If the site wasn't inspiration enough for you, the folks at Good F'ing Design Advice have put up a red version of their inspirational poster - you know, because nothing gets you motivated like a stream of curse words.

via Dolan.

Officially making the switch from YouTube playlists to VHX Playlists. Why? Because I can add Vimeo and Youtube videos into one stream and because the compatibility with mobile browsers is actually better. Imagine that! Many many thanks to the VHX team for getting this together. If you're not already using their service, you really should be.

Anyway, here's the playlist and the breakdown:

• Reindeer - Chad sent me a crazy gif, I asked where it came from and got a helpful response. There are whole bunch more to see and I suggest you immediately partake.
• Is That A Fish In Your Ear? - promotion for the David Bellos book of the same name that talks about language and the peculiarities of specifics. via Paul.
• 2012 Yaris - Wheels - apparently Michael Showalter is now doing a whole series of commercials for Yaris? I dunno if he wrote them but he executes them quite well.
• Insane Office Escape - you may not love the music that goes along with this video but you will likely enjoy the first person perspective. Consider it a teaser to that new Spider-Man movie.
• Billie Jean Dance - yes, this is your typical "Fail" video but it always warms the heart to see someone slightly injure themselves.
• Time Travel Commercial - I was highly engaged by this viral 7UP commercial. I won't deny it, I chortled aloud several times.
• Tom Selleck's Moustache - someone took it upon themselves to add Tom Selleck's moustache to a myriad of classic films. Improvement? You decide.

Have a great weekend!

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that maurauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory… Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

I've seen this quote from Elizabeth Warren making the rounds lately and I just wanted to archive it here. I know very little about Warren and her politics (she could be speaking from both sides of her mouth) but that doesn't make the idea behind the quotation any less true.

via Jed.

So, I suppose everyone is now familiar with the Facebook Timeline? At least, conceptually. I don't really use Facebook very much but I do find it fascinating that they were willing to do something so much bigger and different than what they currently were doing. Ok, maybe not that much different but it's a marked improvement.

I didn't really pay attention to the actual conference - so what else did I miss? Is Facebook actually establishing themselves as more than a social network? Could Google Plus still take them on?

Jetztz scrollen! roughly translates to "Now scroll down!" - a mentality you must embrace entirely for this phenomenally designed VW Beetle site. Just keep going and going through the loads of well designed panels and widgets. I am shocked that a car company let a site like this out into the wild (think of the lack of IE compability!) but I am oh so glad they did.

via Arlo.

I love the concept behind Audio Autocracy - craft a mixtape for every year that you've been alive using music from that time period. It would serve an educational purpose for yourself and it would create a time capsule (albeit broad) of the time that you've been alive. It would also be interesting to note the differences between my selections from a particular year and a friends - letting our own personalities spill into the song choices. Long story short, go check out (and keep up with) the mixes at Audio Autocracy.

This collection of art from Jesse Tise, entitled Space Spells, is inspired by Flying Lotus' album Cosmogramma. While I am sure there is a further appreciation that occurs if you know said album you certainly don't have to be at all familiar with the musical works to get into the visual side of it. I'm particularly drawn to the more photography based works but it spans a nice range of styles.

There are plenty of other sets to check out while you're over on the site as well - Space is the Place, Zenology and Toybot RX-78 among my recommendations.

via Lions and Vultures.

There's a new edition of the We Own This Town podcast available and it's one of the not-so-regular but always welcome video editions. Doug got together with local studio Battletapes and Andy Snyder to record two songs from local musician William Tyler. The music within the episode is a pleasant acoustic instrumental undertaking. Both tracks are taken from Tyler's solo album Behold the Spirit - so if you like what you hear, there's plenty more of it. It may not be the most compelling thing to watch but be sure to leave it playing in the background as you browse around... very pleasing to the ears.

