Layer Tennis: Game, Set, Match!

Layer Tennis sounds like playing tennis on several courts at once, right? Sounds difficult and nearly impossible, but that's not what it is at all. Layer Tennis is actually a competition, a live design project if you will, between two artists each week with each artist (usually working with Photoshop, hence the play on layers) vying for a spot in the final round. Two seasons have completed, and the third season just beginning.

Layer Tennis was started by Coudal Partners. What, or who, is Coudal Partners you ask? Well, in their own words, Coudal Partners is "a design, advertising and interactive studio in Chicago, as an ongoing experiment in web publishing, design and commerce."

If you'd like to see all of the past matches, which I highly recommend (they're amazing!), then
check out the Layer Tennis Archives.

Below are a few samples from the current season's matchups.

Hamid vs. Javanrouh: A Photographic Exhibition Match


Vinh vs. Felton: An Exhibition Match


And my favorite so far, Bruhn vs. Simonson: A Typographic Exhibition Match


(From Coudal)

Cheese or Font

Cheese or Font is a self-explanatory game where you get to guess if the word is a cheese or font.

(From MT, who got it from Serious Eats)

Idsgn

Idsgn is a blog about design. In their own words:

"We like to talk about graphic design, branding, typography, and sometimes we might post a video or two...

We love to hear from you. Please send submissions, links, and news tips to blog@idsgn.org. If you are sending images, please make them at least 980 pixels wide (where possible)"

Recent posts discuss the IKEA change from tailored Futura to Verdana (!), the Kayak.com logo facelift, and redesigning Craigslit.

Solid.

(From M.A., MD )

Personas

Personas is an MIT website that shows your footprint on the web. According to the authors, it's how the interwebs sees you. You type in your name (kind of like googling yourself) and pretty colors flash showing what the interwebs can piece together about you.

For me, nothing came up, but it pegged several of my more accomplished friends rather well. You can also try it with famous people.
(From Justin)

40 Useful and Creative Infographics

40 Useful and Creative Infographics is an article on six revisions.com about pretty and informative infographics.

As an extremly infrequent coffee drinker, the coffee one clarified a lot for me.


(From Dan S.)

Diagram of a Blog

Diagram of a Blog is an op-art piece by Paula Scher. You may know Paula as the lady who desgined the Citibank logo, or the lady who gave a so-so talk about design at TED. Meh.

(From Guy)

David Carson: Design, discovery and humor

David Carson: Design, discovery and humor is a good-humored TED talk about fonts and design.

David is a "grunge typographer" whose magazine Ray Gun helped, "explode the possibilities of text on a page... Squishing, smashing, slanting and enchanting the words on a layout, Carson made the point, over and over, that letters on a page are art."

He is single-handedly responsible for thousands of crappy illegible rock-and-roll scribbles that you've seen countless skateboards and T-shirts.

The talk itself is extremely jumpy and jumbled, but high on laughs if you can keep up.  David shows some examples of his work, and his mind seems to work much like his typography.  He talks about design principles, his book: The End of Print, and what makes a job or career worth pursuing. 

(From TED. Good luck Justin!)

50 Strange Buildings of the World

50 Strange Buildings of the World is an article on the site Village of Joy, which features 50 oddly-shaped or interesting buildings around the world. Village of Joy features "Amazing, Interesting, Wonderful, Weird, Odd and Funny things about our World." Simply stunning.






(From Stefanie!)

Glennz

Glennz is an online T-shirt shop and website by Glenn Jones, a graphic designer and illustrator from Auckland, New Zealand. He's worked in the design industry for over 15 years, concentrating on packaging and corporate identity but did so well with creative shirts that he's decided to focusing on just that.

Glenn got his T-shirt start on Threadless.com. (Threadless is a perpetual T-shirt design contest website and store.) His designs sold extremely well, and he decided to branch off and create his own site. As he explains,

"Since then I've become one of the most successful designers on Threadless with 21 shirts printed for sale. So I decided it was time to focus a bit more on designing tees and I've teamed up with some friends in the US to start this range of T-Shirts. I also use my designs on greeting cards and artprints."

The site's name is taken from Glenn's Threadless username, which was conceived as a combination of his first name,'GLENN,' and where he is from, 'NZ.' I try not to post too many commercial sites, but... I just couldn't not not not post it.


(Ugh, I know. A sponsored link from Kottke)