I'm becoming more and more addicted to blog-reading. It's a great way for me to deal with the lack of adult human contact that I'm faced with, now that I'm freelancing full time again.

Here's some of the posts I've read of late that I feel would interesting/beneficial reading for a lot of people:

Full post: adliterate - Separated by a common language

Extract: My first love is design.

I got into advertising by accident. I was all set to become an industrial designer, when irresistable lure of Geography took me away from the path of righteousness (which is another story). And a love of design is handy these days since it is looming ever larger in the lives of advertising people.

Full post: Noisy Decent Graphics - Advice: Always do it for real

Extract: As a designer, if you're asked to put some hand writing onto a brochure of a document, do it for real. DO NOT use a hand writing font. (How can you have a hand writing font, anyway?) Write the text out and scan it in.

If you need some distressed type, then print the type out, screw it up, photocopy it, re-screw it up, re-photocopy it and so on and so on. Distress it for real, DO NOT use a distressed type font.

Full post: Mark Bixby - Your Domain Sucks.com

Extract: Following an abysmal interaction with PNM‘s customer service department (New Mexico’s public utility company) I went online in search of a consumer advocate group with whom I could share my despair.

Knowing it was a long shot, I pointed Firefox to PNMsucks.com with the hope of discovering a vocal opponent to these “evil-doers”. No such luck. Interestingly, a quick domain lookup revealed that PNM was fully aware of their negative perception, and had preemptively purchased the domain… for ten years.

Full post: Graphic Design Blog - I Want it Free and I Want it Now!

Extract: Imagine you walk into a electrical shop. “Hello Mrs/Mr Smith” says the shop owner, “How can I help you today.” You know Mr Brown, the shop owner quite well as you buy a lot of your electrical goods from him. “Its my friends birthday, I’d like an MP3 player please,” you say. “Of course says the shop owner and shows you his complete range. You choose the one you want, take it and start to walk towards the door. “Ummm.. Mrs/Mr Smith, you’ve forgotten to pay.” “No, I’ve bought a lot of stuff from you so I’m having this for free,” you say.