A bouquet of colorful hand-scrawled text against a stark textured background. When it comes to album art, personal and expressive beat cool and collected any day.

The band’s in top form too. Check out The National’s High Violet.

I wear contact lenses. I also design medical products from time to time. A theme that comes up over and over again with clients is the customer desire for products that feel less ‘medical’.

If you have to have corrective lenses, for example, it shouldn’t feel like a blemish or a disorder. Related products, from saline solution to lens cases, should feel like they’re part of a healthy, positive lifestyle. We’re all different, and none of our bodies are perfect. Rather than make products that call out imperfections and feel clinical, the best medical products should propose a healthy relationship between you and your body.

Check out the revamp of the Bausch & Lomb ReNu multipurpose contact lens solution below. When I unboxed the new version, it felt like a bottle of Vitamin Water, not like something I’d find in a doctor’s office.

Above: The old ReNu contact solution packaging.

Above: The new ReNu contact solution packaging.

To learn more about the rebrand, check out Pentagram’s entry.

From 9,000 ft, Squaw Valley’s Granite Chief is a stunning place to snap into bindings and give gravity a run for its money. Every time I visit Lake Tahoe’s winter summits, I am overwhelmed by the power of White - all colors of the spectrum coating an otherwise rugged terrain, dotted with evergreens that boldly survive the cold winter months. Though I’ll readily admit the emotional associations with color are subjective, the feelings of cleanliness, freshness, and purity associated with first powder to me are a powerful reminder of the emotional impact of color. If not for the abrupt contrast of a cluster of trees, a protruding rock, or a human silhouette, the power of white takes on a more whispered statement, a shroud of harmless mystery on a foggy morning.

In a design era where “clean design” is center stage, the cold chill of the Sierra Nevadas remind me that clean does not need to mean boring. Clean can also make the heart beat faster.