highly intriguing, hour-long interviews with gurus of the design industry.
hightlights: milton glaser, chip kidd, + the sagmeister.

website: http://www.sterlingbrands.com/listennow.html
podcast rss: http://www.sterlingbrands.com/DesignMatters/rss.xml

…or a really big animated GIF. MBoffin.com shows an animated GIF that shows the building of a site. While not being earth shaking, it is a good visual example of what front end developers go through to apply style to content.

Here’s something for creatives - Brand New is a news blog on the real-world evolution of branding through logos and other graphic arts. Whatever that means…

That’s right. A *diesel* motorcycle. Check out pics - the engine of this thing is weird looking. Now if you run low on fuel, you can pull over to local greasy spoon and ask if you can take any old fryer oil off their hands…

Blinksale:  http://www.blinksale.com/home

Go ahead, click on Login

http://www.uie.com/articles/fast_iterations/

http://www.notcot.com

So much to see here.

1-800-201-7575

Search the site all you want, you will not find Amazon.com’s CSN. This isn’t because Amazon.com does not have a CSN, instead, they’d rather you didn’t find it. You can visit their help department, and even their return department (and I’m sure a few other places), and find a menu with lots of topics to choose from — for your reading pleasure. Recently added to the site are links on these pages to contact CS by email or by phone. Email is easy enough, if you don’t mind waiting a day. However, if you’d like to speak w/a CSR by phone, don’t expect to find their number when you click on the link. Instead, a pop-up window appears and you’ll need to fill out a Request call back form. No where on the site will you find a number to call Amazon. If my memory serves me correctly, I once located a number for them about 3 years ago, but it was buried far, far into the site. And I could never find it again.

So, my GS friends, I’m sharing it with all of you. And in the words of Timothy Noah, columnist for Slate magazine:

Let it spread across the land like a prairie fire. Let it peal from a thousand bells. Let it fall like gentle snowflakes. Let it be known, this day, that the customer service number for Amazon is

1-800-201-7575

You’re welcome.

OK, here’s another sweet site. It’s wide, simple, clean, beautiful and full of sweet little surprises. Even the writing is clever. Navigation simple and easy. Lots of fun java script. And you can “meet our ambassadors” under the “sports we do” section. Interesting shopping cart. And when you chose a product, if you’d like to have more info, they’ve taken the time to write a very thorough product description. You have to see all the little details, from the nice site architecture (very well thought-out) to the little hairline rule in the footer which illustrates a mountain range.

It’s not flashy, but overall, I’d say it’s perfect for what it does. Ok, yes there are SOME flaws, but overall, I’m very impressed!

www.patagonia.com

PS. Also, if you’d like to see a flash sitelet designed to introduce Patagonia to the surf world, check this out: bendtobaha. Or you can also view the HTML version. This site documents professional atheletes on a coastal road trip by using illustration, video, and journal writings.