“Web designers and graphic designers are always looking for new sources of design inspiration. Of course, many of us turn to CSS galleries, and there are even more sources of offline inspiration. Personally, I find the work in many Flickr groups to be another excellent source of inspiration. Aside from the billions of photos on Flickr, there are also some groups that have been established to showcase the work of designers. Here is a look at 99 of them according to category (about half of them are general graphic design groups). Below the link to each group you’ll see the number of members and the number of items (pictures, graphics, screenshots, etc.) that have been submitted to the group, plus I have included part of the group description as listed by the moderator.”

“Regular readers of my articles know that I have no qualms or fear of offering criticism. Criticism is a vital component in what we do and in how we learn. In fact, critical evaluation is mandatory in design work. Without approaching, or at least finishing, every step of our work with a critical eye the results are likely worthless. And we’ve much to learn from what design criticism can teach us. Yet the more articles and criticism responses I read, the more I’m led to believe that too many designers misunderstand criticism.”

Just what it says.

“In 2005 The Royal Mint announced a competition to design six of the eight kinds of coin in circulation in Britain, the first full redesign of the coins since decimalisation in 1971. Open to everyone and with a top prize of £30,000, they received 4000 designs from 500 people, and I just saw on the news that the final designs have been completed and the first coins ready for issue. Not only that, but the £1 coin is now included in the redesign, and somewhat appropriately becomes the uniting element of the set.

You can tell they were done by a graphic designer; even with the complexity of the Royal Arms, the designs are clean and sparse, with pleasing variation in placement of the inscription…”

“A short documentary on the designer Stefan Sagmeister.” (Thanks swisssmiss!)

Like ffffound (for the rest of us): “We Heart It is a social bookmarking tool for images and videos. We see many great images on blogs and websites around, and now you can put everything you saw and liked on the same page to look again whenever you want.” (Thanks Chris Glass!)

“InDesign lets you control the visibility of layers in your placed Photoshop graphics. That can be pretty handy when you find yourself designing a series of related ads that require minor changes to the same image.

In InDesign, select a placed Photoshop graphic and choose Object > Object Layer Options. This gives you a dialog box where you can toggle the eyeball next to any layer to turn it on or off.”

“I am in the process of printing a postcard out of InDesign CS3. The background was created in Photoshop CS3, and the information has been added with InDesign. When printing a proof from Photoshop, I get the color I expect to get. Printing out of InDesign, I do not. I even created a box in InDesign with the same color values, and the color is still not correct. I have checked the color profiles, and the object color profile, and they are the same. Any Ideas?”

Paula Scher: “I don’t see very many speakers from the advertising community invited to speak at design conferences (except for the very few who lead branding groups at agencies and in some circles they are still considered the enemy). I don’t read about it on design blogs, and I’m not seeing books published about it. I’m not seeing advertising, in any form, turn up in any design museum exhibitions, not at the Modern, not at the Cooper-Hewitt.” (Thanks kottke.org!)

“As promised, here I will continue with my series on Graphis Annuals of years past (previously: ‘59/60 parts 1, 2, 3 and ‘71/72). This time I’ll be presenting some material from the 1957-58 edition. It’s not my favorite year but it’s an interesting year because you can see the past and future jostling for position. Though much of it feels distinctly 50’s some of the 60’s advertising style that would soon overtake everything was already making inroads. Below I have culled 22 images for your perusal, so happy perusing.”

“The first book I ever owned was a gift from my Uncle Al: Tom Swift and His Motor Boat, by Victor Appleton. The second book I bought myself: Tom Swift and His Motorcycle, by the same author. Over time I added Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle, soon followed by Tom Swift and His War Tank, and then His Submarine, His Airship, His Giant Telescope, and others—all allegedly written by the same man. Marveling at his prolificacy, I wondered how one author could write so many books: Who was Victor Appleton? I was an adult by the time I learned that Victor Appleton was not one man but many, a name owned by a syndicate and assigned, along with the plot lines, to a legion of ghostwriters.

If you are at all familiar with Steven Heller’s oeuvre, you can see where I’m going with this; but don’t worry. I am going there, but I promise not to stay long, because Steven Heller’s legendary productivity is not a destination, but a point of departure.”

“The new MFA in Design Criticism at the School of Visual Arts is now accepting applications for Fall 2008. This innovative two-year program trains students to research, analyze, and evaluate design and its social and environmental implications. Study with some of the best design writers and thinkers of our time, including: ‘Studio 360′ host and author Kurt Andersen; MoMA’s design curator Paola Antonelli; Pentagram partner and co-founder of Design Observer, Michael Bierut; former editor of I.D. Magazine Ralph Caplan; Metropolis contributing editor Karrie Jacobs; and architecture critic Philip Nobel.”

Do all of this in 10 minutes:

“1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random The first article title on the page is the name of your band.
2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.
3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/ The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4. Tag it on flickr “CD Cover Meme”“

“The gifts and paper goods of Knock Knock tap into the vernacular with their dead-on vintage aesthetic and thoroughly modern wit. Each snarky piece is lovingly concepted and written by founder Jen Bilik, who oversees Knock Knock’s design studio in Venice Beach. Bilik talks with Alissa Walker about answering her creative calling, reality TV and the beauty of overdue correspondence.”

A downloadable PDF you can use to call out bad design. Pretty funny. (Thanks Dave!)