The hottest Design Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Culture Topics

Does Your Startup's UI/UX Need a Unique Point of View?

Build Startup In Public • 3 HN points • 24 Apr 24
💼 Business Startup Design Technology User Experience Entrepreneurship
  1. Having a unique point of view in your design helps your startup stand out. Copying trends makes you blend in and reminds people of bigger brands.
  2. While it can be okay for startups to follow popular design trends for the sake of efficiency, it's important to eventually develop a distinct style that reflects your values.
  3. Design should evoke positive emotions and engage the audience. A warm and friendly interface can make a significant difference in user experience.

So I built a figma clone

Binh’s Archive • 1 HN point • 28 Apr 24
🕹 Technology Web Development Design Frameworks Libraries Animation
  1. The author built a Figma clone called Bigma to showcase their portfolio in a unique and creative way.
  2. To stand out, the author focused on creating a 2D site with a unique twist that hadn't been done before, emphasizing the importance of originality.
  3. Bigma was built on NextJS, with the Infinite Canvas feature implemented using CSS, showcasing various frameworks and libraries used in the project.

#40 Designers, is it vegan to eat yourself?

Design Lobster • 39 implied HN points • 02 Nov 20
🎨 Art & Illustration Design
  1. Question fundamental assumptions in design - what might be too shocking to challenge?
  2. Incorporate personal experiences into design for universally recognizable elements.
  3. The way a problem is defined influences the solutions that are considered - craft the problem definition as carefully as the solution.

#39 Do designers make a contribution, really?

Design Lobster • 39 implied HN points • 26 Oct 20
🎨 Art & Illustration Design Innovation Art History
  1. Designers can provoke a sense of wonder and inspiration with their work, potentially influencing others in unexpected ways.
  2. Innovation in design, like the cash register, can lead to the creation of new mechanisms that improve transparency and tackle issues like fraud.
  3. Achieving perfection in design can elevate it to the level of art, where solving problems with precision becomes a form of artistic expression.
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Visualizing Brand Pivots

Creative Destruction • 11 implied HN points • 01 Mar 23
🎨 Art & Illustration Visual Arts Imagery Design Creativity Collaborations
  1. The post discusses using AI to visualize major brand pivots like Tesla promoting car-free cities, McDonald's offering healthy vegetarian food, and more.
  2. The visuals created with Generative AI spark divergent thinking and creativity by envisioning brands in unconventional ways.
  3. The post also imagines unique brand collaborations, such as Oatly and Patagonia, Ganni and Airbnb, and Ikea and Ben & Jerry's.

How to market... your price?

Mehdeeka • 3 implied HN points • 21 Feb 24
💼 Business Marketing Sales Pricing Design Customers
  1. Positioning and displaying pricing on websites requires careful thought to avoid overwhelming visitors. Highlighting value propositions, using tier layouts effectively, and integrating FAQs can enhance clarity.
  2. Incorporating pricing details into sales materials like pitch decks and business case templates reinforces the value proposition and aids in presenting a clear investment summary to potential clients.
  3. For complex products, consider creating in-depth documents or web pages that outline proposed options with detailed inclusions, FAQs, and explanations to assist customers in making informed decisions.

#37: Open space

The Uncertainty Mindset (soon to become tbd) • 39 implied HN points • 15 Jul 20
🎭️ Culture Art Design Media Philosophy Innovation
  1. Creating something special requires open space for personal interpretation. When there's too much control from the maker, it limits how others can feel and respond.
  2. Special experiences can happen in many forms, but they are rare. Things that connect the ordinary with something higher often need a balance of simplicity and ambiguity.
  3. Leaving open space means the creator must embrace uncertainty, which can be challenging. Mastering this balance is key to making experiences that truly resonate with people.

#8 Star signs, snuffboxes & designers as doctors

Design Lobster • 39 implied HN points • 20 Mar 20
🎨 Art & Illustration Design
  1. Astrology apps like Co—Star have found success by using a bold and direct approach in delivering horoscopes to users.
  2. Design often uses metaphors to help users understand functionality; objects disguised as something else can carry specific connotations.
  3. Continuously learning and expanding knowledge, akin to doctors, is essential for designers to keep pace with the evolving demands and domains of design work.

Rabbit Holes 🕳️ #53

Creative Destruction • 5 implied HN points • 18 Oct 23
🌞 Climate & Environment Sustainability Technology Design Communication Urbanism
  1. Spirituality can be a missing element in sustainability efforts, focusing on inner development rather than just external actions.
  2. Technology and convenience may create a feeling of disconnection and lack of control in our lives, rather than making things easier.
  3. Open-source urban design encourages flexible, adaptable, and nature-inspired city planning that involves the community in ongoing development.

We Might As Well Get Good At It

Cybernetic Forests • 19 implied HN points • 21 Mar 21
🕹 Technology Documentary Ethics Design Futurism
  1. The documentary 'We are as Gods' explores technologist Stewart Brand's controversial optimism about technology and the need for us to solve problems with it.
  2. The film raises questions about the role of technology in environmentalism and challenges the ideas of pessimism and hopelessness around its use.
  3. It emphasizes the importance of balancing tech optimism with skepticism to drive the design of safe, autonomous, environment-restoring technology.

