cards at which a television camera was pointed, allowing for simple adjustments of picture quality. Such cards are still often used for calibration, alignment and matching of cameras and camcorders.

Electronically generated test patterns, used for calibrating or troubleshooting the downstream signal path, were introduced in the late 1960s. Test signal generators, which do not depend on the correct configuration (and presence) of a camera, and can also test for additional parameters such as correct colour decoding, sync, frames per second and frequency response.

The famous RCA (Radio Corporation of America) test pattern, incorporating the head of a Native American chief, was used mainly in North America from 1940 to the 1970s … for black and white analog TV receivers. An experienced broadcast engineer could glance at the drawing of the Indian Chief and quickly know if everything was OK, or if more careful adjustment was needed.

In the United States, test patterns were also used to test the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), which was designed to alert the public to emergencies. If a test pattern interrupted regular programming accompanied by a loud alert tone, it was part of this system.

The Philips test pattern is widely recognised as one of the iconic popular culture symbols of the 1980s and 1990s, and that is the pattern that was modified to become a REMO TV design in 1994 – and happily we continue to receive orders for T Shirts bearing that iconic image. Browse that range HERE.

Formerly a common sight, test patterns are now only rarely seen outside of television studios, post-production and distribution facilities. In particular, they are no longer intended to assist viewers in the calibration of television sets.

Despite this, test patterns hold a special place in the hearts of many people who grew up with early television. They have become cultural symbols of a bygone era.

And still quite beautiful.

Story Idea: Bonnie Siegler

REMORANDOM Chapter

The Nigerian Prince scam, also known as the “419 scam” (named after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code) is a type of confidence trick that has been perpetrated for decades, primarily via email but also through other means such as letters, faxes and phone calls.

It typically involves a scammer posing as a wealthy individual – often a Nigerian prince, government official or member of a wealthy family – who claims to have a large sum of money that they need help transferring out of their country due to various reasons such as political instability or legal restrictions. It is generically referred to as an “advance-fee fraud”.

You likely know the drill: the scammer spins a convincing tale about their situation, which typically involves some form of urgency or crisis. They may claim to be in exile, facing persecution, or trying to avoid taxes or government seizure of their assets, offering the victim a substantial sum of money in exchange for assistance with transferring the funds out of the country. They promise the victim a generous commission or share of the funds as a reward for their help. Once the victim has sent money or provided personal information, the scammer typically disappears, leaving the victim defrauded and with little recourse for recovering their losses.

The Nigerian Prince scam has been up and running since the early days of the Internet, but its origins precede the digital age. The most famous predecessor of the 419 fraud is a swindling scheme called The Spanish Prisoner, first seen in the 19th century.

Despite widespread awareness of the Nigerian Prince scam, it continues to be successful to this day due to the persuasiveness of the scammers, their ability to manipulate victims’ emotions, and the allure of easy money.

And why Nigeria?

At the end of the 20th century, when the internet was still in its early stages, Nigeria became one of the biggest hubs for online fraud. This fraudulent scheme circulated so widely that it soon became a cliché, giving a new name to the not-so-new advance-fee scam.

Unfortunately, the connection between this ploy and Nigeria means people assume Nigeria is its origin. While some of these letters do originate in the country – around 6% – far more come from the United States. But because the emails mention Nigeria by name, people assume the sender is Nigerian, something that understandably irritates and unfairly prejudices the actual upstanding residents of Nigeria.

There’s a cool study by Cormac Herley from Microsoft Research called “Why do Nigerian Scammers Say They are from Nigeria?” which contends that a great way to find the people gullible enough to fall for an email scam are to find ones who have never heard of a Nigerian prince scam. So, the reference to Nigeria actually weeds out the savvy from the pool of potential victims. And, for the same reason, perpetrators intentionally make their letters look bad to weed out skeptics. Hence the linguistic missteps.

Finally, in 2003 the American performance artist Ze Frank made a video wherein he recites the contents of a Nigerian spam letter that he has memorised verbatim, complete with odd phrasing and grammatical mistakes. It’s funny. Watch it below.

Video

Video Podcast Episode

REMORANDOM Chapter

In the bustling departure hall of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, travellers are treated to a surreal and somewhat poetic installation: the Schiphol Clock by Dutch designer Maarten Baas. At first glance, it appears to be an ordinary, oversized analog clock hanging high above the terminal. But look closely, and you’ll notice something extraordinary – the clock’s hands are being manually painted and wiped clean by a man in overalls working inside the face of the clock.