I have mentioned BankSimple briefly before but it wasn't until recently that they've started unveiling some of the specifics of the service - namely this demo. Originally I was concerned with their concept of not being an actual bank but a layer on top of existing banks... but now I see that in doing so they've likely gained a lot of flexibility in helping people in saving goals and focusing on a high-quality web layer for their service. The natural language search and "Savings Goal" manager in the demo is pretty slick.. definitely something to keep an eye out for more details on.

• Content Syndication with Case-Hardened Javascript - if that title isn't enough to scare you off then you are a braver individual than I. After braving it I did learn quite a few things - my favorite being the self-deletion of the Javascript insert so all that is left on the page is pure markup.
• FlickrShow - a nice Javascript based widget for embedding Flickr galleries, sets, tag streams, etc. Because, you know, Flickr still uses Flash for all their widgets (yet another example of Flickr slowly fading into the background of being relevant - Keep with the times guys!).

Aside from being one of my dearest friends, Alanna Hale is one helluva photographer. Fortunately, she just launched her full portfolio site so that the world can take a peek into her archives and agree with my assessment. I'd like to say that I'm more prone to one set or another - food vs faces or places vs print work - but I'm always seeing something alluring in every set so I can't be picking and choosing.

By all means, go drop by and enjoy.

While there might be a tiny bit of controversy surrounding this Prédestinées series from Alexandre Nicolas I can't help but think it's a brilliant bit of adorableness. Granted, if you told someone you saw a fetus dressed up as a superhero and loved it they might think you were crazy but it's better than saying you loved a Hitler fetus. There are a ton of pics from the show so you can check out Superman, Spider-man, Batman, etc. in more detail if you feel so inclined (you should).

The intro sequence for Showtime's Dexter are pretty well done (although too long) but that doesn't mean there isn't room for an improved approached. Ty Mattson has reworked the whole thing into a Saul Bass inspired mid-century design style bit of animation. The results are just as sinister and telling as the original but maintain the sneaky nature of Dexter in general. Personally, if they're going to continue airing the show I'd love to see them take this on as the official intro - switch it up a little bit!

Apologies on the delayed blogging this morning but yesterday was an absolute onslaught of tasks (more on that later). One of the tasks I started, and finished, yesterday was a one page teaser site for a new venue in Nashville called Marathon Music Works. The logo work is by Andy Vastagh but I tackled the rest of the design. I'm rather happy with how it turned out and look forward to fleshing out the full blown site.

I am blown away by the work of Distillation, Reclamations and Bearings are tiny dystopian worlds - a bit macabre, a bit humorous and sometimes a bit sci-fi. I highly recommend checking out Firing for Effect, A Corrective and The Barrage Lifts as a quality starting point but I really can't recommend enough just viewing it all.

Katty Bouthier has a myriad of digital prints available that span an intriguing variety of styles. Some are alluringly weird, some are cheesy bizarre and some, like Nothing Lasts Forever Pt. 1 are spot-on perfect.

There was a time when hearing new music from White Denim was quite a chore. Fortunately, this year we've already been graced with the full-length D, a Third Man Live 12" and some remixes. You'd think they'd stop there but apparently they've taken to posting new goods on their Soundcloud.. certainly not a scenario I can complain about. Go ahead and snag "Hot Thought."

via Eli.

Dan Fornance took it upon himself to re-invent Super Smash Brothers as an 8-bit Gameboy cart - Super Smash Land. If it were just drawings of the game in 8-bit I'd be intrigued but he went ahead and made an entire, playable game. Make sure to check out the intro video.. I think you'll agree he nailed all aspects of the game in such a tiny pixel form.

via WAXY.

This Spot is an interesting app. It touts itself as "part utility, part random reward, part (anonymous) geo-location and part social sharing" - all of which is true. However, it manages to do all that with a very simple interface. You load up the app, it geolocates you, builds a collage of nearby recent photos and asks you to track your mood at the moment (which you can then share). The results get better the more people that use the app near you - so, give it a spin and make sure to get others to use it as well!