TLDR DESIGN 2024-03-20

PENTAGRAM MAKES A SPLASH WITH A FRESH REBRAND FOR THE MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM

Pentagram rebranded Monterey Bay Aquarium for its 40th anniversary. The rebranding effort created a cohesive new identity that honors the institution's past and looks to the future with an updated kelp symbol, typographic harmony, and a broader ocean-inspired color palette. It streamlined the iconic kelp symbol for scalability, incorporated typography that echoes the kelp's dynamics, and expanded beyond traditional blue to include a range of oceanic colors.

LATEST APPLE STORE REVEALS BEAUTIFUL CIRCULAR DESIGN

Apple has unveiled the newest Apple Store in Shanghai's Jing'an District, featuring a unique circular design and a curved glass facade. The Jing'an store offers an outdoor plaza for community events, an innovative interior architecture, and Apple's latest products.

NEW BANKSY MURAL IN NORTH LONDON PUTS A LITTLE GREENERY IN A DENSE NEIGHBORHOOD

Banksy has revealed a new piece of street art in Islington North, London, featuring a stencil of a person spray-painting green foliage onto a wall behind a pruned, leafless tree. The artwork, which plays on the interplay between the tree and the mural, remains in a vacant building, with the owner intending to preserve it.

HOW INSIGHT FROM NETFLIX PROFILES DOUBLED OUR CONVERSIONS

A UX case study of how Gett, a taxi booking platform, leveraged insights from Netflix to implement a profile selection feature, significantly improving user experience and doubling business conversions. The critical takeaway is not solely to seek inspiration from obvious sources but instead to think outside the box, even within everyday products that may not be directly related to your product’s natural field of activity.

INCONSISTENT CONSISTENCY WITHIN DESIGN SYSTEMS

The backbone of design systems consists of coded components, design libraries, design tokens, and guidance documents, which ensure visual, behavioral, and semantic consistency. However, consistency outside the product regarding the user's ecosystem is also possible. Problems can result when the user's ecosystem is unbalanced against internal consistency, especially for systems still at an early stage of maturity.

BUSINESS DESIGN SCHOOL: QUESTION STORMING

Like its more popular counterpart, brainstorming, question storming revolves around group collaboration to explore a topic from various angles with one goal — generating as many questions as possible. This technique harnesses the power of curiosity to promote critical thinking, gain deeper insights, and uncover hidden dimensions of a problem or topic.

GRADIENT GENERATOR (FIGMA PLUGIN)

Generate linear, radial, and conic gradients interpolated in various color spaces, yielding richer, more brilliant gradients.

BLOBMAKER

Create random, unique, and organic-looking SVG shapes. Customize the complexity and contrast of the blobs and download or copy the code.

RANDOM FACE GENERATOR

Generate a high-quality random human face with one click.

AI & DESIGN: TAKEAWAYS FROM SXSW

Notes from the Arts & Technology conference talks on AI and design: Design Against AI by John Maeda, AI + UX: Product Design for Intelligent Experiences by Ioana Teleanu, Designing Successful AI Products, Services by John Zimmerman and Nur Yildirim, Creativity in Flux: Art & Artificial Intelligence by Brooke Hopper and Debbie Millman, Designing for AI by Marco Barbosa and Hjörtur Hilmarsson, and The Great Interface Shift: Five Trends to Know in 2024 by Jake Brody.

ARTISTS SELL THEMSELVES SO CHEAP

Creative people just want to create and don't want to deal with business, contracts, or lawyers, which makes them especially vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation. It is precisely because of this that they get into trouble.

PORTFOLIO PRESENTATIONS & DESIGN WORK

Getting design done requires cross-team coordination, resource management, and buy-in. However, these aren't things you should focus on when building a portfolio. Show off the concrete things you've done and how you did them in your portfolio. Provide insight into how you make design decisions with a couple of examples. Go through the why at a high level and then the how at a low level.

THE GOAL OF A “STRATEGY” IS TO CHANGE OUR OWN TEAM’S BEHAVIOR

A well-crafted strategy should change behavior as a team and provide clear direction, goals, and priorities to create better customer outcomes and help every team member make better decisions and feel ownership and accountability for their work.

MIDJOURNEY BETS IT CAN BEAT THE COPYRIGHT POLICE

LEGO IS THE LATEST BRAND TO APOLOGIZE FOR USING AI ART

An AI-generated image was used in a Lego Ninjago-themed website quiz.