+ Today’s gorgeous artwork provided by Gabi Piserchia, available for purchase on Society 6.

+ Randomizer.org picked entrant number 8, Brendan Beale from Australia, as the winner of the Sonnenzimmer poster! Congrats, Brendan! Sonnenzimmer & I are so grateful to all who entered.

+ What it Means to be a Geek offers the freedom to devour your interests with all the enthusiasm you can muster. Screw cool, care instead. I wish I’d read this when I was in high school or college.

+ Had a chuckle over the World’s Longest Invoice that’s been making the rounds this week. Currently the deadbeat clients of the world owe over 10 million to the freelancers who worked with them.

+ 37signals founder Jason Fried wrote an excellent article for Inc. Magazine on why most business writing is awful. Finally someone is stepping up to the plate and explaining the difference between compelling business writing and the watered down jargon-y crap we’re so used to seeing. Also makes an excellent case for using a more informal, conversational tone for online writing, thank goodness, I’ve been pushing for this for years.

+ MOXIE Conference tomorrow! I’m hitting the stage to do a mock-negotiation scenario with financial advisor Linda McCauley on how to wheel and deal like a boss. If you’re going, please say hello!!

Happy weekend! On the dock for next week: co-working tales & behind-the-scenes tour of ze Walker Art Center.

+ Been mulling over Jessica Comingore’s post, In Transition. It’s about the struggle between balancing your own business and maintaining an active blog. And while I could fill my own post on this topic alone, it’s also 6pm on Friday and my mind is clearly mush, you should just go read Jessica’s instead. It’s as if she wrote this directly from my own brain anyway, ha.

+ Clever photography series, Things Granny Never Told You About the Internet.

+ How one design conference made itself less of a bro-fest. (Related, I’ll be there. Ahem.)

+ Been jamming to this week’s Mykind Mix from Design For Mankind. Classic Hip Hop, a few new sounds, very danceable and good for general upbeat-ed-ness (shh, that’s totally a word). I’ve started a similar playlist on my Spotify if you want more like this.

+ Typefight: another fun typographic blog pits two custom letterforms against each other & readers get to vote on the winner. Excellent source for unusual typography.

+ Artwork supplied by Australia’s Andrew Frazier.

+ Buy Some Damn Art got a new design! Aw yeah, good work as always, Ghostly Ferns! Artwork is by Kate Pugsley and is the most recent to be showcased on BSDA. So buy some damn art, would ya? Cause prints are great, but originals are better.

+ I’m giving a BIG speech in the coming months and I’m already prepping (gulp!). Scott Berkun’s speaker’s checklist is exhaustive and will prove to be quite useful no doubt. His point about making sure to get directions not just to the venue, but also within the office-park insanity, and within-building insanity made me chuckle. Nothing worse than arriving a few minutes early only to discover you took the wrong elevator and end up tearing through the building to make it to the room on time. (Not that I’ve done that, ahem.) Via Nickd.

+ Wired on why being sleepy or less than sober are good for creativity. Excellently reasoned article, in short it says our brains are able to free-associate more readily during these states which makes total sense to me. There is, obviously, diminishing returns on this phenomena so get it while the getting’s good I guess.

Well, this week flew by in a breathless woosh. How is it Friday already? Not that I’m complaining, mind. Five deadlines this week ate all my blogging time and I’m cutting out early today to head to Purdue University to see Studio Visit, Chad’s show with Cody Hudson & Stephen Eichhorn.

Here’s some fodder to make up for the lull this week though:

+ I wrote about Post 27′s awesome new line of handmade jewelry by Portland artist, Emily Counts.

+ Major, major office supply lust courtesy of HAY, a little design boutique in Copenhagen. Itching to get on a plane just to visit this shop alone.

+ Okay Type releases their newest font, Harriet, to rave reviews including an award from the Type Directors Club. I can certainly see why, Harriet is no joke. Expertly executed with careful finesse, she’s smart and friendly, modern and classic, which means infinite uses. Hope to find an excuse to buy soon!

+ These photos are just cause I thought you needed some magic in your day. Long exposures of Japanese fireflies in the blue light of dusk. Via Its Colossal.

+ My Design Dispatch is up at Studio Sweet Studio! Lots of great design-y resources!

+ Local (and young!) talent Lillian Davenport has been struggling with an intense bout of cancer for the last year, her doctors have just discovered a new tumor in her brain and healing it comes with a 10k price tag. Read more about Lillian’s story and offer your financial support here.

+ This week also marks World Cancer Day (Feb 4th) and Canadian band Two Crown King has just released a new song in support of their friend Ben’s fight with cancer. Learn more about Ben and his song here. And for just 99¢ please download from iTunes. Thanks to my friend Jacqui Oakley for the tip on this one!

+ Finally, on a lighter note, the thoughtful folks from Alt Summit have put together a fantastic line-up of online classes on blogging. So if you didn’t make it to Alt this year, there’s plenty you can learn right from the comfort of your own couch.

See you next week, friends!

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+ Hear: Aimee Mullins‘ story on the Moth Podcast. Aimee is a double amputee who also happens to be an athlete, model, actress and comedian. She even got to be in Matthew Barney’s Cremaster, with custom designed faun legs (above, eat your heart out, Gaga). Easily my most favorite Moth podcast in ages. There’s also an awesome Ted talk here where she talks all about her pairs of legs.

+ Ways to help minimize your Photoshop layers from my favorite tutorial site, Method & Craft.

+ I finally caved and I’m on Pinterest now! So far I really like it, but I wish it would get married to Gimme Bar (“it’s basically an internet ShamWow”) and have ten hundred babies together.

+ Why Louis CK thinks the next Steve Jobs will be a chick over at Fast Company.

+ Fontshop’s and Myfont’s best typefaces of 2011. Oh, so very much to love here.

+ All of the Illustrator shortcuts! See similar for inDesign as well. Most of the shortcuts I use I discovered by accident or by watching someone else work inside the program. Regardless, forcing these infographics into my brain would certainly be a good exercise in streamlining workflow.

Happy 2012 all! I did a lot of blog & content planning while I was away from my computer over the holidays and now I have all these fun blog ideas. Just in time for my trip to Alt…which is in just two weeks! So, so soon! Time to get crackin.