#design (850 links)
- Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting to Look the Same laurenleek.substack.com
A world that keeps removing the unlikely also removes the things that could have become the next likely. Ecologists have known this for a long time already and even priced it: they call it the insurance value of biodiversity, the standing reserve of rare species that cost energy and contribute nothing, until the climate shifts and one of them turns out to be what survives. A monoculture is efficient right up until the weather changes.
AI is the best thing that ever happened to a company like ours. Not because it changes what we believe, but because it stops us having to compromise. The reason we couldn't stay small, flat and senior at enterprise scale was that making at that scale needs bodies. Now, it doesn’t.
- Claude Design Is Not a Design Systems Tool. That's Okay. southleft.substack.com
Claude Design isn’t a Figma killer, and I don’t think it’s trying to be. It’s a different tool, pointing at a different problem, and most of the loud takes claiming otherwise haven’t actually used it for design systems work.
- An appreciation for (technical) architecture interconnected.org
How do we make libraries that agents love?
- Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green bethmathews.substack.com
- BOB Design | Orms bobdesign.co.uk
- Detail · Where craft lives detail.design
A collection of small details that make a big difference.
- It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons tonsky.me
I hope this article would be helpful in avoiding common mistakes in icon design, which Apple managed to collect all in one OS release. I love computers, I love interfaces, I love visual communication. It makes me sad seeing perfectly good knowledge already accessible 30 years ago being completely ignored or thrown away today.
A rant, but a completely justified one.
- Notification messaging | Primer primer.style
Picking a notification message for an experience can be tricky. Reference this flowchart to help pick the best component for your feature. For more nuanced scenarios, reach out to the Primer team.
Wonderful flowchart on this page.
- Extended Collections are here. And you can’t have them designsystemscollective.com
- False Tokens | Figma figma.com
False Tokens helps maintain design system consistency by instantly finding elements that aren't using design tokens.
Thanks James,
- Decentralizing quality matthewstrom.com
Why moving judgment to the edges wins in the long run
- Interview with demoscener – 0b5vr 6octaves.com
- Logo Modernism - TASCHEN Books taschen.com
Examine the distillation of modernism in graphic design with this vast collection of approximately 6,000 logos from 1940–1980. Ranging from media outfits to retail giants, airlines to art galleries, these clean, clear visual concepts may be seen as the visual birth of corporate identity.
A showcase of the finest logos, symbols & trademarks
Seems to have some relation to the Logo Modernism book.
- “Fun fatigue – is formality returning in branding?” designweek.co.uk
- The history of album art matthewstrom.com
User journeys should be managed like products — by people and teams with specialized, journey-dedicated roles who continually research, measure, optimize, and orchestrate the experience.
- Come to the light-dark() Side css-tricks.com
Dark mode interfaces have matured a lot in the past few years. We all know the "traditional" approach using media queries but in this article, Sara Joy demonstrates modern CSS features that make respecting user color scheme preferences pretty darn easy.
- Reel talk: the power of branded motion design offbrandkoto.substack.com
Superb primer on motion design.
In this video, I cover why this "cluttered and weird" design is necessary, how physical space correlates with Chinese software design, why Chinese users might prefer mobile over desktop altogether, and how all of this impacts us.
- WhoCanUse whocanuse.com
A tool that brings attention and understanding to how color contrast can affect different people with visual impairments.
- Making numbers more accessible gerireid.com
How to design for people with dyscalculia.
- Successful iteration requires going beyond agile uxdesign.cc
UX methods are cheaper, faster, and better at gathering data than “build, measure, learn” — but they don’t work inside agile development.
Most agile is incremental delivery of a pre-selected way.
- Subcomponents. Relinquish control, offer parts, and… | by Nathan Curtis | EightShapes | Medium medium.com
For most design systems, solving for every feature to support every case is a fool’s errand. Yet, design system practitioners cringe when a designer detaches a Figma component or developer codes a component from scratch.
Another classic from Nathan
- The Sound of Software notboring.software
When done right, sound unlocks a path to much richer software experiences
- SCREEN SIZE MAP » Compare viewport sizes screensizemap.com
- Clear Off the Table darkhorseanalytics.com
In the gif below we start with a table formatted similar to one of Excel's many styling options which, much like the chart styles, do nothing to improve the table. Progressive deletions and some reorganization deliver a clearer and more compelling picture.
- The radical simplicity of GOV.UK’s logo public.digital
With a single logo, all that has to be done when departments change is an edit to the html of the relevant section of GOV.UK. This change is so mundane it attracts no scrutiny, even in the most turbulent political contexts. No drama, just a simple code change, as it should be.
- Marimekko Maripedia marimekko.com
Since the early 1950s, Marimekko designers have created some 3,500 prints. At the moment, the number of patterns in Maripedia is limited. We’re constantly adding more designs to our virtual print library.
- Companies Using RFCs or Design Docs and Examples of These blog.pragmaticengineer.com
Or, if you want to put it into more practical language: simply spend 3x more on design and branding than any of your competitors.
- LukeW | Different Gets Ignored lukew.com
Instead of making elements visually distinct to be noticed, designers should focus on integrating important elements seamlessly into the user interface. This ensures that crucial actions and information are perceived as part of the overall user experience, rather than distractions to be dismissed.
- Visual design rules you can safely follow every time anthonyhobday.com
- The Aesthetic-Usability Effect nngroup.com
Users are more tolerant of minor usability issues when they find an interface visually appealing. This aesthetic-usability effect can mask UI problems during usability testing. Identify instances of the aesthetic-usability effect in your user research by watching what your users do, as well as listening to what they say.