This is the book I am currently reading. But with these types of books where it is a series of small articles, when I say reading it means more "when I pick it up i'll flip through the pages until an interesting title catches my eye or I find an article the length I would like to read."

I am not that far into it yet so the verdict is still out. We'll see how it goes and i'll have to put an update up later.

The thrill of victory…the agony of defeat. Design Disasters captures the flip side of success, bringing insight, solace, and energy to the act of failure. Not just any failure. Design failure. So public. So humiliating. How do designers who are really, really good (we swear!) turn a disaster into a triumph?

So, are any of you reading any good books? Design or anything else? What should I read next?

Pick it up from Amazon
Review from core77
Review from The Designer's Review of Books

image from core77 because my camera is at the office.

Thank you Pac Man for countless hours of wasted time.

Today if you head over to Google you can check out the Google logo done up in honor of Pac Man's 30th Birthday. But then the classic music starts playing, and that's not all...

YES! It is a working version of Pac Man you can play. Thanks Gooogle!

There is always the saying the gift that keeps on giving. Do you have someone you know that loves posters? Do they have a nice collection going? Would they love for you to add another to their collection?

Check out the top poster by Ty Mattson. It is just one of many over at Lift Up Nashville and the $10 you spend on it goes towards helping out in Nashville from the recent floods. They have a lot of other posters but that one is my favorite. Go check them out. Get a cool poster and help out. 12x18 and printed on a digital press.

If you have slightly deeper pockets and/or a love for Hatch Show Prints you can pick up their poster. It is $100 (100% goes to flood relief) but it is hand printed in an edition of 250 from woodcuts (no new age digital presses here). That store also has a version of Ty's that is 18x24 if you want to fill your walls a little easier.

Go get 1 or 2 or 5 and help Nashville out

[via Unplggd]

Up for today is the always awesome House Industries. If you need a large cast aluminum ampersand, some designer building blog, or the always sexy Eames typeface they've got you covered.

They used to have a really cool mousepad as well but I don't see it for sale anymore.

Check out the rest of their merchandise.

Now that my technical difficulties are over I can get back to business.

If you are in need of a gift for the designer in your life, and quick...Veer is the place to go. Check out their merch here.

They have great apparel, accessories, mugs, portfolios, pins etc. All of them are guaranteed* to put a smile on someone's face.

A few of my favorites are above. The KERN and TYPO GRAPHY sweatshirts and some faux ampersand cufflinks.

I have a hand full of their pins from a HOW conference as well, which were partly an inspiration to a project at school as well. We made a lot of buttons and sold them at our AIGA fundraiser and actually made some good money on them.

*I really can't guarantee this, but I am 98% sure it will!

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know I am having a few technical difficulties... For some reason my own comments are not showing up on posts. Luckily yours at least still are.

This started when I realized that anyone with the name "Josh" got a teal colored comment which is for author's comments. Don't know why, but it is kind of a flaw in the system... So I changed my display name, and now it is all screwed up. Hang with me, and I do appreciate your comments.

UPDATE

Everything is good now. I really don't know why the issue came up, but I was able to switch the comment form style to "pop-up" then switch it back and it fixed it. I really don't know why this happened, but at least it is fixed.

Today was my Birthday and I'd have to say there isn't much better then an awesome wife that gets you a Happy Labbit. Wait, maybe there is... Add in a scavenger hunt around the apartment to find all of his accessories. YES, that is even better!

So this is my new friend above with his popsicle, piece of grass, gas mask, and hotdog. He will soon go to the office to live with Ribeye, Zapp Branigan and Mom.

The only problem with all of the Kid Robot toys is they are blind assortment so you don't know what you are going to get for accessories (or in the case of dunnys, munnys, smorkin' labbits, the actual figure is a mystery, unless you go to ebay, where you can pick the one you want). The mystery of it though just you want more of them. If you check out the link he has a ton of great little add-ons. Pipes, mustaches, bubbles, drool, all very cool.

I am trying to not get addicted to them and keep the collection small but there are so many cool ones out there. I really want to add to my Futurama collection since they are amazing but there are some specific other ones that are good too. I just don't wan to end up with shelves and shelves of them.

So go check out the Labbit, and right now a lot of them are on sale for "Stop Smorkin'" Month.

In honor of a great gift I think I am going to make this week great gift week. I will show a few of the great things I have found to make every geek, designer, typophile, and eccentric person in your life happy.

Another day warming up on the tablet before I got to what I needed to be drawing. No idea what the heck this is, I just let the pen do the walking.

Anyone want to write a story line for him/it?

I am in search of a new sound system for our office. Any readers have any good suggestions?

Wish list:

• good sound
• internet radio
• pandora
• remote
• ipod hookup
• sexy and svelte
• does design for me when I am not in the mood (yeah I know, even if it existed it would cost too much, or it would replace me).

I am a big fan of the small Moleskine Notebooks, I like gridded page and the Kraft paper cover. I often end up drawing on them or leaving them plain. However, I always thought it would be cool to do some custom ones.

Normally, that would take a lot of work. You would have to buy all the Moleskines (and lets face it, they are not cheap) and then screen print them all.

Wouldn't it be nice if it was easier? BAM Scout Book!

My creative director picked up one of these for me when she went to a printing show in chicago, theirs is to promote AIGA Chicago Design week, and it's pretty snazzy. So I looked up the company on the back.

Scout will print your notebooks with your own graphics on them starting with an order of 50 book (for $195 or $3.90 a book). That pricing can be a bit steep for some, but for a custom printed notebook that really is a steal. You can get the price down to 90 cents a book if you are ordering over 1000 (good for trade show giveaways, or just any promo).

Go check them out. They use 100% recycled papers and soy based inks, so you'll get some green karma along the way.

I'll put them on my list, and maybe some day I could get some cool "The Large Bear" notebooks made up and run a big giveaway. One day...