Deakins is responsible for some of the most stunning and memorable cinematographic works of the past two decades, including almost every major Coen Brothers film and last year’s “Skyfall.” In this short piece for Vulture, he gives background on ten of his works. Full article here.

People in technology often think about the sea change in television solely from the point of view of technologists, but FX president John Landgraf is as smart about the evolution in viewing habits as any tech executive. This wrap-up of his comments to the Television Critics Association press tour is a good overview of his varied thoughts on the industry, including his belief that, after “Breaking Bad,” the race to produce TV’s darkest anti-hero is probably over. Read the article here.

Max Roberts, a psychology lecturer at the University of Essex with an interest in schematic mapping, has reworked New York City’s subway map around a visual metaphor of concentric circles and spokes. It’s the latest of his many self-initiated redesigns for cities like London, Madrid, Berlin, Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Creative Review has an interview with him.

A recounting of how Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth and company CEO Donald Graham came to first entertain, then embrace and execute the sale of the newspaper to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Graham also appears in an accompanying video interview where he discusses the sadness of the decision, as well as his firm belief that it puts the news organization in a better position to succeed and even flourish long into the future.

I grew up reading The Washington Post and I share some of Graham’s sadness here. But I’m hopeful too. It’s an amazing institution and as unfortunate as it is that the Grahams are no longer its stewards, it does seem plausible that the news organization’s long-term chances have improved with this sale. Full story here.

Released earlier this year to little fanfare, writer and director David Ayer’s latest foray into the world of Los Angeles police officers is now available for streaming. When I first saw the trailer in theaters, it struck me as predictable and hackneyed stuff, but I watched it on a friend’s recommendation and I was pleasantly surprised — shocked a little, even — by how incredibly riveting and emotionally gripping it is.

It’s well worth noting too that Ayer, whose credits include “Training Day,” “Dark Blue” and “Street Kings,” among others, is assembling a remarkable body of work about the brutal underside of Los Angeles cops and the gangland territories they police. None of his films has been perfect, but they are all brutally revealing and fascinating, at the very least. Aside from “Training Day,” his efforts are hugely underrated and seem more likely to be appreciated decades from now, with the luxury of hindsight — but almost every one of them is well worth watching today.

“End of Watch” is available in the U.S. on Netflix and Amazon Instant Video.

“Interactive edition of one of the most influential books on color ever written offers users an entirely new way to experience Josef Albers’s original masterwork.”

“Interaction of Color” first appeared in print fifty years ago, and went on to become a classic of art theory. I admit that I was unfamiliar with it until a friend showed me this app the other day, so I can’t speak to the quality or usefulness of Albers’s writing. (That may also explain why this site is black and white.) But this app looks beautiful and it’s free, to boot (though there some of the content is locked up behind in-app purchases). Find out more here.

A “design inspiration” site, but a more discerning one than most, Typewolf showcases type-centric designs from “the modern Web.” There’s not a tremendous range of stuff, but what’s here is likely to have strong appeal to the legion of minimalist designers out there. Visit Typewolf.

Vinyl record sales have seen a 350% increase over the past five years, but that growth has apparently not been matched by actual use of the format. “…Professional use of vinyl by DJs has dried up to about nil,” the revered Panasonic Technics 1200 has been discontinued due to “market realities,” and turntable sales have remained largely flat. Apparently, vinyl consumers are buying records for the larger art, not to actually play the music. While this is a minor success story for large-format graphics, it also confirms my skepticism towards this much-hyped boomlet in vinyl sales. Die-hard vinyl fandom has always struck me as being more about an elitist consumer self image than about the music itself. Read the story at Quartz.

A clever 404 error page, courtesy of Random Studio.

See it in action at Random.nu/404.

There’s change in the air for those of us who design interfaces for a living. Where once we could choose only between designing in code or designing in Photoshop, we’re now seeing at least one or two promising if still nascent alternatives. Last month I wrote about Bohemian Coding’s Sketch, which I now use more frequently than Photoshop. (.Net Magazine also did a short interview with me about Sketch.)

Having one viable replacement is almost more than any of us could have hoped for five or ten years ago, but here comes Macaw, still in previews but propitious all the same. It bills itself as a “code-savvy web design tool” and like Sketch it brings a refreshingly relevant approach to designing interfaces. A few of its many slick new features jumped out at me as I watched its longish sneak peek video: built-in lorem ipsum generation; grid-based nudging of elements; and oh yeah generating real code as you’re designing. If they work as advertised, all three look like genius.

I’m really happy these contenders are emerging today, but why did it take so long for this to happen? Technologically, there seems little about either Sketch or Macaw that couldn’t have happened five years — if not a decade — ago. The answer, I think, is simple: the Mac App Store, which has leveled the playing field for independent developers — if not completely, then significantly. It might have been possible to build Macaw or Sketch before, but the Mac App Store gives these new players a visibility and distribution channel that’s invaluable when indie developers go up against entrenched players.

You can watch the Macaw preview here.