Pocket Noodle - Eventually, everything connects

• I love these. New York Cheat Sheets – handy tips for staying head of the pack
• xSort – Handy card-sorting app for Mac OS X. It’s free as well!
• Mad Men, Mad Props – Typographer Mark Simonson expounds on the in-accuracy of the type used in Mad Men
• For some authentic period typography, check out this collection of typewriter ribbon tins on Flickr.

• Aurora – Web interface concept from Adaptive Path that explores “new ways people could interact with the Web in the future based on projected technological trends and real-world scenarios”. Designed as part of the Mozilla Labs concept browser series, Aurora is designed around four themes: Context awareness, natural interaction, continuity and multi-user applications. HD versions of the series of videos can be found here.
• Britain from above – New series from the BBC exploring the topography of Britain using satellite technology and aerial photography. Starts Sunday 10th August. Preview.
• Incredible satellite images of earth via Environmental Graffiti

The BBC have just launched a public beta of their music site, BBC Music. Using data from MusicBrainz! and Wikipedia, BBC Music Beta enables users to explore artists played on BBC Radio. Artist profiles currently show a biography, discographies, BBC appearances and related artists information with the data available in a variety of ‘RESTful’ formats including XML, YAML, JSON, RDF, Atom and RSS.

The IA is good and the overall design works well within the new BBC web guidelines. It definitely looks like it should easily scale as more data gets added and it looks like there’s plenty of scope for integration with other BBC data sources such as programmes, events, news, album reviews and even iPlayer. One to keep an eye on!

The Pencil Project An open source prototyping extension for Firefox 3 that allows a user to create GUI prototypes using built in stencils which can be saved and exported as .pngs.

It looks like it could be pretty handy for the odd job but I found it slightly quirky and slow compared to using an offline application, also there’s a current lack of stencils (shape collections) which I guess will change. Where it might come in handy is rapid prototyping with clients at brainstorming sessions. One to watch as more developers come on board and I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of these online tools.

• Space Project 1 and 2. Intriguing photographs from Vincent Fournier.
• Furniture manufacturer and museum Vitra have re-designed their website and to celebrate are running a competition to win one of 33 products including several by Charles and Ray Eames. Enter here.
• Welie – Nice collection of interaction design patterns

• Star Wars ‘Icon Series’ – Star War’s inspired T-Shirts and posters designed by Mitch aka Mitchy Bwoy.
• Show Us a Better Way. UK Government sponsored competition set-up by MP Tom Watson’s Power of Information Taskforce for the best use of publicly available data. There’s some great idea’s coming in already.
• iA have released an online version of their 2008 Web Trend Map

• The Eco Zoo – Amazing flash website which uses a custom 3D engine and a pop-up book metaphor for navigation
• Good article on the Adaptive Path’s MySpace revamp over at Wired’s Web Monkey

• Pentragram discuss their work on the new brand identity for AkzoNobel
• If I had some spare time I’d spend it on these two projects. A paper V12 four-stroke Engine and R2D2
• Kids on decks, rocking the house
• Guardian article covering the recent MySpace redesign which focus on usability, interaction and a ‘more intuitive, customisable, and private experience’. Be interesting to see if they’ve made changes to the underlying structural code which has always been a mess and whether they’re going to migrate their backend from Coldfusion.

• Great collection of infographics covering all aspects of SEO from Elliance.
• Adapting Websites to Users. Interesting article on realtime website changes (morphing) made to fit the cognitive style of the user. Apparently it’s been tested on a prototype for British Telecom.
• OS Openspace – Javascript based API from the Ordnance Survey

• Big Ideas (don’t get any). James Houston’s entry for Radiohead’s Nude remix contest put together using a Sinclair ZX Spectrum (Guitars), an Epson Dot Matrix (Drums), a HP Scanjet (Bass) and a hard drive array (Vocals/FX).
• That design is money! – A look at the work behind the new UI for Wells Fargo’s touchscreen ATM upgrade
• Carlos Segura’s Cartype gets a redesign. It’s a great resource for anyone interested in automobilia and car typography.