This post began sometime last week: I was in a meeting and the subject of links opening in new windows came up. Somebody was noting how it had caused a user problems on a certain site. Internally, I flew into a rage. IT'S TWO-THOUSAND-@#$%ing-NINE, more than two millennia since Jesus first came to earth to tell people not to use target="_blank" on their links, and we're still dealing with this crap?

Like any mature adult, I dealt with this by throwing together a bookmarklet to express my rage and righteous damnation of all links that open in a new window. You, too, may use the fruits of that indignation by dragging the Link Witch Hunt to your bookmarks toolbar. Use it to conduct a witch hunt on any page you're viewing to scour it for offensive links. If the site passes, it gets a benevolent green congratulatory message. If it does not, however, the severity of its offense will be judged and all links angrily flagged for the world to see.

With this tool in one hand and a torch burning in the other, I went in search of particularly offensive sites. Our own PBS.org was quickly burned, Facebook's sins were even more flagrant, and--naturally--the sites of a few of my web gurus were revealed to be utterly pristine.

I must admit I shed a few tears when I had to tie Twitter to the stake, too.

Over the weekend, all of this burning and damnation caused me to reflect on a few things. Did I really have the right attitude about links that opened in a new window? Were they as bad as I felt they were? Were they equally bad in all instances?

There's no doubt about it, one of the most difficult aspects of design is creating an identity. A logo reflects a brand and should inspire trust and recognition. Here are some basic guidelines that I follow when designing new identities:

Start from scratch.
Think of what the logo should represent and resist the temptation to search around on the web for inspiration. Stay far away from the clip art! Taking short cuts results in 'cookie cutter' solutions which lead to ineffective logos. Instead, sketch it out and that weird doodle in the right corner of your notebook could end up being the first mock up of your new logo.

Vector vector vector.
My logos are always designed in Adobe Illustrator. You never know when the logo will need to be scaled for different uses so using a vector-based application allows for a flexible logo design that can be used in numerous print and web-based mediums.

COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop) from blu on Vimeo.

At the August Refresh DC meeting, a monthly meet-up here in the District for web folk, Corey Greeneltch gave a presentation called "From Goya to Google: Traditional Design Principles on the Web". I'm a sucker for things like this with a scent of philosophy to them. Greeneltch presented a list of core design principles and analyzed how they were at play in paired examples of fine art and contemporary web design. At the very end, he said, "And this is why..." and clicked to a slide that said simply "Art = Design".

I didn't know it right away, but we'd just been trolled.

A raucous conversation began, one that lasted for about twenty minutes. Person after person spoke up, passionately arguing for his own slant on whether art and design were the same thing or not. Most people thought they were different, though not for the same reasons; they all thought art and design were words with separate meanings, whatever they were, and the distinction between them was clearly important to people.

During the conversation, I tweeted "People got some dumbass things to say on the definitions of art vs. design." I was frustrated by how arbitrary some people's definitions seemed and at how much of the argument was about irrelevant aspects of the issue; the points Greeneltch had made during his presentation were all but forgotten. However, my frustration at the time has gradually changed into curiosity. Was it a silly argument that we had? Were we designers just a group of cats, and Greeneltch's "art = design" assertion just a giant ball of twine he'd tossed into the middle of us?

Having trouble coming up with a color scheme for that big, important design project? Try stealing from Latvian-born American abstract expressionist Mark Rothko! I've taken the liberty of borrowing colors from some of Rothko's most famous paintings and given them catchy names for future reference. You're welcome, internet!

Find out more about Rothko at the NewsHour.

As anyone in PBS Interactive could tell you, I've had a heck of a spring and summer. Lots of projects, short deadlines, running at a million miles an hour... you know how it goes sometimes.

With the last big launch of the crazy times done with, I've had a few days to catch up on all the small items that got left behind (sorry feature images!) and clean up my computer.

I should've taken a screenshot of desktop before I started cleaning, but I have 22" cinematic display and a Macbook Pro 17" and they were both filled to the brim. Also, I have 1200 emails in my inbox (all read), and a folder called "logos_final_FINAL" that I still haven't figured out.

So my order of operations after big launches are:

• Clean up the desktop
  This is a must. I think I'll find a new background too, but making the computer nice and fresh for a new work load is like starting the day after a big breakfast.

• Try to sort email
  Get all the emails for the projects in to the right folders and then try to make sure I haven't missed anything very important. Emails really pile up here at PBS so it's very easy to have items all through the cracks.

• Do not make a new to do list
  I save that for the next day. There is always stuff to do (that's why it's called work), but this final stage is about cleaning and clearing NOT building up again.

Sometimes this can all take a few hours, but as long as nothing urgent is going on, it's 100% worth it. Especially if it's a Friday. It makes Monday morning that much easier to get in to.

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For a design blog, that sure was a boring post wasn't it?