Back alley for smaller retail outlets in Singapore’s Chinatown. What the diversity of air conditioning units in use can teach us about the products sold, competition in the retail air conditioning market and the replacement cycle?

Someone dislikes the Touchmedia tax.

China has everything one might need for a road trip: a massive network of roads; exotic locations with stunning vistas and some incredible mountain landscapes – good for getting your knee down, and relatively cheap gasoline. The newly asphalted highways driving in from the coast only adds to the allure. With a rising income and a penchant for luxury BMW, Harley and Ducati much be chomping at the bit.

Except that in China the ‘road trip’ storyline is still a hard sell for true adventurers and weekend warriors alike. The volume of accidents; the fact that motorbikes are still considered the first affordable motorised transport (supplanted by electric bicycles in urban centers) – anyone who can afford an up-scale brand will still have vivid memories of 5 people to a motorbike, the motorbike tractors and other forms of 2-wheeled workhorses.

Related: the motorbike thread from here and abroad.

Photo: motorbikes for the disabled are a common sight – in some parks ‘gangs’ of disabled motorbikes cluster like wagons circling.

Handmade, with traditional metal bowl on the base as an anchor.

Those little cues that divide here (in this instance a traditional Shanghai lane/cul-de-sac) from there.

Tax returns.

“Thank you for your contribution to China’s flourishing and prosperity!”

Beautifully minimal design.

A sign, with less to do with cultural notions of the elasticity of time, and more to do with having transiting passengers arrive late.

The line between context and culture.

Combinations of words to imply swiftness-of-payments.

Poster advertising the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases from a back-alley, close to the office. Contextual advertising, indeed.

American corner in this Dire Dawa library.

“outside food not allowed”

Line in front of this bank’s outdoor ATM.

How we learn what distance is enough.

Increasing the shy distance by introducing other objects into the mix.

Exposing customers to elements of the process as a branding exercise – in this case wood for the oven.

A true homage to physical content and a fine attention to detail in the T-site (architects Klein Dytham Architecture, signage/branding by Kenya Hara). For those that know the neighbourhood it makes for an compelling counterweight to other more commercial ventures.

A Tokyo destination worthy of significant time investment.

Lovely detailing on the escalators in Tsutays’s t-site.