The hottest Design Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways

The Frustrating Bias Against Strut-leg Chairs

The American Peasant • 2395 implied HN points • 31 Oct 24

Strut-leg chairs are simpler to build and use less material, making them efficient for craftspeople.
They are easier to repair compared to chairs with stretchers, needing only minor adjustments instead of full disassembly.
Strut-leg chairs have a unique visual appeal and can sometimes actually be stronger than traditional chairs with stretchers.

Black & White Furniture Finishes

The American Peasant • 1836 implied HN points • 30 Oct 24

🪑 Design Furniture Techniques Materials Artistry

Using wood bleach can make wood really light. It's not the same as the bleach for clothes, and it works well for making furniture look bright.
India ink is great for making wood black. It dries fast and won't fade, making it a sturdy choice for darker finishes.
Finishing with wax can add a nice shine to the wood. It doesn’t change the color, but it gives the surface a smooth and polished look.

Intent by Discovery: Designing the AI User Experience

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 56 implied HN points • 26 Mar 26

🪑 Design UX Interaction Usability HCI AI Design Product Design

AI shifts users from operators to supervisors, so interfaces must let people state outcomes, set constraints and permissions, and then clearly show what the system plans and why.
UX needs a new stack and metrics: build an intent surface, an orchestration/audit layer, and a direct-manipulation fallback, and measure success by intent-capture, evaluability, and trust calibration rather than clicks or speed.
The future is exploration not typing: support discovery by letting users navigate latent solution spaces with multimodal curation, spatial maps, Socratic questioning, and subtractive editing, while keeping users engaged to avoid cognitive atrophy.

An indigenous nation just built a better city than California Forever

The Novelleist • 162 implied HN points • 12 Mar 26

🪑 Design Urbanism City Planning Architecture Housing Governance Public Finance

We should build more cities, but they must be designed to benefit residents, not just developers or outside investors.
The ideal new city needs real fiscal power — the authority to raise and keep its own revenue so it can fund services and long-term planning.
That fiscal power must actually flow back to residents; real-world examples like indigenous-led towns and autonomous regions show cities can return value to people instead of outside shareholders.

The SwiftUI Design System War: Composition vs Progressive Disclosure

Jacob’s Tech Tavern • 1530 implied HN points • 17 Mar 26

🪑 Design UI UX Systems Components Patterns Tools

There are two main ways to build a SwiftUI design system: idiomatic view composition and a progressive-disclosure style that centralizes options into simpler initializers.
Progressive disclosure can be pragmatic for large projects because it reduces API surface and makes components easier to use, even though it departs from SwiftUI conventions.
Pick the approach that fits your team and project scale, weighing the trade-offs between idiomatic composition and pragmatic simplicity.

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Hysteresis: The Reason Wood Movement Ain’t Such a Big Deal

The American Peasant • 2335 implied HN points • 20 Oct 24

🪑 Design Furniture Craftsmanship Woodworking Sustainability Materials

Wood can swell and shrink, but it often moves less than expected due to something called hysteresis. This means you might worry too much about how much your wood will move.
Using flexible glues and ductile nails can help furniture withstand wood movement over time. These materials allow parts to adjust without falling apart.
Many traditional furniture designs were made with wood movement in mind. This means older pieces often handle changes in humidity better than you might think.

The story of Sublime's logo

The Sublime Newsletter • 534 implied HN points • 26 Oct 24

🪑 Design Graphic design Branding User Experience Creative Process

Logos represent more than their appearance. They carry deeper meanings that connect with feelings and ideas, like innovation or nostalgia.
Choosing a designer that breaks the mold can lead to unique and creative outcomes. Sometimes the riskier choice is to step outside the norm.
The journey of creating something, like a logo, is just as important as the final product. It's about collaboration, sharing ideas, and making something beautiful together.

