Lots of quick tips, trick, profiles and samples over at Storyboard Central.

Part ‘History of’, part showcase, part bitch fest… a place for those interested in the fine art of the comp and storyboard — especially as they are used in advertising.

More info here: Dachis Group acquires XPLANE and be sure to check out the buzz on Twitter.

The Touch Gesture Reference Guide is a unique set of resources for software designers and developers working on touch-based user interfaces.

The guide contains: 1) an overview of the core gestures used for most touch commands 2) how to utilize these gestures to support major user actions 3) visual representations of each gesture to use in design documentation and deliverables 4) an outline of how popular software platforms support core touch gestures.

There were plenty of high profile people at the Economist event in March, but hands down the best session was a simple interview with Ed Catmull, the president of Pixar.

Martin Giles from the Economist did the interview, and did an excellent job letting Catmull cover some excellent territory…

Interesting, related to the talk I gave on The Myths of Innovation at the same event, how little he used the word innovation (I don’t think he says it once).

Great set of design accidents, homages, inspirations and appropriations.

The pairs of images in this “Similarities” set are similar visually in one way or another. They are presented without judgement as to the motives of their creators. The viewers of the pieces can form their own opinion(s) about what they see.

Though I have the utmost respect for Massimo Vignelli, and am a fan of his work, his we use too many typefaces is just plain wrong. It’s by no means the first time Vignelli has voiced these views…

For any designer to claim that a half-dozen or a dozen typefaces is enough — well that’s their prerogative. However, it’s one thing to say ‘twelve typefaces is enough for me’, but to claim ‘twelve typefaces is enough’, period; extrapolating a generalisation from a personal imposition is rarely, if ever helpful.

Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to do client work on an infography, but it seems to be one of the most challenging task for a graphic designer. The perfect infography must synthesize complex information in a simple visual representation, which is not easy. The following examples take information architecture to another level by making it beautiful.

So go ahead and download it, hang it up by the water cooler, leave it on someone’s desk… ;-)

Later this month we’ll be sending out an interactive PDF with all of the clichés identified and defined. Sign up for our email newsletter if you’d like to get a copy.

Happy new year, everyone!

I love these funny graphics — they’re kind of like a cross between Goopy and Indexed.

Be absolutely sure to check out Mindmapping.

(Via Chris Glass)