“Author and design critic Rick Poynor takes a hard look at his own profession and finds that, despite living in an age when everyone’s a critic, real criticism is almost impossible to find.” (Thanks noahbrier.com!)

“It is easier for a pickled shark to pass through the eye of a needle than for a multimillionaire to make good art. This week it was revealed that Damien Hirst, at 40, is worth £100m, a stupendous figure unrivalled by any artist his age, ever, even allowing for inflation and the changing nature of wealth.”

“In this article, I will investigate commonly used GUI backup/cloning tools for Mac OS X. The tools vary widely with respect to their feature set; the features are irrelevant here. I will concentrate purely on the underlying functionality of copying files. A backup tool needs to be able to copy files faithfully for a successful restore in case desaster has struck. The surprising conclusion of my investigation is that almost all Macintosh Backup tools fail at their most basic task, the faithful copying of files.”

“For the last couple decades or so, automobile license plate design has become increasingly poor. In Minnesota, we’ve lived with the stylized lake shore design since the early 1980s. I have never cared for it much. I prefer the way license plates used to look–plain design, two contrasting colors, name of the state and a slogan, with large, easy-to-read numbers. Simple and clear.”

“There’s something to be said for working smarter, and not harder, and humans have been looking for–and finding–loopholes to enable it for centuries. A look at some of our most celebrated loophole practitioners, and their tales.”

Did you know you can make your own black and white film developing solution from water, Arm & Hammer Washing Soda and Folger’s Coffee Crystals?

“Many folks have emailed me about the new layout I’m now sporting — specifically asking how the site resizes based upon the width of the browser window. It’s something I’m really pleased with, giving me what Inman refers to as my ’superfluous third column’, and if your browser window is currently less than 990px wide, you can’t see it unless you scroll down. It’s a place for me to put the blogroll and less important stuff, and generally acts as an incentive to go wide as you browse.”

“We were curious about the graphics featured on CBSNews.com, so we approached James Morris, a senior designer on the site, to give us a little insight into the thinking that goes into their creation. James was kind enough to write a piece for us about the challenges, politics and ethical considerations that go into crafting images for CBSNews.com. It’s a refreshingly honest peek into the decisions that go into creating the graphics that show up on the site.”

Remember those matchbooks that said ‘Draw Me!’ on the front? They advertised a correspondence course called ‘Famous Artists’. Everyone made fun of ‘draw Binky the Skunk any size but the same size’; but the truth of the matter was that the Famous Artists Course was no laughing matter — it was one of the best art instructional courses ever created. Founded by Norman Rockwell in the early 1950s, Famous Artists had three courses… Painting, Illustration/Design and Cartooning… (Thanks Boing Boing!)

From peterme: “Today I attended Kevin Cheng and Jane Jao’s ‘Communicating Concepts Through Comics’ presentation. Download the slides in order to follow along with my notes… ‘Comics are great for solicitating feedback on concepts. To present many ideas and get responses.’”

“I got a call from a local newspaper reporter the other day, asking me to comment on an open wound in our industry: the firing of two local shops by a client that has outgrown them. Every agency which lands a plumb client that is growing faster than the agency is vulnerable. With a few exceptions (Nike and Weiden and Kennedy; Deutsch and Ikea; Ogilvy and American Express come to mind), eventually, the client is going to bring in new management from outside the market, and the countdown to the firing of the agency will begin.”

“A graphical look at what we’ve done and where we’re going” by Seed magazine. (Thanks again, Noah!)

“What’s an engineer’s worst nightmare? To realize that the supports he designed for a skyscraper like Citicorp Center are flawed–and hurricane season is approaching.” (Thanks noahbrier.com!)

“Edward Tufte has declared chartjunk as an enemy of clear, informative graphics of data. Chartjunk is everywhere, particularly in mainstream media. I am a junk artist dedicated to recycling chartjunk as junk art. Please come in and see my collection.” (Thanks kottke.org!)

“The place to share creative lists of every kind: wishlists, top tens, autobiographical, photo lists, favorites, to-do lists, and more!”