Khoi Vinh loves grids. The "Internet famous" former design director of NYTimes.com has written books about grids, given SXSW talks about grids, designed Wordpress themes based on grids, and now--courtesy of a lovely short documentary by Raafi Rivero--explains his grid-focused process in language anyone can appreciate (not just fellow design nerds).

“Pharma,” an exhibition of pharmaceutical-focused graphic design that opened at the Herb Lubalin Study Center at Cooper Union on November 1, traces this evolution of visual trends using more than 60 pieces, some from as far back as 1898 and as recent as this year. But the bulk of the material comes from the fertile period of experimentation (in design, not drugs) between 1940s and 1960s.

What is motion design? That's the question posed by an intriguing short film by Motion + Design, a nonprofit organization that wants to open a museum of animated graphic design in Paris. A mini-Louvre dedicated to the art history of network idents and feature film credits sequences? You may scoff, but watch the film first--you may learn something.

It’s hard enough to get kids to eat healthfully at dinner or during school lunch. But try telling the little darlings that they’re going to get cucumbers and whole wheat bread instead of ice cream and cake at their birthday party and you’ll likely risk a rebellion that would put post-Stanley Cup Vancouver to shame.

If you’ve ever wondered what a tattoo parlor run by designers would look like, look no further than Tattly, the new temporary tattoo web service launched yesterday by Tina Roth Eisenberg, proprietor of the Swiss Miss blog and the TeuxDeux to-do list. We can honestly say that there’s nothing else quite like it on the web.

Ask a talented illustrator and graphic designer like Edvard Scott who his influences are, and you might expect to hear certain names dropped: Saul Bass, Paul Rand. But Scott doesn't do what you expect. On the top of his current list of influences? Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, hosts and creators of Radiolab, a public radio show about science and storytelling. Wait, a visual communicator inspired by... radio?

The first thing you learn about celebrated bookmaker Irma Boom, in the excellent short film below, is that she hates books. Not all books, mind you. Just the DIY kind. “A book which has been made by hand showing traces of handicraft is to me disgusting,” she says, “hideous.”

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It’s a gem of an insight into the mind of a graphic design great who once won an award for “The Most Beautiful Book in the World” by creating a monograph that in many ways looked homespun.

Graphic designers love board games. Graphic designers love graphic design. Combine the two, and you’ve got The Pitch, a superbly nerdish little board game about, for, and by graphic designers. This is Dungeons and Dragons for serious design freaks.

Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) has opened a nice little exhibit sure to draw high-minded type aficionados and snotty-nosed kindergarteners in equal measure: It's a showcase of each letter of the alphabet, diced, dyed, deconstructed, and otherwise shamelessly artified.

The exhibit, Getting Upper, features 26 letters by 26 California artists and graphic designers. The high-minded explanation, per PMCA's website: