Amazing chart-artist (chartist?) Jessica Hagy, who has previously done guest comics for The System, has come out with a new book with Workman Publishing called How To Be Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps). If you’ve ever read her blog This Is Indexed, this book is everything you love about her comic (“written as the coffee brews”) but with the time and thought given to give her thoughts time to mature into bigger ideas. There’s even a tumblr with some highlights (http://how2beinteresting.tumblr.com/) that you can follow to see some of the highlights.

No, I haven’t read the book yet, but I don’t have to in order to know it’s going to be good. Jessica is a very smart cookie, and you should buy her book because you’re gonna like it.

H2BI on Amazon »

This is like a real-life cheese that I would have written.

Systemic Rebecca sent me news of undies for the designer in us all. Underpants by Pantone color matching system. But what happens when you wash them a ton and the color fades, do they go from 382C to 382U?

This also may be a great time to encourage designers to hook up with each other, just so someone around you appreciates the reference. There’s a “color bridge” joke in there somewhere.

Source »

Hope this helps. Sorry, it wasn’t released until the day taxes were due.

As discussed many times in the past, I like me some Mad Men. It’s a few things:

• It’s a show which is about as close as TV has ever come to showing graphic design (though admittedly design and advertising are related but not the same)
• It’s a sophisticated and interesting drama to watch unfold
• I have a soft spot for 60’s culture when it comes to style, music, culture, etc.
• Jon Hamm, *unf*

And with the show back on there’s more cool Mad Men stuff to share!

Mad Men As Muppets

This is just one of the full set that I found on Laughing Squid. They’re all pretty great both for how absurd the images are as well as how amazing the comparisons are. CHECK IT »

Mod Men

Some interesting visual comparisons between how these characters existed in the 60’s versus their current-day technological counterparts. Again, a whole set with interesting comparisons. Also again via Laughing Squid. DO IT »

Welcome BACK to System in the Wild, where people find “The System”-style signage out in the world, or signs that just don’t make any damn sense, and send them to me. Then I post them. There’s already a lot of these posts, check them out here.

These come to us from Systemic Thomas:

so, i was in israel recently and wondered if you had seen the crosswalk signs they have over there… there were some variations, but that was the standard one in jerusalem.

there were some (on a college campus, i believe) in which the suited fellow looked like a skinnier baseball capped fellow. on one street, it appeared that someone had taken the suited guy and turned him into a woman in a dress on a couple of signs. couldn’t get a picture of that, sadly.

anyway, yes–one of several interesting design choices i saw. oh, i nearly forgot the apparent instructions to run up the stairs:

I saw these as well on my trip to Israel. It’s always interesting to see other countries take on the same signs and to see their own “takes” on them. That crosswalk guy is dapper as hell, though admittedly not at all gender neutral. DISCUSS.

If you see any awesome signs, mail them into systemcomic at gmail dot com, subject line “System In The Wild”. I’ll post the good ones!