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INTERVIEWS ABOUT VISUAL DESIGN

MOVIE POSTERS WITH DALL-E 3 AI

10 THINGS NO ONE TOLD ME ABOUT DESIGN SYSTEMS

EMERGENT BEST PRACTICES IN AI-ASSISTED DESIGN AND RESEARCH

FRESH

WHAT IS DESIGN-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT?

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE ANYMORE?

NATIONWIDE REVEALS ITS BIGGEST REBRAND IN 30 YEARS

Nationwide has today unveiled its most significant rebrand in over three decades. The work by London studio New Commercial Arts is part of a drive to modernize the building society and reaffirm it being owned by members rather than shareholders. Alongside the updated visual identity, the new branding sees Nationwide promise to be “A Good Way to Bank” after research revealed 63 percent of people value their local branch, with face-to-face service given as the top answer as to why.

ADOBE RELEASED A SUPER ICON TO COMBAT MISINFORMATION

In a partnership with BBC, Adobe is rolling out an ‘icon of transparency’ that will flag if an image has been altered after its creation. The logo certifies that a media image utilizes Content Credentials, a series of open-source opt-in metadata.

USABILITYHUB REBRANDS INTO LYSSNA

UsabilityHub is now Lyssna, which means “to listen” in Swedish. The team behind Lyssna thinks that listening is the foundation of human connection and understanding so they decided it was their new mission. The rebranding comes complete with a new identity logo and new branding guidelines.

WE’RE TURNING DESIGNERS INTO FACTORY WORKERS

Considering the availability of modern tools and recent advancements in governance (design systems), one might think designers could relax and enjoy some leisure time. Surprisingly, that’s not the case. It feels like designers have even less time than before. As we’re frantically pushing toward an auto-governed future, we ought to stop and think about our purpose as designers.

USING BING CHAT FOR PRODUCT DESIGN TASKS

Bing Chat, powered by the GPT-4 model, is free and available as a sidebar in Microsoft Edge. Given how practical and effective it is, designers should explore using the tool for generating product ideas, creating user personas, learning about user pain points, and more.

HOW DUOLINGO DESIGNS PRODUCT

When it comes to learning experience, retention becomes an even more crucial aspect of product design. This post shows how Duolingo found impressive retention levels using psychology and behavioral science to keep its users learning.

STUBBORN GENERATOR

Create your illustrated story using characters, styles, scenes, and objects. This free tool offers a set of 60 characters, backgrounds, and elements that can be mixed and customized.

FRIGHTFULLY FREE FONTS: 6 GOOGLE FONTS FOR HALLOWEEN DESIGNS

These six horror-themed Google Fonts will get you covered for the Halloween season. Free for personal and commercial use, they convey the fear and suspense you need for the spookiest layouts.

GIF GENERATOR

Hotshot is a free AI tool that lets you generate GIFs from simple text prompts. The website also features a gallery with other GIFs that have been created, with their corresponding prompts.

VOICE USER INTERFACES: SEAMLESS INTERACTIONS

Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) employ speech-recognition technology that enables users to communicate via a computer, smartphone, smart speaker, or other device by using voice commands. They incorporate many recent technological advancements, including artificial intelligence technologies such as speech synthesis and automatic speech recognition. VUIs help users save time, provide similar results for multiple synonyms so users can always find what they’re looking for, and promote multitasking.

THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF PERSUASIVE DESIGN

Increasing the amount of money a user spends and decreasing the chance they are leaving empty-handed is the ultimate goal for e-commerce websites. Persuasion might compromise user autonomy since the choice architecture and visual presentation of options can lead consumers to make choices they may not otherwise have made. This causes users to feel negative emotions like shame and guilt and presents a cognitive burden as they have to exercise extreme willpower and concentration to make sensible decisions.

CURIOSITY AT THE CORE

Effective teams have as a common trait the ability to harness the strength of diverse experiences, perspectives, and personalities. This is related to a conscious effort to gain insights into individual experiences and worldviews continuously. Some practical tools include mapping individual strengths, guides to understand how each member works best, and Ikigai, a method that relies on exploring the intersection of passion, mission, vocation, and profession.

