Wells Riley put together a little site called Startups, this is how design works that acts as a primer for the concept of design in the broad sense. It informs a, presumably, ignorant developer / investor on what it is that designers do and some of the principles they seek to achieve. It's likely not new information to you but it's a nice resource to have at hand to send to someone that has no idea what the difference between a UI or UX designer may be (honestly, it can be confusing). It also happens to be a rather well designed essay worth taking a look at. I don't understand the portions of the design that devolve into 8-bit illustrations but that's neither here nor there.. dive in!

The Sword & Sorcery game from Superbrothers gets a lot of, deserved, acclaim for it's visual aesthetic, phenomenal music and general weird vibe of gameplay. Unfortunately, that experience has been restricted to iOS devices up until now. According to this post the game will be available as a Point & Click desktop application very soon for both Mac and PC. If you've got the game already, you can be excited for those that haven't played it. If you've never experienced it, now you've got something to look forward to. In both cases, I suggest you go relisten to the soundtrack.. it's always good.

HT Mr. Boyer.

At this moment, I know nothing of Game of Thrones. Over time this will surely change but, for now, total ignorance. So, when I'm told this letterpress poster entitled Winter Is Coming is loosely related to the show I'll just have to take it at face value. Despite that angle of ignorance on my part, it's a metallic silver print featuring a geometric wolf with lots of white space... what else do I really need to know to enjoy it?

Be sure to check out more works from Christopher Harrell at your earliest convenience.

You, like myself, have likely never heard of the punk-rap outfit Death Grips (likely for good reason). They recently launched an experimental audio / visual undertaking called Retrograde that features 109 animated gifs that can be turned on / off along with their accompanying snippet of noise. In the end, you're able to mix and match your own wall of abrasive sounds. It's certainly not pleasant, no matter how you approach it but it's interesting and sometimes that's all you need. Read more about it here or just cautiously dive in here.

via John.

Take a moment to peruse the portfolio of Richard Arthur Stewart. I'm particularly drawn to his identity work for Fast Eddie's Barber Shop, Rat City Beer Co and The Lower Depths but, quite honestly, every entry has something worthy of note. It's got that vintage spin to it that, for me, just works so perfectly timelessly when done right.. and he's certainly doing it right.

via David.

While I'm certainly no skater myself, I couldn't help but be overjoyed to see the launch of Panhandle Skateboards - namely because their first limited edition board features the work of Ferris Plock (who, apparently, has a new site himself.. somehow I missed that!). The decks are limited edition and 100% of the non-production proceeds go to the artist - pretty great reason to gather up the dollars to snag one. I look forward to whatever they offer up next but it's going to be hard to top coming out of the gate this strong.

Display is a curated collection of important modern, mid 20th century graphic design books, periodicals, advertisements and ephemera.

The fine folks at Kind Company have put together this clean, straightforward, pleasant-to-use repository of inspiring designs. It's hard not to look at the Collections page and not feel inspired - so many great type and layout ideas staring you in the face. It's also alarming how many of these design styles - i.e. Geigy - Butazolidina - are still serving as templates for contemporary designs. If I can make something half this good one day, I'll be pleased.

I received a bit of an unsettling email last week. Artist Chad Hagen reached out to let me know that this work from Paul Octavious was eerily similar to his own posted back in 2009. Is this a case of brilliant minds thinking alike or maybe a little heavy piggybacking from one artist to another? If the idea were lifted, are there enough differences between the two to make the argument invalid? What amount of derivation makes one work independent from another if they're both, basically, the same idea?

It's an interesting conversation to debate but, ultimately, you just hope no one had their idea stolen without proper credit.

I've long been a fan of The Fox Is Black - even way back when it was called Kitsune Noir. Bobby Solomon and his staff of writers do a great job of delivering fresh, intriguing, thoughtful content on a massively regular schedule. No neglected stretches of time with no content; just new goodness all the time. Add to that the fact that they just turned five and launched a whole new redesigned site and you've got yourself an impressive thing beyond the typical definition of "blog." It's inspiring to see them launch a new layout.. maybe now I'll finally get my act in gear to do the same. Congrats to them!

Artist David Maisel has a plethora of fine works to investigate but his collection entitled History's Shadow really caught my eye. The images depicted are re-photographed x-rays of classic statue forms and they have an eerie quality to them. I'm particularly smitten with GM3 and any other piece that seems to depict the 'skeleton' within the structure. See a cherry picked gallery of the forms here or the whole slew here.

Ah, the weekend! I'm ready for it. So, here's your playlist and the quick breakdown below.

• Eagle, Fox and Cat - I immediately want to doubt the legitimacy of this but I don't see a way that it could be faked and look this believable. So I choose to believe.
• Mikhael Paskalev - I Spy - this song will get caught in your head for the remainder of the day (and, possibly, weekend). The video is also a nice homage to Risky Business mixed with a well-executed bit of slo-mo destruction. Via Mikesell.
• Breaking Mad - if the Mad Men intro were re-worked for Breaking Bad it would look like this. I mostly just enjoy the gigantic Los Pollos ad and Saul Goodman building overlays.
• Perpetual Motion Bulldog - adorable.
• Safety Not Guaranteed Trailer - Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson in a romantic comedy based on an actual craiglist ad. It actually looks pretty good.
• Batman chilling his Lambo - I don't want the background story on this, ever.
• Drunk Guy Sings Bohemian Rhapsody - not just a little bit, the entire thing. Seriously, the video is 6 minutes. Can you survive the gauntlet?