Apple Tysons Corner: A new chapter

Tabletops • 2 HN points • 18 May 23
💼 Business Retail Customer Experience Sustainability Accessibility Design
  1. Apple Store at Tysons Corner underwent a comprehensive redesign, emphasizing the return of the Genius Bar and innovative product discovery spaces.
  2. Accessibility was a key focus, with lowered tables and widened aisles to enhance wheelchair accessibility, along with hearing loop systems for those hard of hearing.
  3. The store showcases fresh takes on traditional Apple Store features, such as Avenues and Apple Pickup, with new design elements like sustainable materials and updated layouts.

The Creators of Disney’s New Platformer Explain the Hard Lessons of Making Games for Kids

Crossplay • 2 HN points • 14 Jun 23
🕹 Technology Gaming Development Design User Experience Children
  1. Developing games for kids requires focusing on making the game welcoming and accessible to players of all ages.
  2. Design choices should prioritize fun and player enjoyment over adhering to traditional standards.
  3. Engaging with focus groups of various age groups can reveal important insights for refining gameplay mechanics.

#36 What can we learn from an experimental violin?

Design Lobster • 19 implied HN points • 05 Oct 20
🎨 Art & Illustration Design
  1. Native American design often uses four-fold symmetry, with spiritual significance tied to the natural world and cardinal directions.
  2. Experimentation in design, like the Chanot Experimental violin, can lead to creative solutions even if they don't become mainstream.
  3. Design work should be seen as a form of care, as described by Pavel Samsonov, highlighting the ethical responsibility designers have towards people's lives.

#35 When the designer is... an algorithm

Design Lobster • 19 implied HN points • 28 Sep 20
🎨 Art & Illustration Design Creativity History Technology Quotes
  1. Explore the future of design with AI-generated text like GPT-3 and consider the implications for designers.
  2. Take risks in design to effectively communicate a message, like the clever Galt Toys poster from 1961.
  3. Acknowledge the multifaceted role of a designer as an observer, catalyst, and survivor, as exemplified by Sarah Little Turnbull.

#31 Disaster parks, PH-Lamps and Bruno Munari

Design Lobster • 19 implied HN points • 31 Aug 20
🎨 Art & Illustration Design
  1. Parks in Tokyo serve as vital infrastructure for disaster relief, cleverly concealing bunkers, emergency resources, and multifunctional benches.
  2. Poul Henningsen's PH-Lamp showcases the importance of light quality and atmosphere in design, with over 100 variations designed to create soft, warm lighting.
  3. Bruno Munari's quote highlights the impact of design on improving living conditions, encouraging taste development, and leaving a lasting connection between designer and user.

#20 Fractals, f-holes and design morality

Design Lobster • 19 implied HN points • 12 Jun 20
🎨 Art & Illustration Design Shapes Sound Ethics Tradition
  1. Design can use fractal patterns to communicate meaning, like African designers do, enhancing spatial sequences and politeness in designs.
  2. Iteration is key in design; like the evolution of violin F-holes from circular to F-shaped, small changes can significantly impact performance.
  3. Design choices have ethical implications, influencing human actions and shaping moral practices, emphasizing the ethical responsibility of designers.

Grace of Shadows Edition

As Ever • 5 implied HN points • 01 May 23
🎨 Art & Illustration Art Creativity Design Inspiration Visual Arts
  1. Randomness plays a significant role in art creation, infusing even the most controlled mark-making with a sense of perfection.
  2. Incorporating chance into art leads to a more realistic and solid feel, adding depth and complexity to the work.
  3. The process of balancing skill and embracing randomness in art is a journey that requires ego-death, acceptance of mistakes, and a dance between control and spontaneity.

...Mantic Pixel Dream Girls

Donkeyspace • 4 implied HN points • 28 Mar 23
🎭️ Culture Art & Illustration Literature Music Design History
  1. The author is exploring the intersection of AI and art, with a focus on past and present artistic influences related to AI.
  2. AI is seen as more than just a tool, but as an aesthetic that can transform industries like gaming, similar to how synthesizers revolutionized music.
  3. The tent metaphor symbolizes a space of exploration where the author contemplates the impact and future of AI within creative fields like art and game design.

GPU 2D Drawing: Rectangls. Masking. Rotations.

Hasen Judi • 2 HN points • 04 Jul 23
🕹 Technology Graphics Programming Design Algorithms Transformation
  1. Rectangles can be defined in different ways for SDF purposes, but simplifying it to (center, half_size) helps in calculations such as distance to edges or corner points.
  2. Simple transformations like growing, bordering, and inversion, along with masking and rotations, can create interesting visual effects and shapes.
  3. Combining these shape manipulation techniques can lead to the creation of more complex shapes and effects in GPU-rendered graphics.

Today’s AI sucks at math, but developing cars and planes with it is still a good idea

Assisted Everything • 2 HN points • 23 Feb 23
🕹 Technology Engineering AI Hardware Simulation Design
  1. Today's AI can assist in engineering tasks and lead to faster and safer product design.
  2. Assisted Engineering involves AI assisting engineers in brainstorming, retrieving information, triggering simulations, reviewing work, system modeling, and documenting.
  3. To ensure safety, AI in engineering should be complemented with math, engineering structure, and proper verification processes.