The IBX could be the start of an outer borough transit renaissance

Urben Field Notes • 124 implied HN points • 17 Mar 26

🪑 Design Urban Design Infrastructure Mobility Land use

The IBX will create a new 14-mile orbital light-rail across Brooklyn and Queens that shortens cross-borough trips, serves subway deserts, and offers faster, high-ridership transit for many neighborhoods.
How useful the line is will hinge on transfer quality, train speed and frequency (including possible automation), and better connecting services like more frequent LIRR trains to avoid new congestion.
The IBX could spark major neighborhood development and reshape regional travel patterns, but those broader benefits require zoning changes and additional complementary transit investments.

Exeter Update (More Hammers Tomorrow)

The American Peasant • 2275 implied HN points • 10 Oct 24

🪑 Design Furniture Crafting Woodworking DIY Tools

Making furniture, like chairs, is a skill that improves with time and practice.
The process of creating Exeter hammers has many steps, and they are still working on refining it.
Even simple tasks in woodworking can have complexities that require experimentation and learning.

Earlywood: Making Things Hard/Easy

The American Peasant • 1796 implied HN points • 12 Oct 24

🪑 Design Product Design Industrial Design Graphic design UI/UX Design Fashion & Design

The balance between making tasks hard or easy can impact productivity. If a task is too hard, people may give up, but if it's too easy, they might lose interest.
Finding the right level of challenge can help improve skills and keep people engaged. It's important to push yourself just enough without overwhelming yourself.
Understanding how to adjust difficulty levels can lead to better learning experiences. When tasks are balanced, it encourages growth and motivation.

Joe Gebbia Is Making the Government Beautiful Again

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1205 implied HN points • 04 Mar 26

🪑 Design Digital Design Product Design Service Design Civic Tech

Joe Gebbia, the Airbnb co-founder, has moved to Washington to serve as the U.S. Chief Design Officer and launched the National Design Studio.
He’s applying product and design methods to redesign federal websites and services, and has built platforms like TrumpRx and Tech Force to make government tools easier to use and to recruit tech talent.
This design-led push is changing how the government presents policy and programs, updating things like nutrition guidance and retirement information to be more modern and user-focused.

Cities should own their land—like Vienna and Amsterdam

The Novelleist • 184 implied HN points • 02 Mar 26

🪑 Design Urbanism City Planning Housing policy Architecture

When a city keeps ownership of its land, it can treat that land as a permanent public asset instead of selling it off, allowing long-term planning and control.
Progressive property taxes tied to rents and apartment size can generate steady revenue that cities can immediately invest in large-scale housing and public infrastructure.
Public land ownership makes it possible to build master-planned neighborhoods with housing plus shared amenities like courtyards, laundries, childcare, and healthcare, producing more stable and higher-quality living for residents.

What Exact Products Do Games Sell, Two Case Studies

The Bottom Feeder • 897 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26

🪑 Design Game design Product Strategy User Experience Retention

Games sell specific player experiences — measurable brain effects like dopamine, adrenaline-based reflex tests, thoughtful stimulation, art, or simply the feeling of time well spent.
Elden Ring exemplifies selling a focused product: intense, reflex-driven combat that is preserved by avoiding easy modes and by streamlining anything that distracts from that core experience.
Silksong illustrates selling extra "time-devouring" value alongside action, adding padding that some players see as good value and others find tedious, so designers must know which customers and experiences they’re targeting.

Disney World has more autonomy than any US city

The Novelleist • 260 implied HN points • 26 Feb 26

🪑 Design Urban planning Governance Infrastructure Transportation Architecture Public Policy Land use

EPCOT was meant to be a real, master-planned city with affordable homes, monorail commutes, lots of green space, and pedestrian-first design—not just another theme park.
Disney treated Disneyland as a live lab for advanced transit, robotics, crowd flows, and pristine urban design that planners and transit agencies studied and admired.
By buying vast contiguous land and creating the Reedy Creek Improvement District, Disney gained near-sovereign powers to run roads, utilities, public safety, transit, waste, and even issue bonds—more autonomy than most U.S. cities.

