As Christmas and the end of the year draw nigh, so does your weekly dose of design related goodness collected from all around the web-o-sphere. Will Santa grant your wish with a Monday Load of Links next Monday? Leave out a glass of milk and a Scotch Finger Biscuit next Sunday eve and see!

Michael Carney has been consistently maintaining the visual image of the band The Black Keys (as well as some other cool performers like Randy Newman!) over multiple releases. This is a great interview with him on his work and working within the music industry. If you haven’t guessed, I’m a big fan.

Those crazy Russians during the Soviet era sure did like to make a statement in regards to what we would consider the most utilitarian of public spaces. Check out these oddball bus stops from that time photographed by Christopher Herwig.

Personal Style vis client expectations is the slippery slope most of us working designers navigate on a working week basis. These three art directors talk on how they handle the balancing act.

A lot of us grew up poring over the typographic experiments of The Face magazine, Raygun and Not Only Black and White magazine if you live downunder. I’m not sure those rule-breaking days of contemporary magazine design are of much concern to the average consumer these days as we would like to imagine, but maybe a more subtle approach to typography is winning readers over?

Did you make an impact on design in 2017? If your name’s not on this list, then, obviously, you must try harder!

Design thinking as an STD, nice.

The Casual Optimist is my church this time of year as I worship at the altar of the most notable book covers of 2017.

And speaking of great book design, there’s still time to enter The Australian Book Design Awards if you’ve created any noteworthy tomes of your own in the past year (you have until December 22 to enter).

Rules for working in a studio, actually pretty good rules for working anywhere.

Is design enough to change the world? We’ll get right onto it after rock ‘n roll does I guess.