What’s Black and White and Re(a)d All Over?

If you answered a blushing zebra or a newspaper you are so last year (sadly). Today the answer would more likely be a “blog”. And now that so many of us have “fallen” for the blog (I follow 15 on my RSS reader), I thought I should canvas the KRD office and get a read on our collective favorite “reads” of the day.

Big mistake. I just asked Richard and he fired back a slew of questions at me…

“My favorite? I don’t really have a favorite. I read so many for different reasons. Do you want the most useful? The newest one I found …?”

“Ok, stop right there… let’s go with the one you look most forward to reading…”

Phew.

Richard’s Pick

Daring Fireball, by John Gruber

Gruber is a Mac advocate, so his blog largely covers tech topics with an Apple slant. He used to work for a software company and now is a full time blogger. He’s incredibly successful at what he does because his blogs are intelligently written…sarcastic at times which gives them an engaging point of view. The quality of his posts are always good even though sometimes they are short. He has good “finds” — things that he’s spotted on the internet that he knows his readers will appreciate or find funny. The readability of his site is really high because his site design is so simple.

Tom’s Pick

Subtraction, by Khoi Vinh

Vinh was the design director for newyorktimes.com. He recently went freelance because he wanted to be home with his wife and kids and do his own stuff. His is probably one of the first blogs I started reading on a consistent basis. That was around 2005. I found his blog originally because a lot of other designers were talking about him and were linking to him, so I wanted to check him out. He sends out his posts every couple of days via email and they really run the gamut of design-related topics: other new and interesting blogs, new typography he’s using, movie reviews, new album reviews, things of note going on in New York City. His posts are just so well written you really feel like you’re getting great information.

Kim’s Pick

Garance Dore, by Garance Dore

Ok, this is the dessert of my daily information. This is the post I hope is there waiting for me when I open my RSS reader. It’s written by a bit of a fashion outsider who has, ironically, because of her blog posts, found herself on the in. I love the arm’s length perspective of that world because it’s one I share. I started working at Vogue Magazine during my summers at college, and as much as I bathed in its rarefied aura in between picking up garment bags and schlepping them to “sittings” — no one was happier than me to elastic band my hair on top of my head and bury said head in a macro economics textbook come September. Garance’s posts let me continue to “summer” in fashion.