The portfolio at BMD Design is one of those massive onslaughts of equal parts inspiration and depression. The style and implementation throughout is fantastic but the sheer volume of the goodness is enough to remind you that you're probably never going to come close to making something half as good. It's the best kind of butt kicking inspiration.

There's been much talk the past week of photo filters and Twitter vs Instagram and MVP, etc. etc. Cap Watkins has a great take on all that with his Table Stakes Are Dangerous article. The last two paragraphs are both insightful and inspiring.. here they are in their entirety.

The problem, as MG points out, is that focusing on table stakes isn't how innovation happens. Can you imagine if Instagram had tried to match Flickr feature-for-feature? 30 second videos, albums, collections, tag clouds, groups. Arguably, at the time Instagram launched, these features would have been considered table stakes by most people building photo competitors. It would have been easy to assume (and hard to argue against) that without these features, your fledgling photos product would be crushed by the well-established and feature-rich Flickr.

The reason Instagram won (and continues to win) is because they didn't base their product on table stakes. They didn't use their competitors as a baseline. They didn't battle with Flickr, or Twitter, or even Facebook. The reason Instagram is succeeding (and by all accounts winning) is the same reason every majorly successful startup ever wins:

They started playing an entirely different game altogether.

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Old Spice continues to do an exceedingly great job of being a 'cool' brand; no small task. Their recent release, Dikembe Mutombo's 4 1/2 Weeks To Save The World, is an immersive 8-bit style game complete with narrative, overt ridiculous advertising and more quality pixel tributes than you can imagine! It's a great time from start to finish.

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Nothing like a little branding / identity rage to kick off a day, right? Apparently the University of California unveiled a new logo and people are really hating it. I mean, Brand New covered it and even followed up because the controversy over the new mark continues to swell.

The rage is, unsurprisingly, a little out of place because the 144-year-old seal isn't actually being replaced, it's being augmented with the new contemporary mark. I guess students tend to forget that schools have to pay bills too and if you don't find a way to appeal to new students, you can't pay those bills. It's all business.

Archie Bagnall put together a great site for his compelling mix - Songs for Paris. The music is an enjoyable listen but the experience is made even better by being augmented with the map locations. Get to listening!

Jamie sent me this intriguing article on LinkLib - a new startup undertaking that syncs videos with helpful links. There's also, apparently, a component that syncs your desktop viewing with your mobile device but there was a QR code involved so I immediately tuned out. Despite that, the prime examples of the tech in use are really nice and I prefer the implementation to YouTube's style. It may not be widespread but I can certainly think of a number of scenarios where it would come in handy.

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Diving into the world of Yoko Tanji is an intensely immersive experience. You've got the official site, the tumblog and massive Flickr set. Personally, I'm into the Flickr option for goods like this, this or this.

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I love the message involved with this video on The Power of Information but I really love the animation. To say 'Nice Job' to the folks at Tendril would be a massive understatement.

When you have access to as much aggregated data as Facebook does you have to imagine that their year in review is going to be pretty accurate. It's also a great way to know how in or out of the proverbial loop you are. If you're anything like me, you'll be fairly confused on a few of the items.

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Things are happening at VHX! Last week we announced the official pre-sales of Dave Grohl's Sound City and today I'm happy to announce that Drafthouse Films unearthed classic Miami Connection is now ready for instant enjoyment. You can snag the film and soundtrack for $6 (including this gem) or drop $10 and get a ton of bonus material. If you're a fan of ridiculous 80's B-movies, kung-fu, mustaches or mouth punches this one is for you. I'm excited to be working with Drafthouse and think this film is perfect for VHX viewing style.

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I recently got the heads up on Australian design duo WBYK (We Buy Your Kids) from Mondo. I can't believe I've been ignorant to this incredibly bounty of work for so long! Years of Band Posters, Movie One Sheets, Logos, Animations and more just waiting to be unearthed and enjoyed. Absolutely loving everything I'm seeing.

In Focus always does a great job of summarizing world events through excellent photography so it's really no surprise that their three part series on 2012: The Year In Photos is incredibly compelling. The above Timothy Allen Buzludzh exploration photo is one of the most surreal for me but there's a wide range of powerful, absurd, unbelievable, perfect, gorgeous images. There's also plenty of somewhat horrifying and depressing images as well but it's not the overwhelming majority, so that's good.

Steve sent me the heads up on this great collection of photos documenting Cass Technical High School - combining pics of the modern run-down, ramshackled hallways with bygone photos of the school in much better shape.* It's a concept you've seen before but this one is done in an excellent manner.

* Worth noting that the entire thing was demolished after a 2007 fire.