Review of the Year: We're in our fifties! Here are numbers 60-51 of our top 100

I’ve heard great things from people claiming that your fifties are the best years of your life. I’m not quite there yet, but I fully intend to fill mine with copious holidays, throwing fabulous parties and flicking my silver hair over one shoulder while swigging champagne by the bottle. In celebration of that glorious vision, here are OUR fifties, from our yearly review of the top 100 posts of 2013, and my are they good. Read on…

Tongue in cheek graphic design is often a joy to behold, and this is certainly the case when it’s created by the hands of the excellent Sagmeister & Walsh. The duo cretaed Halftone Satisfaction, a series of business cards bearing messages ranging from the charming (“It’s a delight to be around someone who loves what they do”) to the less-than-charming (above), with the different extremes conveyed via the density of the halftone of the reverse. Funny, neat and convenient! Just don’t get your black ones mixed up with your white…
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/sagmeister-and-walsh-halftone-satisfaction

Good friend of everybody’s favourite teenager Tavi Gevinson and protégé of that master of hazy youthfulness Ryan McGinley, Petra Collins has already proven her worth as an excellent photographer. In this beautiful series she immortalised the real “essence” in adolescence – waiting around. Waiting for a bus, for a parent, for a birthday, they’re all there, and in Petra’s gorgeous characteristic style.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/photography-petra-collins

To suggest that 2013 was the year of the burger seems like a bit of a grandiose claim (of all the delicious but less-than-nutritious foodstuffs, though, it was all over the place) but I think that the anonymous French types from The Fat and the Furious would be happy to agree. Their burger blog is the cream of a crop of burger blogs; they’ve truly mastered the art of the burger, arranging it for every possible occasion imaginable. Travelling to the moon, getting unwrapped for Christmas, the usual…
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/the-fat-and-the-furious

And just in case a blog solely about burgers in every imaginable guise isn’t quite enough artery-clogging for you, here’s Nolan Conways hilarious series The People You Meet in McDonalds. From dogs on cars, grumpy men armed with Big Macs and family dinners, this is junk food in its absolute best light.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/nolan-conway-the-people-you-meet-at-mcdonalds

We received a plentiful bundle of beautiful invites to degree shows early on in the summer this year (I mean I’m not saying we’re popular – it’s like we’re the younger, scruffier sibling of the hot babe you really want to come) so we thought we’d give you a run down of the most exciting degree show identities of them all. Lots of vacuum-packing, perforation and a healthy dose of yellow ensued.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/degree-shows

Funny, unashamedly gimmicky, occasionally a bit indecent and full of Christmas cheer, Christmas Gifs continues to provide us with a festive chuckle year in and year out. These ones from last December have snuck into this year’s review but they’re still funny, and occasionally a bit naughty. It’s good to seen that some things don’t change; this year’s collection were ace as well.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/christmas-gifs

Everybody’s had that moment on The Tube: you’re casually flicking through The Metro, tearing up at the Good Deed Feed and then you happen to glance to the left and realise that the lady sat opposite you’s body fits perfectly onto Nigella’s head. You probably didn’t photograph them all to put into a blog, though, which is why Bored Commuters’ Newspaper Photobombs is so fantastic. Hours of scrolling will probably ensue; you can’t say we didn’t warn you.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/newspaper-photobombs

That Wes Anderson is such a generous chap – he lets you have a peek at the trailer for The Grand Budapest Hotel (which, incidentally, is already our favourite film ever made and we haven’t actually seen it yet) and then, just as you’re starting to grieve his absence in your life while you wait for its release, he goes and makes a whole short film with Roman Coppola, Prada and Jason Schwartzman, about a super suave racing driver. Complete with every reference we love Wes for – if you haven’t seen it yet, now is the time!
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/castello-cavalcanti

You may not believe us, but we’re generally a fairly tricky bunch to seduce. Robby Leonardi more than managed it though. His interactive CV, in which you can actually play his experiences, character and references, was so well executed that we couldn’t help but like him. Wonder if he’s been offered that dream job yet?
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/animation-robby-leonardi

Michel Gondry had us well and truly enchanted with the trailer for his new film, Mood Indigo. The film is based on an old novel called L’Écume des Jours in which a man keeps his dying wife alive by constantly surrounding her with flowers, and the trailer was a gorgeously surreal haze of clouds, bendy walls, stretchy people and Audrey Tautou looking beautiful. Our dream film then.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/michel-gondry-mood-indigo