Something big has happened in the publishing world. Something interesting. While mainstream publishers continue to stare grimly at plummeting sales figures, falling advertising incomes and budget cuts, a persistent torrent of web-savvie, well designed and highly varied independent titles is thriving, with new titles cropping up every month. These independents cover every conceivable subject, from the predictable (fashion, architecture, cookery) to the more esoteric (sneaker culture anyone?) and are invariably beautifully designed. There’s no victory of style over substance here though — each small publisher seems to care deeply about his chosen field and has the expertise to back it up. Here are seven titles to appear in British design bookshops in recent years, though the magazines themselves are international. Any one would make a fine addition to any designer’s bookshelf. Enjoy…

The 20 Things project was a challenge to break ground with new technologies and deliver a rich, educational experience that these technologies make possible. The Fi team rose to the challenge and produced a web app that is as fun to play with and explore as it is interesting to read.

James Victore is a man of action. He believes that knowing about jazz and wine and auto-racing can make you a better designer. That graphic design is about experiences and stories and using your hands. That the best designs punch you in the gut – or, at the very least, stop you in your tracks.

It should come as no surprise that some of the best designed and looking websites are those of design studios themselves. Untrammeled by meddlesome clients making design-threatening requests and free to divert the necessary time and budgets into things, studios are able to focus their designers’ collaborative energies into producing —often— groundbreaking sites. We’ve generated video clips of each design studio website I thought really distinctive, both from the masses and each other. Happy perusing!

JUMP is an Australian national mentoring program for artists aged 18-30, who are in the first five years of their professional practice.

Brasil, the sunniest of the amusingly-acronymned BRIC nations (Brasil, Russia, India, China), is currently enjoying unprecedented amounts of goodwill on the international world stage, not hindered by its increasing confidence in areas like diplomacy and manufacture, nor Rio’s mayor Eduardo Paes winning the Olympic bid for his city. But enough of the geo-political preamble, “This is a design blog!” we hear you cry. Rest assured readers, we haven’t forgotten my duties to you, just providing the wider context to introduce some impressive contemporary work in the visual fields, from both studios and freelancers, to have recently emerged from this Latin giant.

Introduction image © Kiyoshi Takahase Segundo.

To maintain a curious eye about the world, to look and attempt to decode the terrain around you is what separates a great designer from a mere ‘good’ one. That, at least, is what my old university professor once told me, and it seemed like a sage morsel of wisdom at the time. Still does. The world is awash with things to decode and contextualise, so, to take just one of them, and with our heads cocked quizzically to the side, let’s look at neon signs. Dazzling yet ubiquitous, and produced in a range of typographic and illustrative styles, neon has been utilized by advertisers for decades. It’s time for a fresh appraisal. (left) Image © Marc Weinreich.

A short and sweet article of the main Do’s and Don’ts in Web Design by Angela Lisl tracked back from the Creative Support website.

Mention the word ‘recruiter’ to a creative and you’ll always get a ‘marmite’ type reaction. You either love’em or you hate’em. Why such a strong reaction? Do you really need a recruiter to find a job, or is it better to just go it alone?

So you find yourself pitching for a job and have come up with an ingenious solution to a fiendishly tricky design conundrum, and all you want to do is get on the phone to the client and sing it to him from the bottom of your lungs. Slow down there pardner. To convince your client of the barnstorming excellence of your proposed solution, more often than not you’ll need to take him through things step-by-step in a presentation. Presentations are important to get right, and represent the ultimate test of your communication skills. Many a fine idea has been admonished or dismissed through poor presentation. Gulp down the words below to ensure this doesn’t happen to yours…

Save perhaps his personality, the freelance graphic designer’s portfolio is, undoubtedly, the most valuable asset in his professional life. I have written elsewhere that the portfolio is the freelancer’s shop window, an intimate glimpse into his or her being for all who view it. We have to love our portfolios, agonise over what goes into them, and tend and nurture them as we would a sapling we’d once planted. Nothing should be left to chance, not even tiny details, as it’s these, at times, that we may be judged on. So let us not delay any longer, but instead plunge into the sober, matte black folds of the portfolio…