James Victore is a man of action. He believes that knowing about jazz and wine and auto-racing can make you a better designer. That graphic design is about experiences and stories and using your hands. That the best designs punch you in the gut – or, at the very least, stop you in your tracks.

With the release of the new book, Victore or, Who Died and Made You Boss? (Abrams, $40), which collects 25 years of his work in a hefty volume designed by Paul Sahre and introduced by Michael Bierut, the name and the striking body of work should now finally go hand in hand.

On paper, Victore’s designs feel like muscle cars with a coiled charge concealed just beneath the surface. In person, he exudes a similar kinetic spark – affably skimming from topic to topic, as we talk about art (“Franz Kline’s work really blows my skirt up”), work (“I can’t pay attention to everything at once”), and life (“Ask for more. Always. Ask for more time, ask for more creativity, ask for more money”). Interview with The 99 Percent.

Interviews [in-ter-vyoos]
/// 1. The collection of knowledge from an expert in a field through a strategic series of questions.
/// 2. A look into the lives and minds of those we admire.

The best ideas, like the best song lyrics, feel familiar from the moment we encounter them. (We say, “I should have thought of that!”) The Noun Project, a growing library of free, downloadable icons symbolizing objects and concepts, feels like one of those ideas. So simple it seems obvious, and so useful you can’t believe it didn’t exist before.

Founded by the husband-and-wife team of Edward Boatman and Sofya Polyakov, along with designer Scott Thomas, The Noun Project launched in 2010 with a catalog of a few hundred icons and has since grown by leaps and bounds. New symbols are submitted daily by designers around the world, and the Noun Project team recently crowdsourced the translation of its library into 25 languages. Interview with The 99%.

Bruce Mau Design’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth states, “When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If the process drives the outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.” In other words, true creativity comes from being present (and adaptable) every step of the way. Interview with The 99%.