Where I’ve Been – Number 4

This one may be a bit massive. I’ve pretty much stored up all the things I’ve discovered online in the last few days and am dumping them all into this one post. Got your seat belt on? Good. Let’s go!

• thereisnopagefold.com – for years marketers, designers, and developers have battled it out over how important it is to have all your content “above the fold” on their websites. (For all you non-webbies, “above the fold” is a term borrowed from the print industry to mean content that appears on a web page within the main browser window without having to scroll down.) This site succinctly puts it all in perspective. There is not page fold (on the web).
• Forty Agency 2009 Coffee Table Book – Forty Agency is a small but mighty marketing agency hailing from Chandler, AZ. They are masters at social media marketing and their employees are known all over the place due to this. This book was put together by James Archer of Forty Agency for each of the 4 members to commemorate their year of antics, errr…I mean, work. And now everyone and their mom wants to work at Forty…if they didn’t already.
• Google Alerts – Basically, Google Alerts allows you to take a search term or phrase and have Google alert you when that term or phrase gets indexed by Google. It’s a great way to keep tabs on when other people mention stuff about you/company/product/band/blog/website. I knew about this nifty application but never really got into it. But then I found out you can push the alerts to yourself as an RSS feed instead of the traditional email alerts. I’m now hooked. I’ve set up like 10 alert feeds in the last week and there’s many more to come.
• Identifont – I hit this site up pretty regularly as I often need to identify a specific font from it’s appearance as I work on design projects. This site has been invaluable in this process. I just type in a word or phrase that is set in the font I’m trying to identify and then I walk through a series of 20-30 questions about the physical characteristics of the font. At the end I get a list of about 20 fonts that most closely match my description. Success.
• YeeHaw Industries – This one came courtesy of my graphic designer uncle, Mark Donaldson, of Tennessee. He’s always passing me links to awesome inspiration and articles about design and this is definitely one of the best. YeeHaw Industries, despite its name, is not a cowboy boot manufacturer nor George Bush’s next oil-seeking venture, but a small letterpress shop in Tennessee that creates gorgeous fine art prints, commemorative and promotional posters, stationery, greeting cards, invitations and and announcements. I highly recommend checking out their Etsy store for some great artwork for your wall or as gift ideas. hint. hint.
• Motoi Yamamoto Salt-Art Installations – this Japanese artist might just be more obsessive-compulsive than me. Barely. His labyrinth-like salt art installations are incredible both in their detail and size. Some cover the floor of several large rooms. And every installation is site-specific. Ridiculous.
• “The ABC’s of Branding” Poster – a beautiful letterpress poster, silver ink on a black cardstock, of various famous logos, spelling out the alphabet. Visually delicious. [Edit: @tonepoems pointed out to me something I totally missed the first time around with the poster—they used the Target logo for the “O.” Not cool. The Target logo does not actually utilize an “O.”]
  
• Menu Mind Games – New York Magazine’s restaurant section posted a great article, breaking down the design and strategy behind menu design. Now I know why I always go for the high-priced stuff.

Still with me? I know that list was a doozy. Thanks for making it all the way through!

By the way, what’s your take? Too many links? Not enough? or just right? I’d love to hear your thoughts.