Fifteen illustrators each pick one of their favorite books — everything from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” to “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” to “Geek Love,” and others — from which they illustrate a scene once a month. The contributors are generally young, hungry and extremely talented, and some of the work they’ve been turning in so far is superb. As far as responses to the rapidly changing value of illustration goes, this is an excellent one. Check it out here.

Alex Cornell’s roundup of various strategies for getting past artistic stumbling points, including notes from Erik Spiekermann, Nicholas Felton and others (including yours truly).

The School of Visual Arts’ MFA in Design Criticism program, run by my friend Alice Twemlow, is gearing up for its second school year starting this autumn. There’s not another program in the country, to my knowledge, that gives students access to a wealth of critical design knowledge on this level:

Create original segments in a radio and podcasting workshop with PRI’s “Studio 360” senior producer Leital Molad and host Kurt Andersen; voyage deep into 20th century design with design historian Russell Flinchum; learn investigative journalism techniques with Change Observer editor Julie Lasky; curate exhibitions with MoMA design curator Paola Antonelli and Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum curator Matilda McQuaid; and find your critical voice with Ralph Caplan, Akiko Busch, and Andrea Codrington.

The core curriculum, which trains students to research, analyze, and evaluate design and its social and environmental implications, is supplemented by the specialist knowledge of more than 40 visiting critics and lecturers per semester. Recent guests include Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times Book Review, industrial designer Ayse Birsel, documentary filmmaker Gary Huswit, Gawker.com editor-in-chief Gabriel Snyder, New York Times perfume critic Chandler Burr, author and critic Rick Poynor, and Cathy Leff, director of the Wolfsonian Museum.

More about applying here at the D-Crit site. Also you might be interested in my 2008 interview with Alice.

Just clicking through this bevvy of gorgeous and incredibly fun pattern designs from the very talented, young, Argentinian illustrator Gastòn Caba (and others) is just plain joyful. I know everyone thinks I’m all about grids and minimalism and monochromatic palettes and being very serious (okay, guilty), but it doesn’t mean I don’t also find this stuff to be totally great, too.

A small but excellent selection of covers from “the definitive music and culture publication in New York City in the early 1980s.” I’d never heard of it before, but then in the Eighties New York was just an idea and not a real place for me yet. These covers evoke that dreamland of my youth though: gritty, plausibly if not authentically punk, confrontational and exclusive (who the hell were Human Switchboard? Oh, that’s who).

“A painstakingly curated presentation of the best produced and designed iPhone applications…my goal is for this site to showcase new and emerging talent, current talent and represent the best of the best applications for the iPhone for design-minded folk.”

As the sheer volume of available iPhone apps grows beyond crazy huge into the stratospherically absurd realm, I think we’ll see more and more third-party attempts to make sense of the volume, both through hand-picked methods like this one and other, more automated means.

One of those heartwarming human interest stories that’s completely invulnerable to cynicism.

“In 1998, aged just 14, aspiring young cartoonist Amir Avni decided to get in touch with the creator of Ren & Stimpy, John Kricfalusi. Being a hardcore fan of Kricfalusi’s work, Amir sent him an introductory letter along with a few cartoons he’d drawn, some of which contained relatively unknown characters of John’s. To call Kricfalusi’s response ‘generous’ would be an understatement…”

The letter itself, hand-written and partly hand-drawn, practically hums with warmth; see it in its entirety here. Also, if you’re not reading Kricfalusi’s blog — even if you’re nothing more than a casual admirer of cartoon animation — then you’re denying yourself regular insights into the mind of true artist.

An entertaining tour of two New Yorkers’ obsession with a little-noticed relic of the mid-Twentieth Century located Queens. “The two Candela Structures — plus a third one that’s now gone — were built as exhibit spaces for the 1964 World’s Fair… The biggest mystery, though, is why these two amazing structures have languished in obscurity for so long. We hope this exhibit will give them the attention they deserve, and that it will prompt someone — maybe you — to help us ?ll in the missing chapters of their story.” What’s so great about this story is their architectural inquisitiveness; as our world becomes increasingly virtual, it’s refreshing to remember there are fascinating questions left to answer about the real world.

Designer Mike Rundle’s extraordinarily helpful overview of how he creates U.I. elements that evoke real-world materials. He even pulls back the curtain on his own technique by including a downloadable sample Photoshop file, letting readers pull apart a typical construction for buttons.

An appreciation of the legendary Milan-based graphic designer Bob Noorda, a Modernist legend and co-founding partner (with Massimo Vignelli) of Unimark International. Noorda passed away just over a week ago, on 11 Jan 2010, though it’s still tough to find an English-language obituary online. This write-up over at the excellent new mid-century Modern-focused design archive Display is not quite an obituary, but for the uninitiated it makes for a useful introduction to Noorda’s career.