Flickr hosts a history of Swiss graphic design via a fantastic collection of posters from 1911 through to 2006.

One of my ongoing frustrations over the last few years is how difficult the Transport for London website is. Trying to comprehend the complex structure just to find out whether the Hammersmith and City Line is working at the weekend was always a chore - even though I had fought my way through it many many times before. So finally, in the last few days, Transport for London has updated their site with a brand new structure and visual design. I’m not too excited about the ’Web 2.0’-style visuals, but it is very easy to understand, and I can now find out if the tube is going to be useful at the weekend in moments.

Swiss Legacy is a blog that concentrates on the Swiss design and arts. I am half-Swiss myself, so I have always been intrigued by the fine history of Swiss graphic arts.

We’re sticklers for detail, but getting typography to work well on the web is not easy. Or, as Mark Boulton and Clearleft put it, typography sucks on the web - and they have a SXSW presentation online that goes into detail of how to improve it.

37signals talk about how you have to be careful with the above ingredients - they are probably not central to what your project needs to do.

“Poor usability is the main reason behind the limited adoption of Google’s services such as Gmail and Google Talk, according to Jeff Bonforte, senior director of real-time communications at Yahoo.” Computing.co.uk discusses how removing features encourages user adoption.

The decision to use different fonts is often hard to comprehend for non-designers, in fact users often do not consciously recognise the difference between fonts whether they be Georgia or Times, Arial or Verdana. Of course fonts are important in indicating certain characteristics of your message, yourself or your brand - however unconsciously understood. This study from Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) on the effect of typeface on the perception of email investigates what happens when you choose Comic Sans (unsurprisingly… do not use!), Calibri (use!) or Gigi for an email.

Business Week discusses the influence of Apple as a design standard for other companies. See Nintendo, Motorola, Microsoft, BMW, Adidas, Lacie… and most companies we come across.

The question of how branding and advertising overlap and therefore can cause fractious relationships between different client agencies is discussed by Johnson Banks (this link is not permanent so apologies if it does not work). The article discusses a situation that arose with Wolff Olins (a company I have worked with extensively) creating an ‘advertising concept’ that the client’s ad agency feels treads on their toes. While I worked with Wolff Olins, this happened all the time as brand development does not sit in an easy corner - but is all encompassing. More importantly, good ideas should come from anywhere, and similar situations could be applied for an internet-based agency, like ourselves.

Adobe, having bought Macromedia, are radically rethinking their branding for their set of applications icons, or ‘desktop brand system’ as they call it. Worth a look for the thinking behind them - and the reactions.

Daikin Industries Ltd are one of the world’s leading producers of air-conditioning and refrigeration systems. The Japanese company asked FoxLand to develop the website for their latest product - the Daikin Reefer Container Refrigeration machine. This unit maintains the internal temperature of cargo containers using the latest in Japanese technology and quality. So if you’re exporting frozen fish (as one does) from Iceland to Australia or bananas from the Philippines to Britain the Daikin Reefer will keep them fresh. The website went live today.

Take a look at this page that makes it easy to compare competing video sharing players.

Adobe, taking a leaf from their Macromedia acquisition, have been working on some interesting new applications and tools and releasing them as beta versions. Kuler is an intriguing and surprisingly powerful colour tool for designers.

On the upcoming Windows Vista users are presented with up to 15 ways of ’switching off’ their computer.

Take a look at these beautiful Chris Ware New Yorker covers for this year’s Thanksgiving edition.