position: absolute - Design resources and inspiration.

Welie.com has a comprehensive resource of patterns in interaction design. Interface designer Martijn van Welie is rounding up all of the common pratices in UI design, be that in web design, applications or mobile interfaces. Not a joy to the eye but full of valuable information, giving you insight into what can all be done and points of argument that can help in explaining to a client why you chose a certain interface. DesignInterfaces.com offers a similar archive.

Here’s a video I found, with drawing and music created by Pete Moraites.

New tune, and a journey through my sketchbooks, adding line and color, evoking the joyful magician and traveling across time…

I have a new addiction: TheDailyDrawing.com. It delivers exactly what it promises, a new drawing once a day, in video, sometimes sped up, sometimes in realtime, and never too long for a quick daily fix. The videos are also all posted on YouTube, if you want to subscribe. It’s a nice way to get some insight into how other people go about drawing and how they use certain media. As they say, watch and learn.

Inspired by the book Penguin By Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005, Joe Kral has posted a gallery of classic Penguin Books covers on Flickr. Have a look here. For more book covers, check this out as well.

Here’s a funny take on how not to launch a Web 2.0 site, with some “quick and easy guidelines that will ensure your complete and rapid failure”.

Seldom has a company had such a rumor mill surrounding it as Apple has. Every few weeks, some designer comes up with a new what-if concept for Apple’s next big hit. Kub.fr adds to the pack with some exceptionally thought-out concept designs with an almost zealous attention to detail.

Today marks the day that the last patent claims on the GIF format have finally expired. Some of you may remember the fiasco LZW patent-holder Unisys unleashed some years ago. LZW is the compression method CompuServe used to reduce file size when they first developed the GIF format, unaware that it was patented by Unisys. Unisys proceeded with a year-long legal battle, threatening developers left and right, and eventually trying to reap $5000 out of each website that used GIFs. Seriously. If any of you use GIMP, this is the reason there’s no GIF option. Either way, all this malarky ultimately led to the creation of the much more sophisticated open source PNG format.