By Michael McDonough: :1. Talent is one-third of the success equation. Talent is important in any profession, but it is no guarantee of success. Hard work and luck are equally important. Hard work means self-discipline and sacrifice. Luck means, among other things, access to power, whether it is social contacts or money or timing. In fact, if you are not very talented, you can still succeed by emphasizing the other two. If you think I am wrong, just look around…”

“Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, and SXSW 07. I’m finally back in Austin, for the first time on my own dime, and ready to suck up the excitement without anything getting in the way. I was stunned to find myself facing a sobering reality check. It’s not to say the energy wasn’t there — it was, in spades. I saw all my old chums, and met scads more, many of whom work at companies or publish websites that I admire. The energy was there for the taking. My feeling was that I had nothing to offer in exchange.” Related: The SXSW 2007 Infographic Recap over at Weightshift.

“News, curiosities amd more information about news infographics” as compiled by Chiqui Esteban.

“It’s been about a year now since I first started thinking about creating some kind of definitive documentation about my approach to designing for the Web with the typographic grid as my primary layout tool. I spent a few weeks last summer putting a lot of those thoughts down on paper, but nothing much became of them. Then, a few months ago, in preparation for a workshop at Carson Systems’ Future of Web Apps conference, I started thinking about how to visually represent the problem-solving process that I go through when designing new interfaces with grid layouts. At first, I started thinking about disassembling and then reassembling one of the designs in my portfolio. But that seemed as if it wouldn’t be quite satisfactory, as I wanted the ability to talk openly about all the different factors that go into a design solution, without worrying about offending colleagues or clients.”

Coudal rocks the swap: “Send us some of the stuff you made for yourselves, that you’re selling or giving away. You’re going to have to trust us on this, but we’ll  check out what you send and then send you back some  stuff of approximately equal value. That might be  stuff we received from someone else or some of our  stuff, or some combination of the two.”

“Rosenfeld Media is proud to announce that Todd Zaki Warfel has begun work on a book on developing prototypes. ‘A Practitioner’s Guide to Prototyping’ will help you quickly flesh out your design ideas, test your assumptions, and gather real-time feedback from users. The book will discuss how prototypes are more than just a design tool, demonstrating how they can help you market a product, gain internal buy-in, and test feasibility with your development team.” (Thanks Airbag!)

Another talented St. Louis illustrator: “my name is matthew woodson. i am a 23 year old illustrator based in st louis, mo. i graduated from the school of the art institute of chicago in early 2006… This blog was created to showcase my personal artistic process in working as an illustrator, as well as a place for me to generally complain. I personally find while looking at other artist’s art blogs that I am always a little more interested in the process involved rather than the product.”

“So why do artists look at pictures — especially non-abstract pictures — differently from non-artists? Vogt and Magnussen argue that it comes down to training: artists have learned to identify the real details of a picture, not just the ones that are immediately most salient to the perceptual system, which is naturally disposed to focusing on objects and faces.” (Thanks kottke.org!)

“The history of screen fonts is also the history of electronic authoring, design and publishing on computers. For over 30 years, from early electronic publishing, to the Internet of publishing today, screen fonts have proved of growing concern to users and publishers. What’s good? Or more appropriately: What are good options that should be available to users? Or to ‘Our’ users?” (Thanks Ben!)

“Freeverse today announced an update to Lineform, the drawing and illustration program for Mac OS X. A Universal application, Lineform is designed for artists looking for a more manageable and less costly modern alternative to Adobe Illustrator. Lineform is the recipient of a 2006 Apple Design Award.”

Slides and notes from the much talked about SxSW presentation by Richard Rutter and Mark Boulton.

“Visual language is any communication which is primarily visual. For the purposes of this wiki, it will focus on an emerging field which focuses on improving thinking, learning and communication by making it more visual. Visual language integrates words, both spoken and written, with visual elements, to enhance and expand the meaning of both.” (Disclosure: This is an XPLANE-related Wiki project that is open to anyone interested in visual language.)

“I had no idea that this form of spam existed. I ran ‘whois amazon.com, and got this…” (Thanks a.wholelottanothing.org!)

“I’m calling these hypotheses instead of laws because they have yet to be proven out through rigrous scientific study and critique. I’ve developed them merely from anecdotes and examples. However if these hypotheses survive the harsh critiques of PhDs with larger brains (and attention spans) who subject such assertions to sufficient controlled (reproduceable) experiments, then perhaps future generations may see fit to call them ‘laws’.” (Thanks Daring Fireball!)

“Badger uses Yahoo! Pipes and JavaScript to create Web badges out of any RSS feed. Edit colors, change feeds, pages, and headlines, and pick up your source code at the bottom of the page.”