TLDR Design 2024-03-01

YouTube's recent desktop UI update has received significant backlash from users. The new layout features a grid of thumbnails underneath videos, leading to complaints about sensory overload. It is hard to find positive feedback about the change, and it's unclear if the design will revert.

Tubi's new logo keeps its purple aesthetic but swaps out the orange and red hues for neon yellow. The new color palette aims to give viewers a "bold and mischievous" experience. Gone is the black background on the app's home screen display, replaced by the bright signature purple that's part of the original design accented with white and yellow.

Google introduced a new hybrid OS interface for Wear OS at MWC that enhances battery life. Notably, the OnePlus Watch 2 now boasts up to 100 hours of use. Compatibility with other smartwatches depends on each OEM’s architecture and power strategy. However, there's anticipation that other smartwatches will adopt at least some aspects of this battery-optimizing feature.

Like its default font predecessors, Aptos is optimized for the technology of its time. The font helps people comfortably read text on screens for extended periods and it also looks immaculate in print. Microsoft commissioned five leading typeface designers to develop five candidate font families and chose the winning one with the help of customer feedback.

The power of combining proactive and reactive AI lies in their complementary abilities to anticipate and respond to needs. This framing shifts away from AI technology mechanisms, instead emphasizing user experience. Intelligence is valuable when it offers better or different ways to do things within established and new categories.

Good design begins in your mind. To arrive at the best solution, start by collecting and analyzing all the available info on the brand, product, competitors, and target audience. Similar companies often copy one another’s designs, so studying the logos from related business sectors makes sense.

This free and simple set of illustrations will help you design better empty-state use cases.

Colormind is a color scheme generator that uses deep learning. It can learn color styles from photographs, movies, and popular art.

Create professional animated content with Jitter. Use it to design on-brand animated UIs, videos, social media posts, websites, apps, logos, and more.

The concept of the Minimum Viable Product has evolved. Today, it's about refining and differentiating a product within a saturated market by iterating based on user feedback rather than simply validating new ideas quickly. Linear's journey in establishing its MVP illuminates the importance of focusing on a specific user base, leveraging waitlists to engage early adopters, and using customer feedback to know when a product is ready for a public launch.

Most working relationships involve NDAs. Remote jobs cut off access to all documents as soon as you're laid off. You don't want to have to beg your former colleagues for screenshots of your work. Ensure you constantly grab copies of ongoing projects, anonymize them if necessary, and even consider transforming them. Practicing in Public also offers an exciting alternative where you write articles or create YouTube videos showcasing your knowledge and experience.

Metalab, founded by Andrew Wilkinson, has evolved from a local venture to a globally dispersed team of over 160 people, collaborating with iconic brands and expanding its services. The brand has recently undergone a refresh to reflect its growth and values involving a new logo, an adaptable star icon, a timeless typographic pairing, and a nuanced color palette that retains its signature purple. The refresh is aimed at invoking a sense of wonder both internally and in the client experience.

Communicating ideas has always been and continues to be a primary goal of design. Designers spend considerable effort to convey complex emotions, processes, and concepts through visual abstractions. However, a simple well-written sentence is often more effective.

Justice Tech Solutions has designed a new laptop specifically for inmates. Securebook's transparent design allows security staff to easily inspect the device. It lacks USB ports, cameras, ethernet, and WiFi, blocking communication with the outside world.

HMD Global, who made a Barbie phone with Mattel, wants to do more than just manufacture phones with the Nokia name on them. The company is about to release its first original smartphone, which will feature extreme repair capabilities and HMD Fusion, a development toolkit for producing smart outfits with physical design details, hardware interfaces, and APIs.