#116 - Believe you can change

Hey everyone,

Welcome to issue #116, your weekly roundup of what’s happening in design, code and typography.

I’ve always been fascinated by mindset. And what we can achieve by having a good one. This week I came across a wonderful old piece called Believe you can change by the late Aaron Swartz, so following a few updates from me, we’ll begin this issue with a quote from that.

News (from me) #

I finally added a section to my website to showcase some of my favourite projects. First up is Albion Cycling, a project I worked on a while back with my good friend Luke Harvey.

I’ve been working on improving the desktop experience on the AIN Jobs board and also redesigned the cards on SeedTribe Hub. I’m sure I’ve done a bunch of other things too, but it’s been a busy one and I’m struggling to remember exactly what?!

Thought provoking #

“Fixed-mindset people feel smart when they don’t make mistakes, growth-mindset people feel smart when they struggle with something for a long time and then finally figure it out. Fixies try to blame the world when things go bad, growthers look to see what they can change about themselves. Fixies are afraid to try hard — because if they fail, it means they’re a failure. Growthers are afraid of not trying.” Believe you can change by Aaron Swartz.

The web is not dying. Might walled gardens and modern best practices be to blame for recent speculation? Chris Ferdinandi on why the platform itself is alive and thriving.

Design and Code #

Dan Mall on “The Hot Potato Process”, where ideas are passed quickly back and forth from designer to developer and back to designer then back to developer for the entirety of a product creation cycle.

The Evolution of Material Design’s Text Fields. How user research reshaped the design of Google’s open-source text fields from Susanna Zaraysky.

JavaScript isn’t always available and it’s not the user’s fault. Adam Silver gives the reasons users experience sites as if they don’t have JavaScript and explains what we can do about it.

Bringing new life to Figma’s brand. Tori Hinn on evolving Figma’s personality and brand language, and introducing a new typefaces and illustration system.

Things We Can’t (Yet) Do In CSS. Rachel Andrew looks at some common layout patterns that we can’t yet do on the web and the CSS Specifications that might let us achieve them in the future.

Typography #

Preloading fonts: when does it make sense? Matej Latin with an interesting case study on the effects of testing two different methods of rendering type – font preloading and font-display.

Sidebearings is a collection of typography & lettering resources. Designed to focus on beginner as well as advanced type designers, graphic designers and enthusiasts.

Eklips a new conceptual typeface by Letters from Sweden explores how the appearance of a solar eclipse, just before the moon covers the sun, can inform letterforms.

“I’ve been studying inktrap characters. I thought that would be appropriate for Giselle, so I did an aesthetic inktrap experiment”. Fatih Hardal speaks to It’s Nice That about her latest typeface.

The Bauhaus Master Who Saw Photoshop Coming, 90 Years Ahead of Time. László Moholy-Nagy knew where typography was headed, and predicted what we now see as graphic design

Something to watch #

The Great Hack on Netflix it’s well worth a watch if you haven’t seen it yet. A grim reminder to us all why it’s so important to own your data and support the IndieWeb.


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