Best of the Web

http://vimeo.com/12236680
How do you brand a nation, and do it well? It looks like the Iceland tourism office knows a thing or two about promoting its country. This Inspired by Iceland tourism ad is a beautifully shot video of Icelandic scenery, dancing, humour, nudity and appropriate backing music from Icelandic artist Emiliana Torrini.

http://day-ellison.posterous.com/design-works-site
Designer Gary Day-Ellison of Design Works talks about the complexities of creating an identity for yourself as a designer. His blog discusses the ease of devising cool and sharp visual identities for clients, compared with the difficulty of creating his own ’shop window’.

http://tinyurl.com/6z9nqdl
The Guardian ran a live Web chat this week discussing ’How to become a graphic designer’. Industry experts including Matt Harris, Heath Kane, Drew de Soto, Deborah Lunnon, Freda Sack, Nadine Chahine and Ruth Ward offered advice on how to make your mark in the field.

http://99percentinvisible.org
The site 99percentinvisible.org is a weekly podcast show from Roman Mars that explores the 99 per cent invisible activity that shapes the design of our world. This week journalist Douglas McGray discusses the design of check-cashing stores and how other financial products and banks could follow this model.