Anne Quito

If you’ve ever experienced shopping for a mattress in the US, you’ll empathize with Casper‘s lament.

Japan’s love of cats started long before Hello Kitty, Doraemon, and cat cafés. Cats first came to Japanese shores aboard ships transporting sacred Buddhist scriptures from China, as a sixth-century rodent deterrent, and they have since made their way into Japanese domestic life and folklore.

This post has been updated with a statement from the Bank of Canada.

Construction of New York City’s much-anticipated first micro apartment complex is finally underway. While the photos show how tiny the units are actually going to be, the experience of living in a space as small as 270 sq. ft. arguably depends less on its footprint and more in the accommodations that enable residents to go about their daily routines with ease and comfort, including a good place to sleep.

Fast food chain KFC is developing a recipe for a completely edible coffee cup for its UK market. Called the “‘Scoff-ee Cup” (a play on the word meaning “to eat quickly”), the vessel is made of a special recipe biscuit wrapped in sugar paper and lined with a layer of “heat-resistant” white chocolate.

If you follow the paper trail in Wes Anderson’s astutely visualized The Grand Budapest Hotel, the path will lead to Annie Atkins.

This article has been corrected.

Two kinds of models besieged New York City this week. A pack of top runway models are in town for New York Fashion Week, and a cast of impeccably groomed purebred canines are hovering around midtown for the Westminster Kennel Club’s Annual Dog Show, which concluded last night.

The proposal was irresistible: Valentine’s Day at a sewage treatment plant.

Amidst the grime and spectacle of Times Square this week, a curious object appeared. Designed by Stereotank, a Brooklyn-based studio founded by two Venezuelan architects, the red extruded-plastic heart sculpture known as”HeartBeat” was the winner of the Times Square Valentine Heart competition, organized by The Architectural League and Times Square Arts.

Léonard Combier wants to doodle all over your passport.

More than 200 snow and ice sculptures have been erected for the Sapporo Snow Festival, which opens Feb. 5. Among the main attractions this year in the city that hosted the 1972 Winter Olympics is a gigantic Disney-sponsored tribute to the classic sci-fi movie Star Wars, a marketing spectacle in advance of the next installment in the series, set to be released this coming December.

Pikachu as a music synthesizer manufacturer? Oddish as an organic seed company?

“I dream a world where man, no other man will scorn,” begins Google’s animated tribute to the quintessential poet of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, who was born today in 1902.

The Shanghai-based construction firm WinSun Decoration Design Engineering has unveiled a five-story apartment building made entirely with a giant 3D printer, and is calling it “the world’s tallest 3D-printed building.” With a terra cotta brick-like exterior, the building is on display at the Suzhou Industrial Park, along with a 1,100-square-meter (11,840-square-foot) 3D-printed neoclassical mansion.

The star-studded line-up reads like a Top Chef casting call: Tom Colicchio, Mario Batali, David Chang, Jacques Pépin, José Andrés, Rick Bayless, and Lidia Bastianich. These celebrity chefs have plenty of peers on the list of culinary stars announced this weekend who will help shape activities for the US pavilion at Expo Milano 2015, a world’s fair that is expected to draw 20 million visitors over its six-month run.

For six months starting on May 1st, Milan is hosting the World Expo, which has been held every five years since 1851 as a showcase for human progress. The Expo is also prime venue for some incredible architecture-gazing, with grand displays of engineering and soft power on display.

Carlsberg is developing the world’s first fully biodegradable bottle for its beverages. The “Green Fiber Bottle” will be made from sustainably sourced wood fiber or paper pulp—think of the material used in egg cartons and protective packaging for electronics products—and will be much lighter than glass bottles, according to the company’s Senior Packaging Innovation Manager, Håkon Langen. “It will be a new look and feel. It will be non-transparent, non-breakable and with a visible fiber structure,” he told Quartz.

With her 2-year-old tucked in and her husband watching Sons of Anarchy on the TV, the Washington, DC-based graphic designer Carly Rounds is dead-focused on her evening ritual of sketching out a Spanish phrase on her drawing pad: “Dame la manito,” or “Give me the little hand.”

The Maharajah’s reincarnation happened over the weekend. Responding to prime minister Narendra Modi’s call for a redesign of the national airline’s mascot, Air India debuted a younger, slimmer Maharajah.

On Jan. 8, the US Olympic Committee announced that Boston will be the official city to represent the US bid for the 2024 Olympics and Paralympic Games, edging out Washington, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Boston’s logo—a glowing blue octagon paired with nondescript sans serif typography—was designed by the marketing agency Hill Holliday. Meant to depict a futuristic laurel wreath, the emblem has been met with critical jabs and mixed reviews. Commentators have likened it to a frisbee, “Autobots fighting with the Decepticons,” and the Identity Disc from Tron.

Graphic designers work like ninjas. Save for some superstars, they often work behind the scenes to lay out reports, create visually compelling slides, or lend an aura of legitimacy to start-ups with a well-articulated brand. Sometimes they’ll even whip up a personal logo for you.

Update Jan. 15, 12:25pm ET: This post has been updated with a statement from PepsiCo.