Don’t Design for Average Users

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 48 implied HN points • 19 Mar 26

🪑 Design UX Product Interaction User Research Analytics Monetization

The arithmetic average lies in digital products because usage is heavily skewed: a small P95/P99 group often creates most of the value while the median user is usually a low-contribution "tourist."
You must design two experiences: a ruthlessly simple, friction-free on‑ramp for P50 tourists, and deep, uncapped, high‑performance tools (APIs, macros, shortcuts) for P95 whales, revealed via progressive disclosure.
Track the full distribution (P25/P50/P75/P95/P99) and the P95/P50 ratio to guide pricing, retention, and roadmap choices, and focus resources on protecting and growing the high-value tail.

Why Skyscrapers Became Glass Boxes

Construction Physics • 59712 implied HN points • 13 Jan 25

🪑 Design Architecture Urban planning Real Estate Construction Aesthetics

Skyscrapers today are mostly glass boxes because they are cheaper and easier to build. This style lets developers create more usable space while saving on construction costs.
Real estate developers play a huge role in deciding how a skyscraper looks. They focus on what will make money, often opting for simpler designs that meet tenant needs but lack ornamentation.
Our interest in building design shapes what gets built. While many developers prefer beautiful designs, the market often pushes for simpler, more modern aesthetics that make financial sense.

How to Run a UX Design Critique

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 75 implied HN points • 12 Mar 26

🪑 Design UX User Research Process Facilitation Collaboration Tools Prioritization AI

Run critiques as a structured, time-boxed process: define roles, set scope and a facilitator, share context at least 24 hours before, and use silent feedback plus a note-taker to keep the meeting focused and psychologically safe.
Make feedback problem-focused and evidence-based. Avoid taste-based comments, solutionizing, and bikeshedding; use formats like “I like / I wish / What if” and synthesize comments with affinity mapping to create clear issues to act on.
Close the loop with prioritization, documentation, and tooling. Score issues with Impact/Effort or RICE, publish action items within 24 hours, and use AI and collaboration tools to help prep, synthesize async feedback, and learn from past crits.

How malls can become the midtowns of the future

Urben Field Notes • 205 implied HN points • 19 Feb 26

🪑 Design Urban Design Architecture City Planning Real Estate Public Space Transit

Transforming dying malls and office parks into mixed-use, transit-connected neighborhoods can create new midtowns or metroburbs with homes, shops, offices, and public spaces that are walkable.
The postwar move to car-oriented strip malls and isolated office campuses destroyed the old urban mix and proximity; redeveloping these sites is a chance to restore walkability and everyday urban life.
Cities must shape these projects with public streets and parks, varied architecture, limits on bulky buildings, and strong transit links so they don’t become bland, privately controlled places.

The Architecture Of Ideas

Adjacent Possible • 506 implied HN points • 03 Feb 26

🪑 Design Creative Process Workflows Knowledge Management Writing Craft Research tools

Curating a notebook or collection is itself a creative act: assembling sources, visuals, and artifacts turns research into an exhibit that shapes how ideas are discovered and shared.
A creative environment is broad and intentional: physical spaces, digital tools, rituals, and social networks all act as infrastructure that helps capture slow hunches and produce serendipitous idea collisions.
Practical workflows and rules make long-form thinking possible: capture systems, movable-text tools, editing habits, and AI-assisted research help organize messy fragments so you can surface ideas you wouldn’t have found otherwise.

The crit is the product

Kathy PM • 13 implied HN points • 19 Mar 26

🪑 Design Product Design UX Design process AI Tools Collaboration

Design agents should do more than follow orders; they need to challenge assumptions, ask clarifying questions, and push back like a good design crit.
Tools should offer separate modes: a fast obedient execution mode for production tasks, and a slower, conversational crit mode that is opinionated and willing to interrupt.
To reach that crit-level value, agents must act like designers—investigating users, analyzing problems, bringing references, and reframing solutions rather than only generating visuals.

