Forty on up
Essential reading, Design Observer consistently offers perfect-web-length essays on all matters design, and Rick Poynor delivers another gem in his latest post, The I.D. Forty: What Are Lists For?:"The list is, of course, a standard journalistic device. It makes good copy. It fills the pages that issue. It’s a talking point and something for readers to think about (a bit). And it’s marvellously flattering for those who are included. Anyone who is featured is likely to feel seriously endeared to the publication doling out the acclaim. In that sense, the idea of the list is fundamentally uncritical. It can never be a robust or rigorous way to assess the actual achievements of any of those who are featured. Those short, enthusiastic bursts of copy will sound like puffs. I know. I have written them myself in the past – for I.D., too."
True to D.O.'s strenghts, the comments are intelligent and worthwhile—Julie Lasky contributes one too—and as an extra extra bonus, the list is reproduced in Poyner's piece. So for those of you who haven't seen the magazine yet, make it interesting for yourselves: write your own top 40, then read all about it.