Newsletter 115
Hola.
I hope you are reading this newsletter enjoying a few days of vacation. Or that you do it around the same, having rested. Or not.
Last week the news broke where you could read that the Domestika company was planning to lay off a large part of its team to replace them with AI tools (read article in Spanish). Many of you know that I was one of the group of founders of what was originally Domestika and of which hardly a trace remains in what it is today.
That's why when I read news like this I can also say that I'm not surprised, because management has been doing this type of practice for many years.
Whenever they ask me about my time at Domestika, I answer that it has been one of the most exciting and, at the same time, one of the hardest, on a personal level. And although I have not had any relationship with the company for almost 13 years, I follow the news around them from a distance.
It is in the hands of the users that they place their trust, and their money, in this type of company. They don't care about design, creativity or knowledge sharing values. They just want to make money. A lot of money. Yours. It's up to you to give it to him or not.
I have it clear.
P.D. By the way, today is my birthday ;)
â W.
đ The links
Ways to use AI in product design today
AI text-to-image tools can feel âmagicalâ at first glance, but have many problematic aspects in their data sourcing and implementation right now that require solutions (and law updates) to make them more ethical and viable to use for commercial work. If you are happy avoiding producing full-blown illustrations with these tools, there are plenty of more ethical, smaller ways to include them in your process for product or web design.The Problem with Web Design Trends: Why Following Them Blindly Can Hurt Your Business
Web design trends come and go. Some trends stick around for a while, while others quickly fade into obscurity. As a business owner or web developer, jumping on the latest trend bandwagon is tempting. However, blindly following web design trends can cause more harm than good.
Is the minimalist logo trend destroying brands?
Anyone keeping an eye on logo design over the past few years may have noticed a certain trend. Logos have been getting simpler, flatter and more minimalist. For many, this makes sense. A simple logo is easy to recall and it has the flexibility to work in small digital uses such as in favicons and app icons.ÂModern iOSÂ Navigation Patterns
This page collects all the familiar navigation patterns for structuring iOS apps, like drill-downs, modals, pyramids, sequences, and more! Think of it as an unofficial bonus chapter for Appleâs Human Interface Guidelines, written by someone who cares deeply about well-crafted user interfaces.2023 Design in Tech Report: Design and Artificial Intelligence
John Maeda, Design in Tech Report. Design trends revolutionizing the entrepreneurial and corporate ecosystems in tech. Related M&A activity, new patterns in creativity Ă business, and the rise of computational design.
Fun, backed up with structures: Qian Sun reflects on Paul Randâs legacy
One of the worldâs most renowned graphic designers and the TDC medalist of 1984, Paul Rand believed that everything is design, and that design in turn serves as a timeless universal language through its simplicity and geometrical nature.Is graphic design becoming more crafty?
You could pin our growing appetite for analogue graphic design down to a few things. Perhaps itâs a kick back against the rise of sleek digital 3D work, an interest in left field artistic processes, or perhaps in materials related to our childhood â clay, Lego, or even blow pens â appearing in a more refined setting. Whatever the reason, a number of our most-read graphic design stories of 2022 were about designers embracing analogue approaches, including a story about the designer Emma Bers using Play Doh to produce music posters.Bounce, rock, skate, roll
While Chicago deserves its props as the birthplace of skating for Black America, it was in New York where it transcended its role as a pastime to become a cultural force. However, the skate sceneâs interaction with dance culture and its inspiration to the disco underground during the roller-disco boom of the 1970s has been largely unrecognized, except by those who floated across the hallowed wooden floors.The Cost of Craft
Why is it so hard to do great work at scale?The creative cold start problem
Problems of starting and how you might unblock them.MIMS Guest Mix: New Regency Orchestra (TRC + ÂĄCOMO NO! / London, UK)
Shapefest
A massive library of free 3D illustrations for your works.Artificial Digging: How Google's AI Now Reveals What Producers Sampled
The days of hidden samples are over. A community of sample hunters discovered a smart way to utilize Google Assistant's song recognition to excavate samples. Even chops less than a second long aren't safely camouflaged from that. Samples on Daft Punk's 'Discovery' album and from classics by Mobb Deep, Nujabes, and Madlib, among others that were unknown for over two decades were found this way for the very first time.