#152 - The changing nature of design
Hey everyone,
Welcome to issue #152, your weekly roundup of what’s happening in design, code and typography.
Thought provoking #
“When you don’t lower the barrier to entering the design industry, only a really specific type of designer with a really specific type of background is able to get in.” Fabricio Teixeira in Our industry needs more designers. Most importantly: a different type of designer.
Covid-19 is changing how designers think. In this episode of Wireframe, Adobe’s design podcast, Khoi Vinh, speaks with other design leaders to explore the changing nature of work from a designer’s perspective.
Design and Code #
The Guide to Design. “Open knowledge sharing can democratize design—ultimately making our industry more inclusive and culturally rich.” A fantastic free guide to digital product design, full of great resources.
The trouble with mailto email links and what to do instead. Adam Silver on thinking carefully about the big picture—but also paying close attention to the finer details.
Button state and accessibility. Chris Ferdinandi explains the problem with “active state” classes, like .is-active, added to elements to modify their appearance and how you can solve the problem with the [aria-pressed] attribute.
How to use inline SVGs with Hugo. Utkarsh Verma shows create a fully-functional and lightweight SVG icon system to improve your website’s performance
How to Switch Logo in Dark Mode. A useful tip from Gift Egwuenu.
The A11y Project has just launched a major redesign by Tatiana Mac.
Typography #
Modern CSS Techniques To Improve Legibility. Edoardo Cavazza on how we can improve websites legibility using some modern CSS techniques, great new technologies like variable fonts and putting into practise what we learned from doing scientific researches.
The designers guide to letter-spacing from Denis Valetin. Most of the information we consume happens through reading, so it makes a lot of sense to pay attention to the words when designing.
New typeface: Nekst. A stern geometric family by Denis Serebryakov, combining futuristic feel with vintage details.
“Type design has always been at the center of our working methodology as a graphic design studio, so this feels like a natural progression for us.” Design Studio APFEL On Launching Its Own Type Foundry.
Something to watch #
Tatiana Mac on Hacking Digital Style Guides for Accessibility: Type, Colour, Imagery. “Accessible design is more important than ever, with over 15% of people affected by a disability that changes how they interact with the web. As designers, it is our responsibility to ensure our designs are inclusive and reflect all of our users’ needs.”