In our jet-fuelled, caffeine-induced, celebrity-a-minute world, who actually has the time to learn a thing or two? C’mon, let’s face it, life’s too bloody short. According to H-57, the creators of the book ‘Life in Five Seconds’, what you need is instant knowledge. Life in Five Seconds takes 200 world events, inventions, great lives, places, animals and cultural icons that you really need to know about, and then, hey presto, cuts away all the useless details. The Last Supper, Lady Gaga, the moon landings, the Mona Lisa, the invention of electricity, Ikea, the Berlin Wall, celebrity chefs and everything in-between. This is the perfect gift for anyone with a sense of humour … and a short attention span. In this post some of the pages from the book, which are also available online here. There is even something extra in the book if you own a smartphone…

H-57 is a design and advertising studio based in Milan. After fifteen years of experience working on big international advertising campaigns for print, TV, web and radio, Gianmarco Milesi and Matteo Civaschi reinvented themselves as a bespoke design agency, focusing on contemporary design, typography and illustration.