For graphic designers, this Monday’s Link Roundup has two gems, The Art of the Book Cover Explained at TED and 5 (Mostly) Vintage Children’s Books by Iconic Graphic Designers. If you’re interested in ethical wills, be sure to take a look at Things to worry about. It’s a letter by F. Scott Fitzgerald to his 11-year-old daughter. While it’s short, it’s nevertheless a wonderful example of an ethical will of sorts.
- Aging Survivors Can’t Forget. [Podcast] “Many of the estimated 200,000 living Holocaust survivors face a new trauma in their final years, as they are overwhelmed by terrible memories they’ve successfully contained for 70 years…Reporter Karen Brown introduces us to survivors and their family members .., as well as social workers and specialists working with them, to find out more about this painful last chapter in a survivor’s life, and about what can be done to help them.” [ Thanks to Stephen Albert of Lifetime Memoirs for alerting me to this item.]
- Five Reasons Why Your Life Will Improve By Writing Memoir. “Sue William Silverman is an award-winning memoir author, a writing teacher in the MFA Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and the author of Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir. In today’s post, Silverman presents five reasons why writing a memoir will improve our lives! Enjoy!”
- Crazy Talk: The Do-What-You-Love Guide. “I am not someone who likes to give career advice, or teach people to be online entrepreneurs. So I’m not going to do that here. I’ll just tell you this: it’s possible. Yes, it absolutely is possible. And I’ll share what I’ve learned, in small snippets of goodness, about doing what you love.”
- Determining if a sentimental item is clutter or a treasure. “If you’re storing sentimental items in cardboard boxes in your basement or attic or garage, it’s a pretty good sign the items are clutter and not treasures…Plus, you can’t see your items or appreciate them through the walls of a box in a corner of a room beneath boxes of holiday decorations…As you’re sorting through your sentimental items to determine what is a treasure and what is clutter, ask yourself:”
- The Art of the Book Cover Explained at TED. [Video] “Give this one a minute to get going, to get beyond the schtick. And then you’ll enter the world of Chip Kidd, associate art director at Knopf, who has designed covers for many famous books. As he will tell you, his job comes down to asking: What do stories look like, and how can he give them a face, if not write a short visual haiku for them?”
- Things to worry about. “In 1933, renowned author F. Scott Fitzgerald ended a letter to his 11-year-old daughter, Scottie, with a list of things to worry about, not worry about, and simply think about. It read as follows.”
- 5 (Mostly) Vintage Children’s Books by Iconic Graphic Designers. “As a lover of children’s books, I have a particularly soft spot for little-known gems by well-known creators. After two rounds of excavating obscure children’s books by famous authors of literature for grown-ups and icons of the art world, here are five wonderful vintage children’s books by some of history’s most celebrated graphic designers.”
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My work both as a hospice volunteer and as a personal historian involves helping people record their stories at life’s end. When we know our time is limited it can focus our mind on what is truly important. There are many ways of saying goodbye. Some people choose an ethical will, something that I’ve written about in 
