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Admit it. Your seven-year-old nephew could out-HTML tag you any day and you think that a Cascading Style Sheet is something with a thread count. That’s where the mediabistro.com mothership comes in. They’ve asked us to tell you about the upcoming online course in HTML Fundamentals. Over four fun-filled weeks, web designer (and illustrator) Laura Galbraith will guide you through a variety of web page production techniques, from column-based layouts and search engine optimization to semantic markup and advanced CSS styles. And you’re bound to ace the Photoshop and typography sections. The online learning fun begins on March 22, and by Celebrity Apprentice star George Takei‘s birthday (April 20), you’ll have brought a pre-designed webpage to life through the magic of HTML. Preview the course syllabus and register here.

Rare seems the day when the new-branding-to-pick-on-du-jour was designed by one of the world’s most popular and celebrated firms. However, even Pentagram appears not to be safe when it comes to catching the ire the internet and society as a whole seems to have for Microsoft. Just before the weekend, both Pentagram and the software giant unveiled the latest logo update for the new version of its soon-to-be-released Windows operating system. Designed by Pentagram partner and industry legend, Paula Scher, it continues Microsoft’s decades-old trend of slowly moving into more simplicity (some would say despite itself). A blue window, angled on its Y-axis, with type of the same color announcing simply, “Windows 8.” But many critics just weren’t having any of it. Forbes‘ E.D. Kain picked it apart, as did even Armin Vit, who once held a job at Pentagram no less and who said the window looks like “a window in a $400-a-month studio apartment rental with beige carpeting and plastic drapes“. Still, it wasn’t all detractors. PCMag offers up this nice recap of who loved it and who hated it, which provides a nice outline for how this latest war over a new logo has shaped up thus far. And now, of course, it’s up to you to make up your mind. We’ll be eager to hear what you have to think in the comments.

The visual savants over at the Society of Publication Designers won’t announce the winners of their annual awards bonanza—now in its 47th year—until May 11, at a fancy bash at Cipriani in New York. However, the judging wrapped up last weekend, with co-chairs Luke Hayman, Richard Turley, and Jeremy Leslie overseeing the print judging, Scher Foord and Joe Zeff supervising the digital judging, and Robert Newman chairing the Magazine of the Year competiton. Foord, Zeff, and their trusty five-member jury were particularly busy, having been deluged with a record number of digital submissions. Not only did they get through all of the entries, but they lived to tell about it. In this video by Joe Zeff Design, judges Mike Burgess (Beattie McGuinness Bungay), Neil Jamieson (Money), Steve Motzenbecker (NYmag.com), Josh Clark (author of Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps), and Marisa Gallagher (CNN Digital) reveal what they liked most in the entries they reviewed and what it all means for the publishing business.

Here are two things we didn’t know up until just a second ago: 1) that musician and longtime New Yorker, Moby, is now living in Los Angeles (apparently we must’ve missed this NY Times profile on the castle he bought in the Hollywood Hills), and 2) that, as of last week, he’s recently started a new architecture blog, the perhaps over-aptly named Moby Los Angeles Architecture Blog. Thus far, it isn’t the sort of site that you’ll glean a lot of factual information from, not even such info as who the architect was who built the building he’s profiling on that day. Instead, his very well-made photos are accompanied by leisurely thoughts on Los Angeles’ architecture (all residential thus far) and where that building-of-the-day seems to fit within the city. It’s certainly an interesting, somewhat meditative departure from our usual architectural reads, but we’ve already bookmarked it and are already awaiting more. Here’s a bit of the description of his new site from his first post:

a daily (or weekly) collection of some of the random and strange and banal and beautiful architecture i see in l.a. most cities have beautiful architecture. but most cities have beautiful architecture that is prominently displayed and relatively easy to find (think: chrysler building, sacre couer, st peters, sydney opera house, etc). one of the very odd things about l.a is that the most beautiful architecture in l.a is hidden on tiny streets that very few people will ever see. and the architecture in l.a is, generally, of a very domestic and modest scale (probably facilitating it’s strangeness).

Get ready for MOCA TV! The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles has teamed with YouTube to create a new video channel for fresh contemporary art and culture programming. The online programming venture, part of YouTube’s new original programming push, is expected to debut in July with an identity designed by L.A.-based Studio Number One. “Contemporary art is the new international language, unifying leading creators across art, music, fashion, film, and design,” said MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch, who has always struck us as a natural VJ. “MOCA TV will be the ultimate digital extension of the museum, aggregating, curating, and generating the strongest artistic content from around the world for a new global audience of people who are engaged in visually oriented culture.” Slated for the MOCA TV line-up? Global art news briefs, programs focused on the latest collaborative projects (art and music, art and fashion), looks inside artists’ studios, the street art beat (natch), and an interactive education series called MOCA University. The musem has tapped social media company theAudience to help get the word out about MOCA TV as the launch approaches.