The Capability Maturity Model for AI in Design

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 63 implied HN points • 05 Mar 26

🪑 Design UX Product Design AI Design Prototyping Leadership Ethics

AI design maturity is framed as six progressive levels that cover leadership, strategy, culture, enablement, automation, and product design, and organizations must climb them one step at a time.
As AI matures the designer’s role shifts from creating pixels to curating and governing systems, so teams must design for probabilistic outputs, trust, refusal patterns, and continuous runtime adaptation.
The model is a practical self‑assessment and roadmap: invest in the specific capabilities of your current level to unlock the next, treating Level 5 as a realistic target today and Level 6 as a longer‑term stretch goal.

SimParkingLot is no fun

Urben Field Notes • 448 implied HN points • 12 Jan 26

🪑 Design Urban planning Architecture Transportation Infrastructure Land use Public Policy Zoning

American parking rules have produced an enormous supply of parking—about two billion spaces—and that land use eats up more area than entire states.
Parking minimums are often arbitrary, copied from other places, or set for rare peak days, which leads cities to require far more parking than is actually needed and shapes what developments are possible.
The net effect is a car‑centered, asphalt‑dominated built environment where buildings are surrounded by parking, making walkable, lively neighborhoods difficult to create.

American Sprawl and Dutch Neighborhoods

Erik Examines • 492 implied HN points • 01 Jan 26

🪑 Design Urbanism Urban planning Transportation Public Space Cycling Housing

Dutch suburbs pack more people into smaller private spaces but make up for it with lots of nearby public green areas and local amenities, while many American suburbs have large private yards but little shared public space.
Extensive, safe bike infrastructure lets people of all ages get around easily by bike, which gives daily exercise and independence and reduces the need for a car.
Countryside near Dutch towns is close, walkable, and full of reachable destinations like tea houses and historic sites, whereas much of the American countryside is farther away, less walkable, and usually requires driving and planning to enjoy.

Let Cities Build Utopia—new drop!

The Novelleist • 86 implied HN points • 10 Feb 26

🪑 Design Urbanism City Planning Architecture Infrastructure Housing policy Governance

A long, deeply researched essay about the future of cities is being released as a print pamphlet, digital pamphlet, and audio essay and will be serialized across free and paid installments.
Common models for “cities of the future”—autocratic, corporate, special zones, and charter projects—aren’t true utopias; the research shows companies, investors, island/counties, and tribes have sometimes built more humane, autonomous, and prosperous urban experiments.
The central argument is that future cities should prioritize building utopia—focusing on quality of life, resident autonomy, and long-term resilience rather than only GDP and skyscrapers—and the project itself is an experiment in slow journalism with contributors credited and 10% of sales going back to the researchers and collaborators.

#8 Compact Design

Mountain Labs Newsletter • 39 implied HN points • 13 Sep 24

🪑 Design Product Design User Experience Sustainability Materials Prototyping

Compact design can be very complex, as it needs to use every bit of space wisely. Creating a small air quality monitor involved three design revisions and a lot of thought.
The design process involves trial and error. Each version of the product had its own challenges, whether it was durability, assembly, or size balance.
Choosing materials is important for the final product. Different types of wood can affect how the product looks and feels, and the design might need tweaks for the manufacturing process.

I wrote a book. Here’s why.

Anima Mundi • 123 implied HN points • 20 Jan 26

🪑 Design Institutional Design Organizational Design Systems Design

Don’t try to patch old systems; replace them by building new institutions designed to adapt and operate in parallel with the old ones so real change can take hold.
Treat institutions as adaptive systems that must sense, decide, and act, and use concrete design patterns like bounded authority plus short implementation playbooks to build real adaptive capacity.
Focus on action: target builders who will construct and scale these institutions and give them practical toolkits, workshops, and machine‑readable frameworks so they can implement the ideas.

