Design Observer report that Steven Heller, a voracious and devout commentarian and voice of the design world has just launched a personal site. It's unfortunate (but perhaps contractually / legally otherwise impossible) that his articles are not currently archived on the site, but rather linked to in their original online publications. Which, in the case of the NYTimes is often behind a pay-wall. (There is a small side-note informing us, "PDF articles will be available soon for download." Hopefully the NYTimes stuff will also be included. Although, not to miss a chance to be pedantic, for the sake of searchability and liquidity of information it would be great if these texts were also offered online in html/text form.) I'm happy to note though that he has archived his interviews for direct download from the site.

For anyone wanting a burst of erudite design commentary, pop on over.

In other news, 37 Signals has just re-released their Getting Real book for free in HTML form, for $19 in PDF form and for $29 in lulu form. Having sold over 23,000 copies at approximately $19 a pop (some of those 23,000 must also be via their bulk discount rate) that means they've pulled in over $400,000 in pure profit since March 1st.

Between this book and their job board they are doing an amazing job monetizing their huge audience. Without putting too much strain on the imagination, one could even see 37 Signals starting a publishing branch of their company. Would it be such a stretch to see them rivaling O'Reilly? 23,000 copies in the publishing world is nothing to balk at. Go get 'em guys.

And of course this is all on top of the real meat of their business: award winning pay-per-month online software.