Design By Fire’s Andrei Herasimchuk writes an open letter to Adobe to request the release of a set of core fonts to the general public for use in web browsers. I’d love to be able to specify Helvetica Neue for headlines and have a reasonable expectation that most users would see it, rather than a dingy knock-off like Arial.

Daring Fireball directed me to an interesting discussion on Apple’s Mail 2.0 interface design, specifically the new toolbar button icons. What struck me, and what moved me to comment on that post, was the almost total indifference to whether the new design was actually demonstrably better from a usability perspective, rather than an aesthetic one.

I’m a bit of an Apple fan. But many of their interface design decisions seem to be made on the basis of taste rather than research.

In any case, one of the commenters pointed out to me a good weblog on usability, called Apples to Oranges.

Good grief, but the revamped Official Doctor Who website is a fly-blown piece of crap.

Dire flash anims and highly compressed JPEG backgrounds. Not good work, guys.

Photoshop Help

Looks very nice.

The Newspaper Designer’s Handbook Glossary

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072407611/student_view0/glossary.html

Guide to LaTeX Documentation

Freeware graphics app developers for Mac OS X. Pixen is a nice pixel editor. RepTile is a cool-looking tile map editor. I’m really going to have to start writing my pixel-art rpg soon.

I wish I’d had this when I was about 14. A guide to pixel art

Great interview with Dave Brasgalla, Iconfactory master.

Not only does he still use a mouse to draw his icons, he uses a trackpad! I’m not worthy.