For its more than 50-year long history, the Swedish furniture retailer IKEA managed to become an epitome of stylish and affordable furniture all around the world. The company offers a plethora of inexpensive self-assembled pieces, both simple and convenient, which nowadays can be found in every other European household as well as in modern art collections of works by celebrated designers. This long brand’s dedication to comfort and beauty is celebrated in a new book by Staffan Bengtsson, one of Scandinavia’s design authorities and editor of Form magazine.

The Brand Union (part of WPP), one of the world’s leading brand consultancies opened The Brand Union Moscow office in the heart of the capital. The Brand Union have created identities for American Express, Absolut and Bank of America; done product branding and brand environments for SAB Miller, Masterfoods, Unilever, Motorola and Diageo: and helped grow and position corporate giants like Credit Suisse, Barclays Bank, Deloitte and Vodafone.

Listening to Radio 5 Live’s breakfast show the other week I heard for the first time the sober thoughts of Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England. Apparently the next decade will not be ‘nice’ (non-inflationary consistent expansion) and that after years of binging it’s now time for us all to sober up (savings, orderly budgets, and equitable rebalancing). It was of course refreshing to hear something other than the Wayne Rooney, ‘is he, isn’t he’ staying at Man U soap opera Mervyn doesn’t exactly inspire you to throw the duvet off and rush into work!

Just in time for the Christmas season, smart USA asks shoppers to make conscious decisions when buying things. The team behind the initiative believes that nowadays people tend to spend money on more things they actually do not need, and now is the time to stop it. The brand teamed up with StrawberryFrog agency to kick off an initiative “against dumb” focused on promoting the principles of mind-driven consumption in hard economical times. smart encourages Facebookers to join the rally against overconsumption and promote the idea among their friends on the social media network.