I am sure that many of my readers keep a “cool designs” folder where screenshots and images are gathered with the hopes of spurring creativity. Today, I decided to make a mini-collage out of a few such images with the purpose of sharing with all of you. The collage is composed of colours, designs, menus, fonts and logos that I think are inspiring.

Check out the originators of these images at: greyscalegorilla, A Web Design Blog, NIN, Vimeo, Jeff Cannata, and J. Lindeberg.

Graphically representing data and information is certainly one of the best way to draw conclusions, support claims and satisfy our inherent desire for knowledge. We have all used typical visualizations such as pie charts and bar graphs, but artists and designers have this great ability to combine data, information and beautiful artwork in their creation of infographics.

Infographics are visual representations of data and information where conclusions can be drawn quickly and in an organized fashion. They range from simple street signs to incredibly large and complex tax spending visualizations and are largely used in print publications such as Wired magazine. Is there a place for these beautiful infographics in the workplace? Is the creation of infographics a waste of resources?

One of the stories on this week’s episode of Diggnation, discussed by Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose, was about Douglas Bowman, Web guru extraordinaire, and his recent departure from Google. In a recent blog post by Bowman, aptly titled “Goodbye, Google“, he gives insight into why he left the organization and a potentially fundamental issue with Google’s engineer-everything approach. Is it wrong for Google to be wary of drastic design changes? I would imagine that many large institutions are reluctant to change that may adversely affect millions of users. Let’s take a look at Bowman’s argument as well as some insightful comments by one of the biggest Internet celebrities.