106. A Courageous Post from Armin.

Go to this post by Armin Vit of SpeakUp. It's one of the most courageous and introspective posts by a designer I've read in a long time. In it, he breaks down his recent logo designs (not selected by the client) and objectively categorizes and evaluates them in order to explore or discover his own design perferences. Quite thoughtful and interesting to say the least. I love it and want to try it on myself.

105. AICP's The American Commercial.

The Association of Independent Commercial Producers, or AICP have published the winners from their annual show of the best spots produced in the US, in a collection called The Art & Technique of the American Commercial. Browsing each year's category winner is a good resource for beginners (and veterans) to see the potential of great storytelling. The surprise spot I liked – and hadn't seen before – was for Sears and called Arboretum... it's great. Check it out. Link via Rm 116.

104. Wieden & Kennedy Website.

As some of you know, Wieden and Kennedy has taken a beating lately on their lack (perceived) of interactive ability/integration. Read this article about their long time client Nike and you'll begin to understand how the agency's 'new media' reputation is affecting their business. I think it's silly really - an agency like W&K hires smart, creative people that regardless of the medium, will produce ground-breaking work. I think they have led the industry in interactive applications of creativity too, but somehow they are not getting credit for it - at least from CMO's and the like. Eventually, they'll be fine, but I recently noticed that they changed their website from their long-time, understated, uber-negative space, black and white, spartan website in favor of a new, flashy, time-line oriented, modern, whiz-bang interactive experience of their work. I bet they did this to counter the heat they've been taking lately – and it will probably help; but I wonder if it will have the longevity of their previous version? Ånd I wonder if internally, they feel like this reflects their culture or if it was just a big middle finger to all the critics? (FYI: their London branch's blog is a great peak into what I consider one of the best pound-for-pound agencies around.)

103. London 2012.

There's a great discussion going on about the identity for London's Olympic bid in 2012, on Speak Up. Check it out. Personally, I think it's ugly - although it does generate an entire system of graphic communication as well as stand out from the normal crowd... sometimes two out of three aint bad. Compare it to Chicago's recent Olympic bid, which is really beautiful. (Done by VSA Partners as pro bono.)

UPDATE: Check out what Coudal Partners has to say here. They make great points.

UPDATE 2: Yet one more thing to considering when designing.