Rock solid lettering and typography work from Louise Fili. Working on everything from book jackets to branding, Fili who practised under Herb Lubalin never fails to bring type to life through ornate and seductive line work with tones of character.

Legendary typographer and designer Erik Spiekermann was recenetly announced as the winner of the German Design Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. In celebration the good folks at Gesalten.tv have put together this short (14min) interview with the man himself.

Offering brief insights into a variety of aspects influencing Spiekerman’s work from the similarities between music and typeface design, the process and influences in his work, advice on becoming a better designer and surprisingly political views on the role good and bad communication plays in the state. What’s really refreshing about Spiekermann’s approach though is his honesty to the whole process, surrounding himself with talented individuals who’s specialities surpass his own abilities in that area whilst clearly acknowledging the best work is the product of successful teams and, only in the rare cases, of one sole individual. We couldn’t agree more.

No doubt a many of you will be familiar with Dave Egger’s Super Hero Supplies store in NYC and similarly his Pirate Store in San Fransico. Following on from their successes state-side, Egger along with a number of other talent dedicated individuals, encouraged by many well known writers have brought the concept to the UK opening Monster Supply Store late last year in Hackney Street, London.

Essentially created as a space to educate and inspire children to get lost in their imagination and discover the writing in all forms, the front of the store is stocked with all kinds of monster curios to excite even little ones and allow us older ones to rekindle with our inner child.

Branding and packaging design has been beautifully crafted by We Made This all chocked full of witty bits of copy that will have you leaving the store a little lighter in the pocket but with a gleaming wild smile from the innocence of childhood.

Just don’t make the mistake that we did and turn up during the week as they’re only open Saturday and Sunday 11am—5pm.

It seems that there’s quite a trend for slick art direction and motion design from the Spanish based agencies and studio Toch is no exception as shown in this latest showreel.

Similar to other visual bookmarking apps but far more swiss-like and refined in its design, Designinspiration gives the likes of FFFOUND! a run for its money in terms of UI design as well as a being rich pot of visual stimuli.

The kind folks at Designspiration have given us 3 free invites to the join the site for you lucky guides. In order to have chance to grab one, post a link to your portfolio in the comments below (multiple folios allowed) and we’ll review all the links submitted in the next 7 days (finishing on Wednesday 9th February at 23:59) and chose the 3 links we think are most inspiring and contact the lucky winners by email from the corresponding sites.

For those keen to know a little more on the background of Designspiration, Shelby White of Wanken studio (the brains behind the whole project) details the making of Designspiration including the whole process and design decisions that were taken to create and site and set itself apart from the crowd which makes for an insightful read.

Little White Lies, blends two loves, design and cinema. Every month is a visual delight with the latest issue focusing on Black Swan delivers the goods like always.

To show just how much sweat and blood goes into producing LWL, with the help of Archer’s Mark, they’ve put together two months of work into 1min 55seconds of footage.

If you haven’t seen the current issues then it comes highly recommended.

Humorous, rude boy illustrations from Cambridge School of Art alumni, James Clapham.