Yesterday I noticed a tweet from Chris Brogan telling designers that he had just put a logo design contest up on a popular crowdsourcing website. If you’ve heard me discuss crowdsourcing then you know I’m not a fan so I sent a quick reply letting him know that most reputable designers are against this type of design “contest.”

Considering that Chris has over 135,000 followers on Twitter I thought that would be the last I heard of the issue. I was pleasantly surprised when Chris replied back asking me why. I responded with a link to NO!SPEC and a quick summary of my point of view that, “designers deserve to get paid for work they do and businesses deserve full attention from their designer.”

It was clear from his discussion with me and others on Twitter that Chris was attempting to educate himself. He also asked if anyone had written any blog posts on the issue and said he might link to some in a future post of his. I happily sent him links to the two posts I’d made about crowdsourcing graphic design last year.

Soon Chris had a blog post up about his project and the strong reactions he’d been getting from Twitter, he also linked to one of my posts. There has been a great discussion in the comments on his blog about crowdsourcing benefits and why it might hurt designers and businesses. I’d recommend taking a few minutes to read his post and his decision to pursue a $300 logo over the $20,000 logo he had previously had done.

Of course I made my opinion clear although I don’t particularly expect it to change many minds. What I do appreciate is someone taking the time to educate themselves and others about both sides of the debate. It’s understandable that a business might just see crowdsourcing as a way to get a cheap logo but hopefully discussions like these will educate those people so that at the very least they are aware of what they are asking of designers.

I came across images today of a hotel in Krakow, Poland. The design of the hotel is absolutely amazing and has a graphical element that especially appeals to me as a designer.

The hotel exterior consists of a sleek aluminum material that is interrupted by beautiful black lines and windows. I have to admit that I think part of the reason I love the design is that it reminds me of Apple products.

Unfortunately I don’t think I’m headed to Poland anytime soon but if I was I think I’d set aside a little extra money to stay at this amazing hotel.

We’ve all heard about the flooding in Nashville but the video below by Michael Deppisch gives us a little bit better look into the flooding. The photography and editing show a different side than the network news has shown us. To me this artfully made video makes it much more personal.

There have been some really amazing photos of the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland. In case you’ve missed them, a few can be found on this site.

I find the ones with lighting particularly beautiful but all of them are pretty spectacular.

There have been plenty of reports lately about work time wasted on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Now a recent article in Wired magazine backs up what I’ve been saying for a while, small breaks while working can help boost creativity.

Obviously not everyone would boost their productivity by spending time on Twitter or Facebook during their workday. But for graphic designers or other creatives these short breaks can help keep our minds running and the ideas flowing. Take a look at the article and see what you think.