A Fancy Phone Box to Help You Unplug

The Analog Family • 599 implied HN points • 23 May 24

🪑 Design Product Design User Experience Sustainability Visual communication

Design can influence our habits, like a fancy phone box that encourages us to put our phones away. When our devices are out of sight, we're less likely to think about them.
Unplugging rituals can help us manage our phone use better. Simple actions, like hiding our phone or designating phone-free times, can promote healthier habits.
Adults also need support in reducing screen time since there's no one to set limits for them. Creating structures or sharing the unplugging experience with others can make it easier to focus on the moment.

☞ A Cabinet of Wonders Gift Guide

Cabinet of Wonders • 369 implied HN points • 02 Dec 25

🪑 Design Product Design Accessories Stationery Toys Typography Software Wearables

Small, well-designed everyday gifts can be both useful and delightful, like a simple digital-analog watch, a pocket notebook, or a thin Tyvek wallet.
Playful maker tools and creative hobbies — from type-design software and open-ended construction kits to Lego guides and ambigram puzzles — are great for tinkering, learning, and having fun.
There’s a bigger theme urging technology and systems to enrich our lives rather than drain them, accompanied by curated links and a call to resonant computing and thoughtful design.

Pure Data,Hinged Dissections, and Open Source Computational Design

Generative Arts Collective • 263 implied HN points • 14 Dec 25

🪑 Design Generative Art Open Source

Actively experimenting with laser cutting and material etching is a key part of prototyping generative projects and learning how different materials behave.
A variety of open-source creative tools — from Pure Data and Strudel for sound to Three.js for projection mapping and Claycode for scannable visuals — are being used to explore new forms of generative art.
Recent theoretical and design work, like hinged dissections and open-source parametric/lattice-hinge projects, link geometry and fabrication to practical applications such as reconfigurable robots, programmable matter, and 3D-printed designs.

"You need to grasp the nettle"

City Quitters • 379 implied HN points • 14 Jun 24

🪑 Design Architecture Sustainability Community Education Innovation

It's important to focus on community spaces in rural areas. Smaller projects can have a bigger positive impact on people's lives.
Designing with local resources fosters a sense of identity and connection. Using nearby materials can be more sustainable and supportive of the local economy.
Embracing imagination and being open to new ideas can lead to great changes. Beauty exists not just in design but in the relationships and systems we build.

4 questions I ask myself when designing

Design Lobster • 679 implied HN points • 15 Apr 24

🪑 Design Process Simplicity Magic Engagement Creativity

Ensure you are asking the right question in the best possible way to avoid wasting time on irrelevant problems.
Simplify your designs by challenging yourself to imagine the simplest version of a solution, emphasizing substance over ornamentation.
Strive to create magical designs that feel extraordinary and deliver experiences that users couldn't have imagined, aiming for delight and emotional impact.

The First Sneaky Town Tournament

Human Programming • 77 implied HN points • 28 Jan 26

🪑 Design Product Design Prototyping Manufacturing Woodworking Game design User Testing

A small act of commitment plus a bit of serendipity can unlock big opportunities — joining a makerspace and signing up for certification made the tournament possible.
Ship first, polish later: a last-minute design pivot still produced boards people loved, showing deadlines and sharing work before perfection matter more than waiting for an ideal version.
Practical event design and teaching matter: clear invites, flexible pacing, simple tournament structure, and improving how rules are taught made the event run smoothly and helped seed a local community.

Beautiful ugly websites

Product Identity • 931 implied HN points • 07 Mar 24

🪑 Design Graphic design Web Design User Experience Interface Design Visual communication

Function is often more important than form in design. A good example of this is Craigslist, which proves that a simple and effective website can succeed despite being visually plain.
Some websites that are considered 'ugly' actually have a unique charm and authenticity. They focus on heavy text and straightforward layouts, showing that simplicity can be powerful.
While aesthetics matter, there is a shift towards appreciating simple designs that prioritize usability over flashy elements. This challenges the trend of over-designed websites.

