I love comics, and am often amazed not only by how funny they can be, but also how much can be learned from them. Growing up I was a regular reader of Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side and Mad Magazine. As I …

Read the rest

Mozilla Firefox is a free, open source web browser which aims to provide a simple, light and fast way to browse the web. It is one of the main driving forces in the web today, and the competition it provides is one of the reasons …

Read the rest

http://www.fastcompany.com/1614807/puma-and-yves…

Puma’s “Clever Little Bag” is an interesting approach to the issue of packaging and waste. Rather than having a complete box, which consumers will put into a (usually disposable) bag to carry home, the design combines a cardboard skeleton in a reusable bag made …

Read the rest

http://www.onlineschools.org/blog/china/

Interesting facts about China, focusing on industrial output, food production and consumption, and military capability. As this piece is presented from a US perspective, it can be interesting for students to consider how bias comes into play when using statistics to tell a story. …

Read the rest

http://designfabulous.blogspot.com/2010/03/eco-coke-bottle-design.html

An interesting study into the environmental impact of square drinks containers…

Read the rest

http://cssremix.com/

This is one of the best web design showcase sites. A perfect source for inspiring designers to improve their own work.…

Read the rest

As part of a UWS “Interactive PowerPoint for Teaching” workshop I helped out at today, I was asked by quite a few people how to remove the background from a picture so that it could be integrated into a presentation more cleanly. I showed a …

Read the rest

http://vectormagic.com/

Most images available on the web today are in bitamp file formats, and so cannot be scaled up. This website takes such bitmap images and converts them to scalable vector formats, such as SVG.…

Read the rest

http://fontstruct.fontshop.com/

This site allows users to build, shared and download fonts. Using a simple interface, students can build their own custom font, which they can then use in other work. This is a great tool for having students consider how much work goes into creating …

Read the rest

http://bgpatterns.com/

Using a simple array of controls and templates, this site lets visitors build background tiles for use in website design. Such tiles are a source of much disharmony in bad designs, but when used correctly can be hugely beneficial to a site’s design.…

Read the rest