New Jonathan Adler mug with love on one side and hate on the other. It seems like a steal at $24.

Posted by Megan

Fast Company just published it lists of the best jobs to have now and in the future. On that list: Interaction Designer.

Interaction designers don't just design. They work with executives to define goals for the products and systems they help develop. And they mix reporting, psychology, and anthropology to see how people actually use what they design.

Posted by Megan

• This week, Corel intro'd CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4—apparently a significant update with more than 50 new and enhanced features, including live text formatting, a font-identification tool integrated with WhatTheFont, independent page layers and interactive tables. The full suite includes CorelDraw, PHOTO-PAINT, PowerTRACE and CAPTURE, plus a handbook, two hours of video training and access to the CorelDRAW.com online community.

• Monotype Imaging has developed an eight-font typeface family, in both scalable and bitmap versions, for display on Verizon Wireless phones. New York City-based interactive shop R/GA partnered on the project; Monotype says the fonts will allow manufacturers to create user interfaces for Verizon Wireless phones with type optimized for legibility on the small screen.
 
• In AIGA San Francisco's recent Cause/Affect competition, students from Academy of Art University took top honors. First place winners were Jeanette Karthaus, Tomohiro Kaji, Judy Hsu, Andrew Johnson, Cristian Butcovich, Kim Nelson, Chu Poh Tiong and Emily Lemmer. Tiffany Ricardo took second place and Tomohiro Kaji received an honorable mention.

• InSource, the organization for in-house creatives, has announced its February event: “Thinking Inside the Box—How Design Innovation Comes From Within” with speakers Tim Cox (Publix), Marianne Klimchuk (FIT) and InSource president Martin Shova. The event is February 20 from 8:30 to 12:30 at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ.

IdeasonIdeas has a great interview with Stefan Sagmeister about everything from design celebrity to fruit.

Eric: Although it may seem somewhat odd that designers concern themselves with publicity, it helps attract new work. How important is this? Should designers dedicate part of their time to self-promotion?

Stefan: If you have fun doing so, yes. If not, no. See, I do get a kick out of doing public talks and don’t mind answering your questions in this interview, both tasks connected with publicity. If these things would be a chore for me, I would not do them. I sometimes (like, right now for example) use them as an excuse so that I don’t have to do actual work, which is much harder, of course.

Posted by Megan