I found Valve’s handbook on Foo’s blog recently. I highly recommend reading it. It’s not just well designed, it’s well thought out.

Not every company can be like Valve, but why not borrow some of their ideas. This hand book feels honest, entertaining and sets awesome expectations. Here’s an excerpt:

Valve will be a different company a few years from now because you are going to change it for the better. We can’t wait to see where you take us. The products, features, and experiences that you decide to create for customers are the things that will define us.

Whether it’s a new game, a feature in Steam, a way to save customers money, a painting that teaches us what’s beautiful, something that protects us from legal threats, a new typeface, an idea for how to be healthier while we work, a new hat-making tool for TF2, a spectacular animation, a new kind of test that lets us be smarter, a game controller that can tell whether you’re scared or a toy that makes four-year-olds laugh, or (more likely) something nobody’s thought of yet—we can’t wait to see what kind of future you choose to build at Valve.

Anyone want to work on a new employee handbook?

Can you guess who these people are? These are old-school celebrity yearbook photos. See more at 1000memories.

Sweet explanation of the origins of Instagram’s filters.

Also for a chuckle, check out @textinstagram. Some say that a photo can speak a thousand words. I, however, would argue that instagram photos can be easily described in 140 characters or less. Hat tip: Will

Pretty sweet wedding invitations. Gotta love 8-bit art.

Sweet theme. I could see a little flower girl throwing flames at the wedding.

I’ve seen some cool design recently, but I’m most astounded when designers can put together something functional and beautiful, with little resources. Using shipping containers, several architects have created some of the most interesting and modern homes. I’m actually considering doing something like this in the future, once I can get some land. My personal favorite is the design by Benjamin Garcia Saxe. Would you live in one of these?

Bold combinations of colors and materials make from this structure a fine place to hang out looking permanently to the surrounding landscape. This unique residence idea and design belongs to Poteet Architects and you should know that this is not their only project involving shipping containers.

New Jersey architect Adam Kalkin designed and build his own house from recycled shipping containers. Among many reasons to do that there is price(a used one costs under $1000) and durability.

Another impressive project belongs to Brazilian Architect Marcio Kogan. This maritime shipping containers home was born with the idea of making use of industrial elements that can be easily assembled and also in a very short period of time.

French architect Patrick Partouche designed in 2010 a place that although is build from cargo containers tends to imitate a traditional house. This contemporary house has approximately 2,240 square feet and cost around 221.000 euros to complete.

Benjamin Garcia Saxe has built with $40,000 an interesting place to live in Costa Rica. This project concentrates more on a communion with nature than actually building. This house is very chic and modern but it only takes a small amount of materials and space to function.

Clément Gillet Architects build an eco-friendly prefabricated single prefabricated residence. The main ingredient to this successful recipe were some old shipping containers.

See more awesome shipping container homes here.

Cool illustration that explains where refinement and iteration should take place. While there are different theories for approaching a problem, I still think research and exploration always comes first, followed by prototypes and iteration.

The name says it all. I actually really like this interface. Wish google image search worked like this. Very slick and simple interface.