Andy Rutlege on the difference between creativity and self-expression, and the importance of a professional approach to creativity in design.

An interesting personal homepage.

Hundreds of scanned condiment packets, arranged in a rainbow.

The nooks and crannies of megacity Tokyo are filled with "flowerpot gardens." “'To be closer to nature – because otherwise you won’t get any,' says Mizuho, a resident of Asakusa."

Some rather obvious reflections, but valuable all the same -- the continued appearance of articles like this shows how important these lessons are. On the volatility of web apps, designers, the relationship thereof, and how important the user is.

Typography in motion project for once of Vince Vaughn's rant monologues from "Wedding Crashers." Particularly well done.

Good pictures, good overview of his work, and, of course, sage words from the designer himself.

A great collection of unique and beautiful business cards.

Christopher Fahey lays out his. A by good set of commandments for happily and successfully working in design.

Another take on the "NYC" portion of the recent and much-maligned NYC taxi redesign. It is praised. The logo on its own is quite interesting, and the possibilities shown with it as a "vessel" are cool.

"A series of professional observations about package design practices within specific product categories," including Razors for Women, Low-Carb Lifestyle, and Packaged Rice.

A "table of brand element terms."

Brilliant art preserved in digitized notebooks and gallery technology to make the experience just as good (from the folks at Behavior). To all of my friends in NYC, *please* go see. Interesting to note how the iPhone has already raised the bar.

"experiments with hand lettering...a ongoing series based on spam subject lines in my mailbox" Excellent.

Create vector graphics files from any uploaded photo, painting, logo, etc. Save as EPS or SVG. Insanely cool.

Excellent surreal porcelain sculptures, drawings, etc. Her "Once I had a Child" is used on Canadian supergroup Swan Lake's "Beast Moans" cover. Awesome!

An excellent resource for wireframing.

Interesting project: implants to raise the skin into Braille. "opportunity for blind people to have a meaningful body alteration, but also something what could be used by those who live or work with blind people."

FSJ posts on the photo my friend Dean took of the UMass antipiracy campaign poster.

A superb guide for anyone proposing ideas to clients who challenge you in potentially frustrating ways.

On the new NYC taxi logo: how it got to where it is and what some designers think. It could be worse, but it could be better.

My thoughts on Clay Shirky's "Arrogance and Humility." Kottke's ping struck up a shared link storm today, two weeks later.

Very nice, very creative business cards, but don't expect them to fit in your wallet or Rolodex. Check the comments for bonus footage from "American Psycho."

A great interview with a great designer. His anecdotes and wisdom are particularly valuable, especially the answer to the last question and his five bits of advice.

An excellent, diagram-guided overview of Fitt's Law, which declares that the closer and larger something is, the easier it is to access. The relationship is curved: small changes to small items can have a large impact.

From the US National Library of Medicine, a huge collection of free, public-domain images from anatomical atlases. A great wealth of material. Wish it were designed better and that the books were all scanned rather than some photographed.

Ending shots of old movies. Nice style and typography.

On the difference between the vastly inferior Arial and the venerated Helvetica. Watch for that spur.

A very nice short history and profile of the Pentagram design and architecture firm.