Minimalist design can quickly appear homogeneous, tired, or even lazy. Kazakhstanian designer Slava Kirilenko avoids all minimalist clichés in his carefully considered work.

Sam Spratt (with a name like that of a comic book hero) uses his mad drawing skills to portray his subjects with flair, depth and dignity. From portraits of Israelite leader Moses and Rihanna, to commissioned art of the Angry Birds, Spratt brings an intense style to every drawing. Even crazy Internet memes are “brought [...]

Stark graphic illustrations & sculpture by London-based Arran Gregory. His sharp, high-contrast line drawings are controlled yet intense; I find his illustrations of animals particularly striking. Bonus: The horizontal scrolling website makes for an interesting gallery of work!

Snapshots of the Universe compiled by The Atlantic, almost unrealistically beautiful. “With all these eyes in the sky, I’d like to take another opportunity to put together a recent photo album of our solar system — a set of family portraits, of sorts — as seen by our astronauts and mechanical emissaries.”

Intricate map collages by artist Matthew Cusick. He has also created an exquisite series of magazine-clipping collages, found here.

Here’s a great article about writing for products and services. If you need a little inspiration, ask your users, employees, clients, colleagues, or friends this question: Why do you trust me? Why do you trust my company? I bet their answers don’t include words like cross-platform, leverage, or utilize. Instead, they’ll probably use plain-speak language [...]

Evan Robertson designs posters using quotes from literary classics, describing them as ‘fine art illustration for bibliophiles’. The best thing about paperbacks… is that when a little jewel of a sentence grabs you, you can underline it.

Lovely calligraphy by Brazilian designer, Jackson Alves. His design process, from sketch to execution, can be seen in his Behance portfolio. His hand-drawn sketches can be found at his Dribbble page.

Jayme McGowan (Roadside Projects) creates intricate paper-cut dioramas. Meticulously handcrafted, her unique creations are compelling in every form – from print to animation.

Gorgeous embossed book cover of Charles Mackay’s Some Extraordinary Popular Delusions, published by Penguin in 2010 and designed by Catherine Dixon.

Sixty creative talents draw portraits of each other to raise money for autism. The portrait below is of Sam Glynn, created by Alvaro Tapia. A great reference for lots of different portrait styles.