Last spring, an out-of-this-world drawing by seven-year-old Matteo Lopez triumphed over 107,000 other entries to win Google’s annual contest to redesign its homepage logo. Now Crayola and the New York Public Library are in on the Doodle 4 Google fun as partners in the contest, which this year challenges K-12 students nationwide to doodle around the theme “If I could travel in time, I’d visit…” (Google headquarters would probably be too on the nose). Pop songstress Katy Perry and author/illustrator Mo Willems (Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!) are among the guest judges, who will evaluate top entries from all 50 states on criteria including artistic merit, creativity, and representation of the theme. So what’s in store for the winner, besides a one-day spotlight on the Google homepage and a swarm of media attention? Google will give the champion doodler a $30,000 college scholarship, a $50,000 technology grant for his or her school, and a trip to New York, among other goodies. And Crayola’s upping the ante with its promise to put the winning artwork on a limited-edition 64-box of crayons. Pass the Burnt Sienna! Get all the details and start feeding your children (or any children, for that matter) “ideas”, because entries are due by March 23.

The design whizzes over at C&G Partners have many talents, but among the most mind-blowing is their ability to transform grayish-yellowish mountains of historical documents and artifacts into visually stunning, user-friendly exhibits and displays. Feast your eyes (and your web browser) on their latest archival triumph: a website for The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta. A C&G team led by partner Maya Kopytman (working in collaboration with Chicago-based web development firm Palantir) created a site that builds on the graphic identity established for a related traveling exhibition that the firm completed last year. At the core of the site, which launched yesterday, is a new digital archive for The King Center Imaging Project, a JPMorgan Chase & Co.-backed initiative to “bring the works and papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. to a digital generation.” Browse the archive to pore over King’s handwritten notecards and telegrams or zoom in on a Flip Schulke photo of MLK enjoying lunch with his family in 1964, under the watchful gaze of Ghandi, whose image hangs on a wall above them. Next up: more meticulously scanned and eminently searchable letters, speeches, drafts, notes, and photos. The King Center Imaging Project digital archive will eventually contain about a million documents.

Ready to get serious about that new year’s resolution to “harness the power of social media for fun and profit, but mostly profit”? Prepare to fall out for mediabistro.com’s Social Media Boot Camp, an online conference-cum-workshop that kicks off on February 16. Tomorrow, which also happens to be the 229th birthday of social media pioneer Daniel Webster, is the last day to take advantage of the early bird discount and save on an eight-week program that includes keynote speeches, live interviews, and practical how-to sessions led by social media gurus including Michael Brito (Edelman Digital), Morin Oluwole (Facebook), and Leslie Bradshaw (JESS3). Learn more and register here.

Last July, after the freshly launched design flash sale site Fab.com had landed its first round of venture funding (a cool $8 million, led by Menlo Ventures), founder Jason Goldberg touted the site’s diverse mix of merch, from chairs and stationery to bikes and biscotti. There was just one category he said that the company would steer clear of: fashion. “We don’t have any ambition in the fashion category,” Goldberg told Venturebeat, in what sounded like an attempt to differentiate his site from the flash-sale fray (read: Gilt Groupe). “That’s more about liquidation; our model is more about opening a new channel for suppliers.” Five months and $40 million in Series B funding later, Fab.com has flip-flopped on fashion and acquired FashionStake, which launched in the fall of 2010 as a kind of Kickstarter-style fundraising platform for independent fashion designers and evolved into an Etsy-like marketplace for their wares. “We’re going to do the exact same thing we’ve done with design products to fashion,” wrote Goldberg today in a blog post announcing the deal. “Make no mistake, we’re keenly aware that there are plenty of sites that sell high-end fashion for a discount. That’s not Fab. We’re doing fashion the Fab way; designed to make you smile.” Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but FashionStake founders Vivian Weng and Daniel Gulati will be joining Fab.com. According to Weng and Gulati, FashionStake will relaunch on Fab.com in mid-February.

The new, even-numbered year is upon us and with it a new world design capital: Helsinki (along with the Finnish cities of Espoo, Vantaa, Lahti, and Kauniainen). Following in the footsteps of Turin (World Design Capital 2008) and Seoul (2010), Helsinki kicked off its year-long designfest with a “New Year’s Eve of Design” bash in the capital city’s Senate Square and is now getting down to business with a slate of 300 events, projects, and initiatives that “explore the benefits and value of design, and showcase the various ways it can improve all of our lives.” Meanwhile, the organizers are working to improve visitors’ experiences with a mobile app. Launched today and developed in collaboration with Fjord, the WDC 2012 app provides on-the-go access to the program of events, related news, and a map, all in your choice of Finnish, Swedish, or English. So whether you want to doublecheck the dates of the Lapland Snow Design Event (read: igloo-building competition) or browse a listing of related events around the world, there’s an app for that—and, in keeping with the WDC theme of “Open Helsinki,” the app is free and available on four platforms: Meego, iOS, Symbian, and Android.

Got an app we should know about? Drop us a line at unbeige@mediabistro.com