This “man” is actually a 12-hour-long video loop of an actor in a blue jumpsuit, filmed at the terminal by Baas himself. The man appears to be inside the clock, meticulously painting the minute and hour hands in real time. Each minute, he wipes away the old hand and carefully paints the new one, creating a captivating illusion of labor and precision. The result is a functional timepiece that is also a work of performance art, blending the boundaries of design, film and sculpture. Watch below or HERE.

Installed in 2016, the Schiphol Clock is part of Baas’s “Real Time” series, which was launched in April 2009 at the Salone Del Mobile in Milan. The series explores the concept of time not just as a measurement, but as a lived, laborious process. In a world increasingly driven by automation and efficiency, Baas reintroduces the human element into timekeeping – deliberately slow, hands-on, painfully monotonous and slightly absurd. It’s both humorous and contemplative, turning the act of telling time into a form of storytelling.

Schiphol Airport, one of the busiest in Europe, is a fitting location for such a piece. As people rush to meet schedules and departure times, Baas’s clock acts as a quiet counterpoint – a reminder to notice the present moment, to appreciate the rhythms of human effort behind even the most mechanical systems.

The Schiphol Clock has become a beloved feature of the airport, admired for its inventiveness and hypnotic charm. It’s quintessentially Dutch: playful, conceptual and technically sophisticated. Baas, known for works that challenge design norms and play with theatricality, has created a timepiece that doesn’t just show the time – it performs it.

See also: Swiss Railway Clock [RR1:78]

Video

REMORANDOM Chapter

James has had a lot of experience designing a range of newspapers and magazines both in Australia and Asia, e.g. The Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review, The Age, South China Morning Post. He also worked at Harvard Business Review from 2011 to 2017 as the Creative Director charged with the task of re-designing and modernising their entire media portfolio – AND he was also an early design collaborator with Remo. Indeed, his name is still attached to many of the most iconic REMO T-shirt designs. See them HERE.

You can also listen to or watch this episode on: YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Referenced REMORANDOM Chapters

PODCAST CREDITS

REMORANDOM is produced and published in Sydney by REMO Since 1988

Podcast co-hosts: Remo Giuffré and Claudia Chan Shaw

Contact us via email at hello@remorandom.com

Original Theme Music by Tom Thum … using only his voice. Watch his 2013 TEDxSydney talk HERE.

Copyright © EOLO Pty Limited. All rights reserved.

So, what’s a skeuomorph? To answer that, Wikipedia is a good place to start:

“A skeuomorph is a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues (attributes) from structures that were necessary in the original. Skeuomorphs are typically used to make something new feel familiar in an effort to speed understanding an…

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There are many more modern ways to keep the mozzies at bay (indeed, come summer time, social media seems to be full of solutions), but none are quite as atmospheric and chilled as a slow burning (and, it is submitted, preferably dark green) mosquito coil smoking away in the corner. For many they trigger vivid memories of things like holiday…

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Miffy, known as Nijntje in Dutch (a shortening of of the diminutive konijntje meaning “little bunny”), is a beloved children’s character created by artist and author Dick Bruna in 1955.

Miffy was born of a story Bruna told his young son Sierk during a family holiday in Egmond aan Zee, a seaside town in the Netherland…

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The WWII “Ghost Army” was one of the most imaginative and effective deception units in military history – a top-secret American operation that fought the war not with bullets, but with illusion, sound and stage…

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The Industrial Revolution brought about significant changes to UK society, including a proliferation of coal mines, factories and the need for a more disciplined and punctual workforce. Labourers really had to wake up early in the morning as being late for work in those days could mean in…

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When the reference to something becomes so definitive as to represent an entire category, you know you’ve identified something worthy of cultural documentation.

“The Dress” refers to a viral phenomenon that occurred in 2015, when a photograph of a dress posted online sparked intense debate an…

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In a country renowned for its attention to detail and reverence for aesthetics, it should come as no surprise that even the most utilitarian objects – such as manhole covers –have been transformed into works of public art. Across Japan, manhole covers are not only functional but beauti…

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Minitel was a pioneering online service launched in 1980 by the French government through France Télécom (now Orange), making France one of the first countries to embrace digital communication on a large scale. The system provided millions of users with a free terminal – a small device with a screen, keyboard and modem – that connected t…

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Henrietta Lacks (born Loretta Pleasant in 1920) was an African American tobacco farmer and mother of five, whose cells – harvested without her knowledge during treatment for cervical cancer in 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore – became the first…

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