UK designer/illustrator Simon Cook (aka Cookie) writes a blog Made in ENGLAND by Gentlemen, "about things which are neither made in England, nor created by a Gentlemen." Among myriad other ephemera, Mr. Cook has created Christmas shopping cheat sheets - downloadable forms upon which to keep the shopping vitals of the various tots and totsess for whom you are shopping.
 

[ via Signal vs. Noise ]

How Magazine (December 2007) is featuring a collection of interesting, beautiful, or distinctive business cards from designers around the country. They've also posted an online version that includes stories from each designer giving some backstory behind the cards.

Go Media's Arsenal (Professional Design Weaponry) is a great place to find cheap packs of Vectors, Textures, Fonts, and more... most of which can be downloaded for a bout $15 a pack. Good stuff.

Better yet is their Freebies section where you can find the free Sample Vector Pack, Free Photoshop Brushes Packs, Free Photoshop Textures, and even a Free Animation Sampler. Check it out.

This gorgeous compendium disects the anatomy of 49 design concepts into its elemental ideas and historical influences. Another treasure by ubiquitous design author, Stephen Heller and designer, Mirko Ilic. Read more.

Didn't Adobe just rebrand all the CS3 components with the little Table-of-the-Elements iconic squares? Evidently, that wasn't good enough for Photoshop, which is now sporting a brand new look in the form of a "P" that more accurately resembles a speech bubble.

The question here is why would Photoshop, a design leader, jump on the speech bubble logo bandwagon?

If you're not familiar with the work of Psyop, you need to go straight to www.psyop.tv where, after clicking on the NEW link at the top, you will waste hours of company time watching an amazing and diverse array of multimedia commercial video spots.

I hit upon these guys, whose genius (I contend) is in the blending of delicious illustration with video, after coming across the work of designer-illustrator, Mate Steinforth. Check him out too.

Japanese design agency TBWA Hakuhodo has a fantastic motion graphics site. Of course, I have no idea how to navigate half of it, but it sure is gorgeous!

[ via NOTCOT ]

Buttons and badges and bubbles, OH MY!! A smorgasboard of free vector art. Also - Illustrator tutorials - and plenty of them. I'm going to try my hand with the Scanner Darkly effect.

Nice Earth Day logo, Google!