Here are some (mostly) design-related posts that I came across recently. Take your pick of free fonts, lightboxing of images, an easy-to-use graph visualization application, or a bit of advice to improve and protect your blog.

1. Huge font repository.
   

   Looking for some pop culture fonts? Type Now has a massive collection of over 300 fonts covering Movies + TV, Music/ Bands, Games, and Miscellaneous. Most of the downloads are TTF (TrueType Fonts), but there are a few for Mac. Keep in mind that these are only useful for your own computer, not on your website.

2. Defeating plagiarism.
   

   Andy Beard takes on the problem of plagiarism with a type of blog judo, suggesting practical ways to stop people from stealing your site content. Keep in mind, of course, that “Judo” means the gentle way. Indignation might feel justified, but it doesn’t always help.

3. Blog cliches.
   

   Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror points out thirteen cliched blog elements. There are definitely some items here that I’ve dropped from my own blogs. Visit, and consider this a checklist for your blog. My favorite is the blog calendar. Is it really any good for anything other than to remind you that you haven’t blogged in a few days?

4. Site bling: lightbox your images.
   

   If you’re running a site where you’d like to offer a lot of large format images, you might have a problem if your page theme isn’t wide enough. Instead, use a technique referred to as lightboxing, which temporarily floats an image on top of an opaque screen over your web page. [via SEOmoz]

5. Graph visualizations.
   

   Graph diagrams are not that commonly found except probably in math books, but if you’re looking for an easy way to generate and display them, check out Graph Gear. The application uses an XML file to describe connections between graph nodes, and flash logo designs to display an interactive graph. Not sure why you need to drag the graph, but if you’re frustrated, it might soothe you.