Happy Friday! Can you believe that we are at the end of another work week? Time just speeds up in spring term. Anyway, today I wanted to share some interesting, pretty, and useful links about visualizations. So let’s get to the links and get you on your way to enjoying the weekend.

As so much information is conveyed in visual ways (as opposed to strictly textual), it behooves one to study good graphic designs and practice designing things. Today’s post is dedicated to a bunch of recent links coming over the feeds. (Plus, I just love design and can’t seem to go more than a few weeks without doing a post that is about, at least in part, design. Speaking of which, thanks to litbrarian to letting me know about fab.com which has a ton of design inspiration. If you want access, you can go here to request an invite as it is still in pre-launch phase.)

Okay, so getting to the actual links, if you want to create a website you should head on over to Lifehacker’s complete guide on how to make a website. Aren’t Lifehacker Night Classes just a bunch of fun? Plus, they are a friendly way to get one’s feet wet in record time and actually acquire some usable skills.

Who hasn’t heard of infographics? It is the buzzword in design lately. But before you go wild with infographics, check out Blue Glass’ post on diagnosing infographic bipolarity and learn some tips to making your infographics stand out, in a good way.

And no post about visualizations and graphics would be complete without a nod to Photoshop. So check out Gizmodo’s 10 quick and easy Photoshop tips. Don’t let Photoshop intimidate you. Just start playing with it and you’ll get the hang of creating awesome graphics and touching up photos in no time.

Oh, and while not strictly about visualization, check out the good news of new features of goo.gl. I really like goo.gl for link shortening, the statistics, and the QR Code generation.

Now moving on to some visualizations of food, or rather, some yummy recipes to try for your weekend and some awesome photos to look at while stuff is baking. As it is still wintry in a lot of the Northern Hemisphere, I suggest making some of Joy the Baker’s cheddar black pepper biscuits. They taste fantastic with a fried egg. And for dessert, I’d suggest chocolate bundt cake. I know people who don’t really like cake and they like this one. Also, If you love tea, you should check out the wonderful photographs of processing black tea from the National Anthropological Archives. Then go boil some water and have a cuppa.

Finally, I have to leave you with something cool to watch, so enjoy watching Festo’s Aqua Ray swim (really, it’s awesome):

Have a wonderful rest of your day, a lovely weekend, and I’ll be back next week with more thoughts on tech, archives, and libraries. Allons-y!