Before the HOW staff heads out for a creative offsite this afternoon, here's a roundup of recent industry news:

• Veer Ideas is the stock photo/illustration/type company's new social networking site; designers can connect, post portfolios, create new artwork and more in what Veer calls "an online creative playground."

• If you're a large firm or in-house group with tons of fonts to manage and many, many workstations, know that Extensis is now shipping Universal Type Server, a font-management solution for Mac and PC. The system tracks metadata including licenses, permissions and keywords and allows users to create font sets and families.

• Duffy & Partners, Minneapolis, created a new identity system for HandsOn Network, the nation's largest community volunteer organization, which manages millions of volunteers and 50,000 community impact projects. In addition to the logo, Duffy developed visual collateral, T-shirts, buttons and a tradeshow booth.

• PhotoShelter announced two initiatives: Shoot! The Day pairs the company with Nikon and Apple for a one-day photography event where professionals shoot images of subjects that stock buyers recently identified as needing new material. And School of Stock is a website that offers pros and amateurs tips on shooting and selling their work.

• Shutterstock launched an online stock-footage collection of "royalty-free forever" video clips that's available on a per-image or subscription basis. The library includes work from 100,000+ photographers and videographers worldwide.

• Neenah Paper released three new swatchbooks: Esse "To Be" features textures and colors created by Italian designer and colorist Beatrice Santiccioli. Minneapolist firm Design Guys created the promo. For Oxford writing, text and cover papers, designer Holly Hunt developed four color palettes that reflect the line's luxurious appeal. For UV/Ultra II and Clearfold, Design Guys again developed a piece that demos Neenah's translucent paper lines and shows its on-press performance.

• Design/branding firm laga (formerly Lipson Alport Glass) and global agency Desgrippes Gobé, have joined together. The new firm, Brandimage—Desgrippes & Laga, provides branding, strategy, architecture and design services in various disciplines. The new venture creates one of the largest design firms worldwide, with $60 million annual billings and 300 employees globally.