#150 Just enough design (and no more)

Design Lobster • 259 implied HN points • 10 Jun 24

🪑 Design Philosophy Art Creativity Style Craftsmanship

Hodo-hodo is a Japanese concept of moderation and balance applied to design, meaning 'just enough design.' It emphasizes the idea of deliberately holding back in design to achieve an ideal level of completion.
Just enough design can create space for imagination and personal interpretation, as seen in the example of Kinoishi wooden stones that were designed as toys without instructions.
Designing with 'hodo-hodo' philosophy can lead to subtle yet impactful details that might not be consciously noticed but can evoke emotional connections and enhance user experience.

How The Sparkle Icon Became The Universal Symbol For AI

Teaching computers how to talk • 83 implied HN points • 15 Jan 26

🪑 Design Iconography Graphic design Interface Design Branding Semiotics

The sparkle icon has become the common visual shorthand for AI, borrowing the “magic” metaphor to make the technology instantly recognizable.
That tiny sparkle helps companies sell a sense of wonder. It can also hide the heavy costs and human work behind AI, like data scraping, annotation, and massive data centers.
The sparkle will likely fade as AI becomes ordinary, and that’s a good thing because normalizing the tech invites more scrutiny of its real impacts on politics, labor, and society.

Natural Paths

Polymathic Being • 58 implied HN points • 25 Jan 26

🪑 Design Urban Design Human factors Systems Design UX Design Product Design

Natural or "desire" paths show how people actually move and can improve design when you watch and follow them.
The same easy, natural paths can create predictable vulnerabilities or ambush points, so sometimes it’s safer to deliberately avoid them.
The best approach is balance: use natural flows when they help, but apply critical thinking, humility, and intentional reframing to diverge from them when risks appear.

Using ChatGPT-4 to Decorate My Living Room

Scott's Substack • 825 implied HN points • 13 Jan 24

🪑 Design Interior design Furniture Decor Color Theory

Embraced the help of ChatGPT-4 for designing the living area and getting advice on furniture placements.
Received suggestions from the AI on optimizing the space, enhancing lighting, and creating a cohesive design.
Utilized existing furniture like sofas and chairs to create a functional and balanced layout for the room.

The other chair

Product Identity • 118 implied HN points • 29 Jul 24

🪑 Design Furniture Ergonomics Aesthetics Product Design

The HÅG Capisco chair is unique and has a very different design compared to typical office chairs. It encourages users to change their sitting posture often for better comfort.
This chair, although on the pricier side around $1,000, stands out for its aesthetics and quality. It's not just a piece of furniture but also an art piece that can spark conversations.
Designed with inspiration from horse saddles, the Capisco challenges how we think about office chairs by promoting movement and discouraging sitting still for too long.

Effective Urban Planning in 10 Simple Steps

Exasperated Infrastructures • 33 implied HN points • 02 Feb 26

🪑 Design Urban planning Transportation Housing Community Development Policy Career Advice

Decide carefully about planning school and commit to being a lifelong learner; pick a technical specialty you can go deep on while also learning the adjacent fields that shape your work.
Develop clear core values and a reasoned point of view, and learn the local politics and history so your projects actually fit the people and place you’re serving.
Build relationships by showing up, be open to moving between public/private/nonprofit work, ask for help politely, and protect yourself from burnout while you persist through the field’s counterintuitive challenges.

#149 "Fidgetability"

Design Lobster • 219 implied HN points • 13 May 24

🪑 Design Interaction Objects Quotes Illustration

Designing interactions that compel people to play with them can enhance user experience and create emotional connections.
Considering touch-inviting elements in design, like objects with fidgetable properties, can improve engagement.
Incorporating pleasurable and playful elements into design can have a significant impact on user perception and enjoyment.