::slingthought::

Lusting after this fresh, analog wallpaper designed by Aimee Wilder http://ping.fm/gxBxb

Still laughing from this one.  Commoncraft has the corner on visual explanations

Jessica Hische has a remarkable gift.  Her hand lettering and illustration style go, well, hand in hand.

Love the illustration style, typographic treatments and fluid motion and transitions of this piece.  The message is quite nice too.  Watch the animated video and judge for yourself.

I finally got my copy of Pens Are My Friends from Amazon and it has quickly become a treasure.  I’ve been watching Jon Burgerman’s work and unique style of illustration and character design evolve since the days of his Biro-Web.  I loved the quirky doodles on post it notes, envelopes and graph paper.  He has this remarkable line work that looks like he’s never lifted the pen from the page.  Now that I look across all of his work in the book, I have an even deeper appreciation for his penmanship, grasp on color and ability to transcend almost any media.

I haven’t even gotten to the included DVD and black and white booklet yet.  I’m saving that for a moment where I need added inspiration.

This book belongs in the library of every visual designer and illustrator and serves as an endless source of visual stimulation.  It’s one of those collections that you need to look at, take a break from and come back to again and again.

I’m ending with three thoughts…
1. More than anything I appreciate Jon’s commitment to his craft and style.  It has evolved into something amazing.
2. His inspiring work makes me wish I had committed to my own style years ago.  I suppose it’s never too late.
3. Pens are his friends and I wish he was mine.   Seems like a really cool cat who, with no question, has remarkable talent.

Buy the book and you’ll see what I mean.

Here’s an experience that fires on all cylinders.  Silverback is a Mac application that does one thing, easily captures usability sessions, and it does it a great job of it.  I appreciate everything about the tool.

First off, the marketing and experience design that positions the application is fantastic.  I love the uncluttered landing page that outlines everything you need to know about the tool.  Having a background in illustration, I’m a sucker for great illustration and design work and the silverback character has to be the coolest usability analyst on the planet.  He even appears in the tool during the video export process in place of a progress bar tapping a clipboard with his fingers.  Nice touch!

The tool itself is so simple that it makes me want to abandon Camtasia Studio (PC), Screenflow (Mac), Screenflick (Mac) and Screenium (Mac).  Maybe even Jing (PC & Mac).  Silverback makes it so easy to capture user sessions that I don’t even need to detail out the process.  It just does what you need it to do!

I’ve been on a mission pushing for Guerilla Usability and trying to sneak inexpensive, unplanned testing in whenever I can, so this tool will prove to be a great weapon in my arsenal.

Thanks to Clearleft in the UK for putting so much thought in and around the experience, design and marketing of this app.  I love that a percentage of sales actually go save the gorillas.

Useful, Usable and Desirable oh and Affordable.

At least Twitter has a lovely whale illustration while up while their sevice is bogged down.  Everyone must be twitting holiday wishes or something!?!  I can appreciate a fun, creative design to soften the blow of a delay in posting.

I dig the retro stylings of S. Britt and this behind the scenes look at work in progress satisfies my sketchbook junkie habit. I love seeing the creative process unfolded.

I’ve followed Steph Kardos for some time and love his loose sketching. He’s bumped things up a notch by demonstrating his skill at sketching on the iPhone. I’ve played with a few drawing apps and honestly felt they were clumsy, but he somehow manages to control line, texture and color in his signature style. Amazing talent if you ask me.