It’s Monday, so that means another load of links to start your working day off right and get your designer mind working on all cylinders with a road-up of some of the weeks best design post (and the usual dose of cat video goodness as seen above). Get at it!

It’s Nice That is the creative blog that Facing Sideways hopes to be one day when it grows up a little. In the meantime, check out their top 25 graphic design features for 2017.

Hamish Smyth is an expat Australian designer behind publisher Standards Manual and design studio Order. Design Week recently asked him ‘What will graphic design look like in 2018?’ and answered with some thoughtful ideas. 

Apparently companies are finally listening to designers (and it’s only taken 70+ years, give or take)! This is what you need to know before you take that seat at the boardroom table.

If I see the name ‘Beatles’ mentioned in conjunction with the word ‘designer’ my eyes are immediately going to light up. Gordon House was an artist/designer who contributed to the visual palette of said super group as well as a mess of other significant touchstones of the swinging-sixties, yet remains relatively unknown today.

The humble pencil is usually the first instrument we turn to when sketching out an idea, and who doesn’t find some meditative release in the simple act of sharpening the point, reader to transfer though to paper? Do we ever give much thought to where said instrument originates or how it’s made? Read then this interesting report on one of America’s last pencil factories.

If you haven’t grabbed yourself a copy of designer/illustrator Noma Bar’s new monograph Bittersweet, do so at your nearest convenience. In the meantime, read this great piece on him over at Creative Boom.

As social media becomes more and more prevalent in society, its ethical implications also become more pronounced. The answer may lie in better design.

Finding it hard to get motivated on that personal project that’s been percolating for a while? Maybe you need to finally set a deadline, or maybe you don’t.

Heath Killen has set up shop and is working under the monicker of Honeymoon. Heath is a real ‘designer’s designer’ and one of the top talents operating out of anywhere with a very inspiring attitude towards life and the profession of design. Check out some of his beautifully imagined past and present projects ay his new site.