Two days ago, the above video showed up in my RSS feed. Much to my surprise, the show reel of Ole Magnus Saxegard (a name previously unknown to me, despite the next paragraph) included one of my favorite short films/animations.

A few years back I was doing some research for an animation project that a client was interested in putting together. I came across “The History of Evil” (video below). The story was a little on the vague side as to how exactly the history of evil was passed down through the generations, but the animation itself was top shelf. Although the animation that we were working on had to be cut due to budget reasons, the inspiration remained.

So, here it is, one of my all-time favorite web released animation shorts: A History of Evil.

It’s that time of the year… The time of year for starting paragraphs with the phrase “it’s that time of the year.”

…And because of this, Pantone has released the must-have color for 2010: Turquoise. Booyah.

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

For a designer, creating one’s own portfolio is a nearly sisyphean task. From the very beginning you know that it’s going to be a brutal, teeth pulling experience based primarily on the idea that you’re selling the project to the toughest client ever: yourself.

That same pixel pushing, hex code spewing, idiot font savant that was making the calls on all of those other projects, telling the client why it was the right thing to do, why the approach was best, why this graphic wouldn’t work, why this one would…yeah, that guy.

He’s now the one to which you have to present these digital assets you’ve created. The catch is, the presentation to sell him is ongoing, because he’s sitting on your shoulder the whole time.

If you are that guy (and I am) it’s maddening.

That having been said, things are moving along nicely. The flash site is nearly ready for release and when it is, we’re sure that you’re going to hear about it. In the mean time, here are a few slides from a slideshow on the site.

This is by far and large the handiest damn article I’ve ever read on saving for web in photoshop. This correctly aligns ICC Profile expectations with in-browser color handling in Safari and FF 3.5. This is a must read article for those of you in the web design or multimedia design fields.

The post (in all it’s glory) can be found over at Viget Labs.

Being a bit of a night owl myself, it’s easy for me to understand 100% of what this article is talking about. Related in easy to understand instructions, here’s a basic explanation of a good night’s sleep, as told by Christoph Niemann, syndicated illustrator and my new hero.

Every year I do a shirt for Bolle to sell in their booth at the US Open. This year’s shirt is above.

Apparel has always been an important part of my creative framework. I enjoy the simplicity of the design limitations, the application of functional creativity and the chance to get down to some serious graphics work. A shirt’s image is more than just a straightforward graphic, it’s a chance to tie multiple layers of meaning into a single work.

This plate is one of several in the “Hungry Plate” series from Merry Design Studio. The collection of five plates begins with a full plate and ends with a nearly half eaten plate (think form, not necessarily function here.) Pretty clever stuff really.

The animated .gif has been around as long as the internet, but for those of us that actually remember when they were all the rage threeframes.net/ has an answer.

The idea is to take three frames from any particular movie, animate, rinse, and repeat. The effects are crazy. I HIGHLY recommend that you check this one out.

Scott McCloud is a personal hero of mine. When I was 12 I wrote him a letter explaining how awesome he was.

He wrote me back. By hand. He’s a classy, classy guy.

You can file this under “stuff you wish you had thought of first.”

Teemagnet.com is a daily shirt site aggregator which combines the best one-day-shirt sites into a central location. In addition to displaying the image of the daily shirt it also tells you handy information, like where to buy, cost and how much time is left. Also, as a handy little guide they also have incorporated a shirt blog, as well as links to some great shirt sites.

Click on the header image of the site for a special treat. Don’t be surprised if it slowly drives you insane, however. It’s strangely addictive.