A wonderfully argued indictment of skeuomorphism and its inherent falsity, by designer and developer Matt Gemell. It’s well worth a read, though I actually don’t fully agree with it. I’m working up to writing down my thoughts on the widespread distaste for skeuomorphism and the accompanying mania for ‘flat design.’ And when I say ‘working up to it’ I mean ‘trying to find the time.’ Anyway, Read Matt’s piece here.

My general skepticism about print-based graphic design products continues, but I have to respect those who keep at it, and manage to turn them into worthwhile objects — and products, even. My friends at Under Consideration, for instance, have just launched UC.Quarterly, a periodical “summary of the most interesting, relevant, and simply fun-to-see projects published each quarter.” The projects are selected from UC’s network of sites about graphic design and branding.

I’ve got the first issue in my hands and it’s a super-fun read. There’s very little additional content beyond the project images themselves, but to me this is the print equivalent of browsing at your leisure through Dribbble or the design-related content on Pinterest. It’s inspiration fodder, basically.

Each issue is published via Newspaper Club, which offers custom, short-run printing on wonderfully casual, unpretentious newsprint. You can buy them for US$15 a pop or subscribe to a year’s worth for US$45. Get yours here.

Ghost is a Kickstarter project to build a new blogging platform. As the incumbent applications like WordPress have become much broader in scope and therefore more complex than just a tool for publishing content, the Ghost team hopes to create something much more focused on writing, blogging and journalism. Their prototype and their marketing materials look preternaturally professional; if nothing else, I want this project to happen so I can see if it’s as slick as the screen grabs and demo video suggest. On the issue of whether creating the next major blogging platform is an anachronistic ambition or not, I leave it to the market to decide. See the demo and link off to the Kickstarter page at TryGhost.org.

There are many products that purport to solve the problem of Web pages still being fundamentally difficult for just about everyone to create, but Nubook is aimed specifically at so-called creatives — “designers, photographers, architects, artists, actors, stylists, collectors” — who don’t have the skills to code a page or manage a server. In my limited playing around with it, Nubook does in fact seem quite easy, and loaded with exceedingly elegant templates (which is what you’d expect when one of the key folks behind it is Thomas Brodahl). More to the point, the service is focused on presentations, and is not meant to be a traditional host for fully-fledged Web sites or blogs in the traditional sense. That limited focus is a potentially meaningful distinction; I think it’s really smart. Give it a spin at Nubook.com.

This gorgeous, vintage Nikon One camera is currently on sale at Ebay for US$21,000. If that’s too rich for you, you can still marvel at the gorgeous product shots that the seller has taken of it.

See more pictures, or even just treat yourself and buy it, at the Ebay listing.

Photoshop’s blend modes are incredibly powerful, but their documentation is somewhat sparse, and most people use only a fraction of their power, I would bet. Photographer Robert Thomas fills in the gaps with this incredibly detailed look at how blend modes work, explaining how to manipulate blend layers through obscure keyboard shortcuts that I had no idea were available (and I use a ton of keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop), as well as diving into the actual mathematical operations that drives each mode. It’s probably more in-depth than most users have need for, but in those cases when a deeper understanding of how these features work, this is remarkable. Read all about them here.

This Facebook-connected, random portraiture project is pretty neat. Some stranger somewhere around the world will draw your portrait for free; the catch is that before you can see how it turned out, you have to draw another stranger’s portrait. The gallery is very entertaining.

Anyone can take part over at Selflessportraits.com. The only drawback is you have to sign in with Facebook.

This small, Manchester-based illustration and animation studio has produced a wealth of beguiling work. Their short films and animations are particularly charming.

It’s worth losing yourself in their portfolio for fifteen minutes or so.

A new, UK-based conference company “…celebrating excellence in design and its influence in contemporary culture and society.” The speaker list looks terrific. Before the reality of having twins set in, their POINT 01 Authenticity event was going to be the one conference I intended to attend in 2013. Find out more at their Web site.

This “friendly Canadian photographer” produces wonderfully graphical compositions, which is naturally very appealing to me. But I think what I like best are his works that seem to blur the line between image capture and painting; Myers’ palettes are so uniform and so rich — particularly in the shadows cast by the few spare objects in each shot — that his photos seem as if they were rendered in oil paint.

See more of his work on his Web site.