Review of the Year: Things are getting serious now, we're in the twenties...

This is where things get really bloody serious. The hallowed top 30 (is that even a thing?) is where the real cream of the cream (or creme de la creme to coin a new phrase that borrows from French) hang out. What delights are in store in this treasure trove of creative excellence? Who knows. Read on before I mix any more metaphors.

Apart from sounding like the most elaborately-titled Murakami novel (which obviously adds a certain appeal) this is arguably the most charming project we’ve posted on the site all year. It’s the documentation of the relationship between an adopted stray cat and an elderly woman by the woman’s granddaughter Miyoko. The unlikely pair eat together, bathe together, share the same bed and just enjoy each other’s company in general. What’s not to like?
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/photography-miyoko-iharas-grandma-and-her-trusty-cat-are-a-match-made-in-heaven

Imagine entering a room that’s FULL of thread. Walk into the thready mess, go on. Holy *&$@ the thread is spelling words! That was pretty much how it felt to walk into Pae White’s South London Gallery installation. Cool huh?
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/pae-white

An interesting one this. A great bit of design work that turned the Nike logo into the NYC logo, it was a huge hit until we were asked to remove it by the studio responsible (who have since also taken it down from their own site). Still the internet being what it is you can still find it really easily; Google it for ultimate logo redesign satisfaction.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/triboro

The 7–Eleven is such a well-loved bastion of late-night stale pastries and disconcertingly tepid coffee for so many years that it seems almost unthinkable that anyone should attempt a rebrand. Everyone knows you can’t muck about with the logos of popular companies without encouraging vitriolic criticism from the public. But BVD had a crack all the same and did a startlingly brilliant job of maintaining the kitsch charm of the world’s largest convenience store chain.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/bvd-7-eleven-coffee-rebrand

We were flabbergasted to discover that one of our Opinion pieces fell inside the Top 100 articles this year, then even more amazed to find it was within the top 50; sometimes we forget that you guys read our Opinion pieces. Still, it’s not hard to see why so many people flocked to hear Maisie (then an intern) bemoan the dumbing down of children’s books for the iPad generation. You go guuurrrrl!
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/opinion-what-does-the-abridging-of-childrens-stories-mean-for-the-next-generation

Our first reaction when we saw these Chamois Panties was to laugh hysterically. But then we suddenly realised that Christina Guzman’s simple idea was a serious piece of design innovation solving a problem that female cyclists the world over have had to suffer for too long. Now ladies of a stylish cycling persuasion can saddle up each day without having to dress up in Victorian swimwear for the experience.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/chamois-panties

Three reasons why Caroline Mackintosh’s photographs did so well on the site: bare bums, boobs and bubbles. Need I say more? Ok probably; these are interesting and engaging photographs which rise above their obvious click-bait temptations…
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/caroline-mackintosh

Master of illusion Leandro Erlich pulled out all the stops when it came to the visual trickery of Dalston House. Visitors were invited to clamber over the facade of a building laid flat on the floor, only to be greeted with their airborne reflections as they did so – a giant upright mirror showing them distorted images of themselves scaling the wall of the house in perilous fashion. Many thumbs up to Leandro for creating a piece that delivered so spectacularly with such simple materials.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/leandro-erlich

Scout Paré-Phillips is no stranger to using her body to create imagery. The New York artist is almost always the subject of her work, utilising props, suggestions of clothing and her own skin to create strange and beguiling narratives. But Impressions stood out among an impressive body of work for its subtle use of welted flesh, marked by clothing, the traces of which give clues to the story of a character whose face we never see.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/scout-pare-phillips

iOS Maps was one of the least successful app releases of 2013, riddled with frustrating errors and extraordinary oversights. Still, one good thing to come out of it was this lovely piece of archiving from Peder Norrby showing a collection of bizarre instances in which the app made the street you were hoping to cross in the next 10 minutes or so look like some kind of apocalyptic nightmare with buildings, roads and cars bleeding together like wax.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/google-earth-glitches