I feel as though this week just started and it’s already Friday. Good weather, good company and being in NYC will do that to people. But with that said there’s always time for the interwebs and below are some of the sites that I thought were worth a second look. There’s a bit more weirdness this week and less graphic design—coincidence? For this edition of Link Drop I also had a bit more coffee then usual, hence the erratic diagram. Till next week, though I’m not sure how I’m going to simultaneously post a Link Drop and a live presentation at the same time…

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The Battle Between Art & The Algorithm
Apparently design lost the battle with art and now art has set its sights on the algorithm. Is deciding how something is weighted in a myriad of ways based on rational—or is it art. I think it’s art if design myself if you know what to look for.

Is Interaction Design a dead-end job?
This is an interesting question to ask, especially these days as print is all but dead. If there isn’t interaction design, what’s left?

Microsoft sales fall for first time in 23 years
I’m surprised more people haven’t mentioned what has happened to Microsoft this year. There’s some smart connections being made in this piece. Not to beat a dead horse for me, but the fact that I can take a pic and push it on to the internet with a message within a minute from start to finish is amazing. Am I using any tools from MSFT to do that? No…

On Engineering and Design: An Open Letter
For those that work with engineers—good letter or someone on a soapboax?

wires should not behave like humans.
Interesting flip on the traditional idea that everything online has to be soft, fluffy and more human.

Twitter Clients Are a UI Design Playground
This is interesting—did twitter plan to to harness the crowd to make a better UI because they really didn’t know what they were doing, or did they create such a bad experience it pissed off enough people that they decided to make their own better UI? Funny thing is, if twitter was the music industry they would have tried suing their users where as twitter encouraged it.

Design Dont’s: Seesmic is the Frankenstein of Status Apps
I think this post proves that it’s best for design and engineering to work together as opposed to each of them working from their own pov.

Justified West At Langara College
I’ve never visited this school in BC, but I know a couple people there so it was kind of cool to read about a great typography event they hosted.

Seven characteristics of passion brands
I usually try to ignore the “the best of steps”, but this one was worth saving.

Scorecard | The National Design Awards
I thought the question that they brought up about Architecture Design and Interior Design was worth mentioning. I had no idea, but I’m neither an architect nor an interior designer…

Psst, have you heard…
I liked the idea of visualizing how things are spread via the promoters, passives and detractors.

Gameboy Timeline
Fascinating view of how the Gameboy (often ignored by designers as a great object) evolved and reflected the time as the years went on.

The Making Of: PlayStation | Edge Online
Who says a logo can’t change a lot and still maintain its “brand equity”?

Gallery of default anonymity: A work in progress
Here’s a collection of the designed undesigned avatars that everyone ignores…

Cold Cut Animals, Soft Body Parts & Stained Glass Perfume
Bizarre post #1 showing flesh.

Barış Sarhan
Bizarre post #2 showing flesh.

“NPR maps the Energy Grid”
I find these kind of maps fascinating on a couple different levels. There’s the proximity of lines to actual cities (or distance from them), and the patterns the lines make that outline energy.

100 days of Obama’s Facebook news feed.
It would be easy to dismiss this visualization, but it’s actually quite impressive. It’s in a format almost everyone recognizes, there’s humour, there’s history and some of it is actually plausible.

Googlefication update
That google seems to be wrecking every industry out there. But if it’s so bad why hasn’t anyone stepped up and made it better?

The problem with street art
A connection between street art and marketing.

Gigapixel Photography
This is a serious camera that I want to do a project with. Anyone out there looking to do something kick ass with a budget? Give me a calll…

The Green Design 100
Time.com weighs in with their green design index.

Don’t Blame Facebook
Good observations about people stick to what they know, yet can anything really be improved if a designer just wants to make people happy?

HealthMap | Global disease alert map
Just a fyi…

Current Developing Crises
I found this as a good starting point to understand what’s going on with the swine flu.

Telling amazing stories
Simple points to consider, hard to execute when all three measurements of 1. Collecting consistent data, 2. Designing meaningful visualizations and 3.Telling amazing stories are actually more subjective than you think.

4 Sites with Brilliant Internet Branding
A first glance the visual design of all these sites aren’t that great, but then again do they have to be?

Books on Typography
If you’re looking for a list of books on typography, what better source to look to than the Type Directors Club?

International Herald Tribune: Breathless in Paris
Happy to see some commentary on the IHT. I’m still irked by the killing of the old design of their site.