FOR ITS 50TH ANNIVERSARY

Imagined Architecture decided to give Sydney's Opera House an AI-driven facelift to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The iconic building was reimagined as if it was designed by architecture masters like Frank Lloyd Wright, Gaudí, Frank Gehry, and many other legends.

INCLUSIVE

Will & Well's new "Adaptable" collection features clothing with easy-to-use alternatives to elements such as back zips, hook-and-eye closures, armholes, and buttons. As one of the 12 design projects displayed at Singapore Design Week's Playground of Possibilities, the collection included innovations like the Two-Way blouse, which has Velcro closures on the shoulders so that a wearer with limited mobility in their arms can put it on without having to struggle with neck or armholes, and the HangLoops, which allow some people who would previously have needed assistance with their clothing to use the bathroom on their own.

WAYS

Apple engineers are now working on the next version of the Vision Pro, aiming to make it lighter and smaller so it's more comfortable. Additionally, the company is exploring ways to simplify the headset for people who wear glasses.

FIGMA LAUNCHES ZOOM APP

Figma and Figjam users will soon be able to collaborate via Zoom, removing the need to share their screens or switch tabs. The new app will be available on October 16.

VISION NEUE KLASSE OFFERS GLIMPSE OF BMW’S DESIGN FUTURE

The BMW Vision Neue Klasse concept is a retro-futuristic glimpse into BMW's electrified future, emphasizing technology, efficiency, and understated luxury. It pays homage to BMW's heritage while departing from recent bold stylings, featuring a minimalist design, a 3D-printed front grille, and a digital cabin.

DAN MALL’S 10 PRINCIPLES FOR A WORTHY DESIGN CAREER

Identify worthy goals, place bets on unfair advantages, begin with the end in mind, know when to stop, stretch and warm up, embrace the mundane, keep moving, keep asking why, grieve the end, and always be ready for the next worthy bet.

WHEN PLANNING A WORKSHOP START WITH THE STOPS

Don’t go more than an hour in a workshop without having a break. For a 90-minute workshop, have at least one 15-minute break. For a three-hour workshop, have a half-time stop for 20 minutes and at least a couple of 10-minute breaks. For a day-long workshop, start with lunch for at least 45 minutes, then have a 15-minute break in the morning and a couple of 15-minute stops through the afternoon.

THE ULTIMATE LOW-QUALITY IMAGE PLACEHOLDER TECHNIQUE

99.9% of pages on the web include at least one image. The median image weight per page landed at 881 KB in 2022, which is more than HTML, CSS, JS, and fonts combined. Users should be given something to look at while they wait for the image to arrive. The solution? Show them a low-quality image placeholder, or LQIP.

SERVICES

This is a collection of design principles for the creation of ethically humane digital products and services. The website also features resources like books, videos, and podcasts to increase your awareness of how design decisions affect users' lives.

PALETTE GENERATOR + API FOR TAILWIND CSS

Fast-track the creation of new palettes from just a single Hex value. Based on Tailwind’s color system, Palette Generator provides 11 color steps and controls for adjusting hue, saturation, and lightness values. Any single or set of palettes can also be queried via the API.

GODLY

Beautiful web design inspiration. This gallery can be filtered by categories such as large type, animation, minimal, illustrative, interactive, scrolling animation, portfolio, agency, and dark.

HOW CREATIVITY CHANGES AS WE AGE

Aging affects creatives' outputs. But in what ways? This article charts the decades of an artist's life and how age changes creativity.

THE FUTURE OF UX DESIGN: EMPOWERED BY AI AND ML

Artificial intelligence and machine learning dramatically transform UX design. As designers embrace both, they can create hyperpersonalized experiences, anticipate user needs, recognize emotions, and create sophisticated voice and gesture user interfaces.

WHERE DOES DREAMWEAVER FIT IN MODERN WEB DESIGN?

Dreamweaver has long been a staple for web designers. The trailblazing tool was first released in 1997 by Macromedia. Does it still have a future? Dreamweaver hasn’t released an update since June 2022, and the competition isn’t standing still. Other code editors have long since surpassed Dreamweaver — they do a better job of integrating with modern frameworks and they are typically more flexible.

