Another grey week in Seattle, but here at Blue Flavor headquarters we’re busily working on client work and gearing up for the holidays. There’s definitely bustle around the office as we push to the end of the year, and it seems like the internet is doing the same as we’ve got another great set of links for you this week.
First off, a great post on the traditional RFP process from ideasonideas. If you are buying or selling design (or any other service that deals with RFPs) you should read this. So. True.
Meta gets a brother with Meta Serif. Very tasty.
The team over at MSNBC.com talk about their redesign and share some interesting insights into the process.
Django, the book, is done. You can read it online for free or wait for the deadtree version from Apress in December.
We love using Blueprint CSS and now there is a handy cheat sheet.
The 25th anniversary sets of GI Joe and Cobra bring back sweet memories of childhood. Except for Tom and Garrett, they weren’t old enough to play with action figures then.
VectorMagic is an impress way to turn your raster graphics into accurate vector versions. It’s amazing how well this works—it might actually be magic!
Remember the years before the internet? Before cell phones were commonly used? What if the show 24 took place then? Jack Bauer’s life would be a lot different, as evidenced by this unaired 24 pilot from 1994.
favikon makes it easy to create nice favorite icons for your site. Upload an image, choose a part and crop and it exports a well-formatted favicon. You officially have no excuse for not having a favicon!
HIllman Curtis has posted a new Artist Series video. The focus this time on Pentagram. Just watching Paula Scher go through the who’s in, who’s out of the partners is worth it.
Jared Spool talks about personas (and again here) and some interesting discussion ensues.
Do canonical web designs exist? An interesting piece and follow-up discussion in the comments.
Leopard Stacks Overlays: A smart, best-of-both-worlds implementation of icons for Leopard’s “Stacks” in the dock. Implementing this might be more trouble than it’s worth, but it’s exactly the sort of concept Apple should have included in Leopard itself. Worth a look, especially if you’re a designer at Apple working on Leopard (hint, hint).
Lokesh Dhakar’s Baseball Pitches Illustrated is a terrific set of infographics that visualize the various movements Major League pitchers put on a ball. Even if you’re not into sports, they’re beautifully graphics, and Lokesh’s blog is really wonderfully designed.
Get ready for @media 2008!
And, for a bit of humor, check out rap, represented in mathematical charts and graphs.
So, as you know, Jeff Croft moved to Seattle some time ago to join the Blue Flavor family. Well, since then I discovered that Bruce Livingston of iStockPhoto fame has moved to Seattle and most recently Craig Saila, former Digital Web Magazine contributor and talented CSS guy, will be moving to Seattle as well to work at MSNBC.com along with Tiff Fehr and crew. How much more talent can we cram into this little town?
Garrett Dimon has published a great article entitled Better Web Forms: Redesigning eBay’s Registration that you should read if you are doing any kind of form design or IA.
Interested in working with the Blue Flavor family? Love to markup XHTML and CSS all day? Well, guess what, we’re looking for a part-time contract web developer. The position could transition into a a full-time permanent gig as part of the Blue Flavor family. If you are interested read the job description and apply today!
