For the new year I’ve decided to try and get serious about the whole blogging thing—they say it’s the wave of the future.

I’ve had several blogs in the past but have never taken them too seriously. So part of taking things seriously is signing on with Feedburner, so please update your RSS feeds for my site.

This weeks Humpday linkage is short. Not too much going on ’cause of the holidays and all—enjoy at your leisure.

• Revenge of the ‘Z-Lister’:
  Here’s the deal: In an effort to bring more link-love to those blogs that I feel aren’t getting their due, I’ve created a small list of blogs below that I’ve linked to. The idea is to create a meme built around giving link-love to the blogs that deserve it, and hopefully turn Technorati’s system of using a blog’s # of links to determine its ‘authority’, on its ear.
• Compromised Design:
  Compromise is the refuge of the inept and weak–minded. It can be described in sugarcoated terms and even associated with lofty ideals for the purpose of misdirection, but compromise is nothing less than failure.
• Do I have to be able to draw well to be a good designer?
  This by far, is one of the most frequent questions designers always ask of me. Furthermore, “I can’t be a designer cos I can’t draw” is also one of the most frequent reasons people give for not being a designer or any type.
• The Task Analysis Grid
  One of the greatest challenges we face in the design field is communicating design decisions to other stakeholders (e.g. Business unit, Marketing, Engineering). We’re often forced to attempt this through a requirements document. Personally, I’ve yet to come across a requirements document that is usable and doesn’t take a couple of days to get everyone on the same page. So, we use something different - a task analysis grid (1.5MB PDF).
• Daily Type
  Daily Type is a creative project run by several russian type designers.
  Day by day, they create original typefaces and post their results along with routine.
• Welcome to No!Spec
  Old news to most but nice to revisit often—The NO!SPEC campaign: Serves as a vehicle to unite those who support the notion that spec work devalues the potential of design and ultimately does a disservice to the client.