Every trip to the Barnes and Noble starts the same way for me: Looking through the ‘Art and Design’ section of the magazines. I look for a new Lurzer’s Archive, flip through the STEP and CMYK, all the while keeping my eyes peeled for something cool. Last week, Look-Look Magazine practically jumped off the shelf like a pet store puppy.

This zine is straight up creativity with no ads (more on that in a minute). The basic idea is to print reader-submitted art from young people. Simple enough, and the final product is amazing.

The cool thing is there are no ads. Well, there are four ads in the back, but the content has been submitted by the same young artists. Here is what Look-Look wrote about the Ad Gallery: “On top of giving us the money to make this magazine, they [the advertisers] go one step further and actually allow young people to create their ads. They are one of the things that is right with this world, and for that we thank them.” Very, very cool.

Look-Look has it all…painting, photos, poetry, essays, and more. Pick up a copy and support the kids yo!

The world of web site testing just got a little easier, or at least a little more accurate. For years, I implemented various methods for resizing windows to test my site development…even going as far as changing the actual resolution of my monitor to 800 x 600. Well my friends, those days are over.

Do yourself a favor, and download Sizer. This freeware utility gives you a powerful window-sizing tool is a tiny package. Not only can you jump to common screen resolutions via the presets, but the corner dragger will dynamically display each window’s dimensions. Outstanding! I didn’t realize how much I used this little guy until I got a new box at home, and it was missing.

Long live freeware, and long live Sizer!

Direct download HERE.

As my adoring posse has told me, creating the photo below has squarely fallen into the ‘You Have Way Too Much Time On Your Hands’ bucket. But really, this only took about 15 or 20 minutes, I swear!

Not the best example of this trick, as my monitor at work is a CRT (scanlines), and the background is the ever-changing outdoors. However, I still think it turned out OK!

Check out this photo set at flickr.com for some really great examples.

Now that five people have sent me links to his work, I’m officially calling it – Jonathan J. Harris really knows what he’s doing. His experiments in dynamic design are pushing the limits of Flash, RSS, and user interaction to amazing new levels.

10×10 is constantly devouring RSS feeds to establish a visual and informational snapshot of the world. Put simply, it brings us ’100 words and pictures that define the time.’ Profound, I know, but more importantly it’s really fun to play with.

Be sure to check out WordCount while you’re there.