There’s usually the whole “Cobblers children always go shoeless” thing going on with the websites of design firms. But every once in a while a firm decides to break ground on something new like Pentagram.

Isle of Tune is a music sequencer that you use by building a neighbor hood. Each element (ie. house, tree, street lamp, etc.) has a different sound, which is played as a car or cars drive around your neighborhood. Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ is an obviously popular island.

[via Kottke]

Chris Dixon talks about company/website growth in steps:

Growth comes in steps. There’s a big event. Shaq joins Twitter and brings his fans with him. There’s a spike. Things calm down, but they don’t go down. Then a plane lands in the Hudson. Another spike. Things calm down, but they don’t go down.

Jaco Joubert, thumb creative lead at Guestlist, gives a rare and unorthodox peek into the process of a home page redesign.

Google partnered with Fi to create an online book documenting the history and evolution of the web.

On one of their blogs Google followed up the “20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web” site with some behind-the-scenes notes.

Required reading for unemployed (or unhappily employed) designers.

We received 46 applications for the design job of which 10+ had registered new domains and designed brand new websites to get our attention like dearcarsonified.com, carsonify.me and others. It’s hard to stand out from a big crowd like that so I thought I’d share how our new designer did it.

No rest for the weary. A List Apart just posted the findings from their 2009 survey and they’re already collecting responses for the 2010 Web Design Survey: The Survey for People Who Make Website. Take it.

Loving Interhoods, the new localized designer/developer community site by Naz Hamid and Scott Robbin. Now I guess it’s time I finally get a dribbble account so I can represent Park Slope on the Interhoods.

First it was the weather. Then it was dinner. Now it’s design advice. A well-placed expletive can make anything more interesting.

[via clusterflock]