BlogDay linking to non-food sites

Today, August 31st, is Blogday 2006, the idea of which is to link to 5 blogs that you would normally not link to on your blog. (The site seems to be having some issues right now, hopefully they will recover before the day is done.) One of my other major passions besides food and cooking is design, and there are a number of great blogs that concentrate on what's new in the design world, from various angles.

It was really hard to pick just five out of many great design blogs, but here are some of the best out there.

• notcot.org is probably my favorite. It is like a web based bulletin board of great designs, with a number of collaborators. My only nitpick is that their RSS feed seems to not be working or something, for a long time. (At least my newsreader can't pick it up.) No matter though, I just go and while away a few minutes (which sometimes turns into hours) clicking through their great picks, which range all over the place from interior design to clothing to illustration to.... well just go look.
• information aesthetics is more esoteric perhaps, but quite fascinating. It is a blog about the visual representation of data, visual design, and such matters. It's a very calming site to look at too.
• inaminuteago is a personal blog by a very skilled needlecraft (mostly crazy quilts with many-layered embellishments) artist and teacher in Australia. In between tutorials and interesting links for any creative or crafty person, she muses on the design process and many other matters.
• swissmiss is a design blog by a Swiss designer who lives in Brooklyn, NYC. She has very Swiss sense of style, which is a good thing. She covers a wide spectrum of good design, from typography to kitchen gadgets. Her design aesthetic is probably the closest to my ideal (the reality is a bit different...)
• For my fifth pick I'm going to cheat and mention two more, since to me they are pretty much equal. design*sponge is an well known blog about design written from Brooklyn, and print & pattern is a very similar one based in the U.K. Both concentrate on things for the home such as home textiles, ceramics, furniture design, and stationery/paper goods, and have similar design preferences (sort of a mix of mod/retro, scandinavian, mid-century influence, modern, clear bright colors and patterns). Also, a newcomer in this category that didn't make it on the list simply because it's a bit too new is hostess with the mostess, who concentrates on party goods and tabletop design. Ok I'll stop cheating now.