Have a great weekend! Don't forget to go download this!

Here we go again! The third, and final, preview single from the forthcoming Uncle Skeleton album All Too Human is now available. It's a free download so there's really no reason you shouldn't go ahead and download it. You'll also get remixes by Shaboi, DPAUL, and Makeup and Vanity Set, as well as two enjoyable b-sides.

I realized these posts may seem a little bit like pushy marketing but I'm really excited for this album to finally see the light of day and these singles help build some anticipation for the goods yet to come. Go check it out and help me spread the word.

Apparently Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, is currently in the process of recovering the Apollo 11 engines that took humans to the Moon. Think about that for a second. The guy who runs one of the world's largest Internet retailers is recovering an engine from a spaceship lost at sea since 1969. He's also helping build a 10,000 Year Clock, donated $10 million for an Innovation Center in Seattle, donated $15 million to create a Nueroscience Institute and invests in all sorts of other companies. Not to mention he's responsible for bringing the Kindle to market and other such impressive feats. I dunno how I was in the dark on all this before now but I'm glad to finally be enlightened. He's like the New Richard Branson but without the slightly skeezy lifestyle.

We've talked about Instaprint previously (the wall-mounted Instagram-powered photo printer) but it seems that they're looking to take things to a whole new level - reworking the entire device inside and out and making them a commercially available project. There's a ton of potential for fascinating projects if these things were put in the right places (i.e. inside any music venue) and it'd be nice to see them come to market. The Kickstarter project is seeking a lot of funding; not an easy task. Hopefully they figure out a way to cost effectively make the devices, have it hold a high volume of paper for printing and start an undeniable trend to have them everywhere.

Recently I took on a job to do a few edits to a clients site - really low level modifications you could turn around in no time. However, the site was built on Rails and, once given access, I was absolutely baffled by how complex it is to get started - you gotta install XCode and approximately 5 different packages via the Terminal. I think it's safe to say the barrier for entry is a little high. Fortunately, it looks like Rails.app is planning to change that. The project would result in a full-fledged installation application that handles all the heavy lifting that might give some of us pause. Personally, I'm hoping it's MAMP for Rails but that may be a lofty dream. Regardless, check out the project.

I spent a decent amount of time browsing around Flatstock 33 during SXSW and encountered an overwhelming amount of impressive work. One such creator that caught my eye was Chicago's Fugscreens Studios. There's a vintage vibe to the gig posters and art prints that you don't see all too often in the world of screenprinters. His direct homages to comic books (lots of Tin Tin in there) is quite pleasing. There's also a line of prints that are direct lifts from certain comic books but all of the characters have been removed and only the dialog remains. The online images don't do it justice but you should check them out regardless.

It doesn't seem to be as up-to-date as the official site but be sure to give the Flickr stream a whirl as well.

An invisible, ancient source of energy surrounds us—energy that powered the first explorations of the world, and that may be a key to the future.

This map shows you the delicate tracery of wind flowing over the US right now.

The data involved in creating such a thing is impressive but the swirling movements is a thing of beauty in and of itself. See also: NASA's Perpetual Ocean.

via Cary.

The Moontower Comedy Festival in Austin, TX hosts an impressive lineup of comedians, improv undertakings and musical comedy across eleven venues. So, if you're looking for some quality chuckles in late April, this could be an excellent trip to partake in. If not, at least check out their impressively pixel-y official site.

Gizmodo's running a feature on The Case Against Google, a look at the search giant's slow change from being informational search tool to a socially aware tool. The case it claims is that the information that Google wants the most, insight into you personally, is behind the walled gardens of Facebook, Twitter and other such services; with Google+ being their answer to mining that data for themselves. While I agree with a good deal of the article it does strike me as odd that Google wouldn't just create tools to let you import your personal feeds into their system; allowing them to comb the information for better personalized results. Why create an entirely new social network when you could just piggyback on what already exists?

It's an interesting debate and one that we're all involved with, wether we like it or not. It should be quite engaging to see where these things net out.

via JAson.

Apologies to all the art majors of the world that know this anecdote as old guard but I just recently came upon the story of Robert Rauschenberg and the tale of the Erased de Kooning. This video tells the series of events straight from the horses mouth; in 1953 Rauschenberg was feeling marginalized, approached de Kooning to obtain an original piece of art which he could erase and present as his own, Kooning agrees and the art world is torn between thinking it brilliant or a travesty towards de Kooning. Like any art, it's totally subjective if you appreciate the mostly now-blank canvas or not but it is, objectively, an interesting approach to ponder. You can see the whole thing here, as well as the still intact drawing on the back of the piece and the highly adorned back of the frame.