Back from a 10 day jaunt to Hanoi. Beautiful city. Lots of coffee drinking and book reading ensued. One incredibly delicious hamburger was consumed. Pho? 10 bowls or so.

Finally sifted through 600 articles from a variety of feeds. Here's a few of the more interesting bits I bumped into:

Beautiful NYTimes infographic summarizing a very complicated series of Middle East relationships in a single image.

Design Observer has some words on the great Pentagram co-founder and brilliant designer Alan Fletcher, who recently passed away.

DO also announces the results of their Winterhouse Awards for Design Writing: congratulations to Thomas de Monchaux and Katherine Feo.

Khoi Vinh interviews the articulate and talented artist Louise Ma. Part of his ongoing series of monthly archive illustrations.

Sydney has commissioned a photography project much in lines with the work of Ken Kitano in an attempt to "provide a representative male and female “look” for the 160,000 residents of Sydney’s City of Villages." Two things are a bit unsettling about this: 1) no mention or credit is given to the photographer. And 2) it would have been nice of them to reference some prior art in the project.