HOW TO SEE BEAUTY

It can be hard to process true beauty and even harder to decide how to capture its essence. This article outlines a sequence of steps to draw the essential aspects of the things that inspire you.

GOOD MOVIES AS OLD BOOKS

This ongoing personal project reinvents iconic films as vintage books.

OF THE BRANDS

The sbubby subreddit features cleverly modified logos, including those of well-known companies. The community’s top picks bring the funniest redesigns, mainly based on how people perceive them.

MEET THE NEW WEBFLOW

Webflow is rolling out a new logo and a revamped brand identity. The new logo was inspired by the core building blocks of the web — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The branding update follows a series of product enhancements announced at the company's annual event, Webflow Conf 2023.

HOW TO USE THE NEW MESSAGES FEATURES IN IOS 17

iOS 17 brings several new features to Messages, including automatic transcription of audio messages, the Check-In feature for sharing ETA with contacts, improved search with multiple filters, and better organization of apps within Messages. It also introduces a convenient arrow to resume conversations where you left off, simplified location sharing with real-time updates, and the ability to automatically delete verification codes for added security.

ITS PRODUCTS

Project Stardust is the codename for a new object-aware editing engine that automatically identifies individual objects in regular images, allowing them to be easily moved around and changed. A video included in the post demonstrates how the tool identifies objects as if they had been separated using Photoshop’s lasso tool, giving users the option of manipulating them as if they were stored on a separate layer.

EMBRACE THEM

A leaked internal memo from Shopify's CEO shows the company is tightening its employee side projects policy. According to the document, the behavior prevents employees from thinking and acting like founders. However, side projects can be one of the most effective ways of developing precisely that mindset.

DESIGN AS CRAFT IS OVER

UI kits, ready-made design systems, and recent leaps forward in AI have been pushing design work toward curation and direction rather than creation. Design has become efficient and faster, and market expectations have followed. We need to adapt accordingly.

FROM TEMPLATE TO ATOMS

People might interpret the five stages of atomic design as a sequence, but that's a mistake. Atomic design is a mental model that provides a structure to navigate between the parts and the whole of our UIs. That's precisely why it can not be a linear process.

ANIMATED BACKGROUNDS

Check out this fantastic collection of looping 4K video backgrounds. The backgrounds are free to download and use under the Creative Commons license.

A GOOGLE FONT DESIGNED FOR AUGMENTED REALITY ENVIRONMENTS

AR One Sans is a new font on Google Fonts designed for AR environments. The type family has low contrast, generous spacing, and robust shapes, making it work well in busy backgrounds and keeping high readability.

MINIMAL GALLERY

A curation of beautiful, minimal, and functional websites.

THE ELIZA EFFECT: WHY WE LOVE AI

The ELIZA effect is when users quickly attribute human-like characteristics to artificial systems that reflect their personality. Such an effect might lead users to develop feelings towards AI agents. However, the semblance of humanity may keep users from realizing how to get the most use out of a product.

SPECULATIVE DESIGN: POWERING PRODUCT DIRECTION WITH IMAGINATION

Speculative design emphasizes narratives and exploring the potential or consequences of ideas. To come up with breakthrough concepts, speculative design proposes moving away from conventional assumptions and safe thinking.

HERE’S SOME FEEDBACK ON YOUR FEEDBACK

“The feedback framework” asks three questions to help get more meaningful feedback: What’s working? What’s not working? What’s on your wishlist? The first question prevents people from giving only negative feedback, the second question should be used for prioritizing the most pressing things, and the third question should focus on the ideal outcome. They can be used for getting feedback on work or people.

FURTHER

X has launched a new preview format for posted links in the past week that removes headlines and subheaders and displays only an article's header image framed by a watermark. The change introduced many accessibility issues, especially for those who use assistive technologies like screen readers and VoiceOver.

ARTISTS

A new AI tool by Getty Images uses only licensed data and will gradually reward creators as the platform grows. Getty Images CEO Craig Peters believes in building generative AI models in ways that respect the intellectual property rights of artists and creators.