When I first saw the above piece of furniture by Takeshi Miyakawa, my first thoughts were: wow, what a brilliant design! Then I did some more practical thinking and realized that it wouldn’t fit in most standard appartments, as well as I wouldn’t know what to put in it.

A question that I never could answer is: should beautiful design be considered good just for looking nice?

I am not an industrial designer, so it’ll be hard for me to answer it. From my experience with graphic design, I’d say that a beautiful logo isn’t always good graphic design. It can be good sometimes only for its beauty, for example for some artistic projects, but in general it will have to be functionnal, brandable and right on target.

Infographics are surely a great topic for a thesis, but they get even better when they are funny, like on the above picture comparing the effect of LSD and alcohol. This one is part of an amazing serie of graphics showing different substances and how we behave towards trees after using them (not sure if this sentence makes sense).

Another great example of funny infographics is a moving one by Richard Fenwick, a world-famous animator. This shows what do in case of an earthquake, and it’s hilarious.

Since I love the work of Fenwick, I have to show you this other great animation explaining safety procedures in airplanes. You’ll love it for sure.

At last but not least, these pregnancy tips will probably make you laugh, or maybe even help you understand what you shouldn’t do in case of pregnancy.

You can of course follow me on my Tumblelog if you are a Tumblr user.

The information design patterns application is a collection of 55 design patterns that describe the functional aspect of graphic components for the display, behavior and user interaction of complex infographics.

For each pattern, you’ll find an extensive description, a layout example and a real-world example. A left menu allows you to see other patterns that have a relation with the one you are watching.

A real-world example for the stacked area chart

This amazing work has been accomplished by Christian Behrens, a Berlin based designer, for his thesis about the development of a design pattern language for interactive infographics.

Although it is quite different, this made me think of the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library, a much appreciated documentation provided by the Yahoo! developer network. Focused on webdesign, you’ll find there the answer to most common website or application design issues.

Founded in 2002, OurType.be is a collaborative font publishing website initiated by Fred Smeijers, a first generation digital type designer.

The website, all in flash (argh…), can seem a bit strange to navigate at first, but is very nice. In fact you can easily try the font live and see it at different sizes.

Every font you’ll find on the site is very professional and manufactured for contemporary needs, but always respecting typography standards.

Sometimes you mind wanders in the most unusual places. It happened to me the other day as I was releasing the few extra beers I drank, and found myself concentrating on that little fly in the urinal. Then I thought about how that little insect made life a little better for the cleaning people who probably have less to clean, and for the customers of the place who have had a little more fun while in the restrooms (yes it doesn’t take much for a drunk guy to have fun).

So if you think about it, this simple drawing of a fly improved everybody’s life a little. But how?

• By staying simple.
  A common advice for webdesigners is: “Don’t make the user think”. In our particular case, the urinal user doesn’t think and just follows his instinct: he pisses on that damn annoying fly that’s teasing him.
• By understanding the user’s needs.
  In the urinating situation, all the user needs is a little guidance to focus on keeping the place clean, without even thinking about it. If the user instinctively knows what to do, your design is good.
• By making a clever use of white space.
  Less is more, every designer knows this sentence I guess. If you designed this, many clients would probably have asked you to make the fly bigger or add more flies, which would in both case be totally useless

You can of course follow me on my Tumblelog is you are a Tumblr user.

If you are a social bookmarking sites fan, you should already know this creative poster for Russian Bear vodka. When you look at this poster normally, you’ll just see some random communist propaganda and may not even notice that it is not russian if you can’t read cyrillic characters. If you look at it in the mirror, which you probably will if you wash your hands, you’ll see that it is actually sending a message in english telling you not to drink and drive, pretty awkward for a vodka commercial.

So what can designers do with RSS?

• Follow design blog
  Using a RSS reader, you’ll be able to subscribe to any interesting design blog that you come across. Then you can forget about it and get the content coming to you every time the blog has been updated.
• Stay informed of design news in your industry
  Using Google alert’s RSS on keywords of interest, subscribing to Delicious tags or Digg’s design category, these are simple ways to stay aware of what’s going on in your industry.
• Find design jobs
  Most job boards have rss feeds nowadays, so you don’t need to get back to the site everytime you want to check if there is something for you. Just go to the category you want (for example: freelance graphic design) and subscribe, you’ll be updated without even having to think about it.
  Good design job boards: Smashing jobs, Authentic jobs, Freshwebjobs,…
• Get podcasts and videocasts tutorials
  If you are a Youtube or any video site user, you can subscribe to other people’s channels. Many Youtube channels are dedicated to teach you how to use Photoshop or other design stuff. You can also easily find design podcasts on Odeo.
• Display news on your website or blog
  If you are a Wordpress blogger, you’ll notice that you can use RSS widgets. Just enter a feed’s adress in one of those and you’ll be able to display feeds on your site.

If you are like me, you probably never heard of Breda (Netherlands) and didn’t know that a graphic design festival is held there. Looking at the website of the event really makes me want to go there sometime between may 23 and june 29. Many famous designers like iLoveDust, Stefan Sagmeister or Pixelgarten will be there, and the festival’s sponsors make it look like serious stuff.