TLDR Design 2024-04-26

Wacom Movink 13 ✏ī¸ , Create Bitmoji with Easel 🎨, Game Boy MagSafe 🕹ī¸

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News & Trends

With Easel, Ex-Snap Researchers are Building the Next-Generation Bitmoji Thanks to AI (4 minute read)

Founded by two former Snap employees, Easel lets you create images of yourself and your friends doing extraordinary things. By capturing a few seconds of the user's face, the app creates a corresponding AI model and uses Stable Diffusion's generative AI to make Bitmoji-style stickers. Easel can be integrated into the native iOS Message application, enabling users to send the creations as images.

Wacom says its first OLED drawing tablet is cool and skinny (1 minute read)

Wacom has launched Movink 13, a light and thin OLED pen display tablet aimed at digital creatives. It provides advantages like deeper blacks, a broader color spectrum, and lower pen latency. This is the thinnest and lightest Wacom pen display yet. At $750, it's a portable and more affordable alternative to the expected OLED iPad Pro but requires connection to an external device for operation.

This Game Boy-looking phone stand is why MagSafe is good (1 minute read)

Although people have mixed feelings about MagSafe's charging efficiency and case compatibility, the Elago MagSafe MS W5 Charging Stand adds a touch of nostalgia by imitating the Game Boy Advance SP design but without functional buttons. Available on Amazon, this charming stand is purely aesthetic and doesn't include a charger, yet it can support both iPhones and new Qi2 Android devices with MagSafe.
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Opinions & Tutorials

Two heads are better than one: Building strong partnerships in the modern workplace (2 minute read)

Grace Sunnell and Jeff Robke, professionals from Slack's product design and management teams, attribute their successful collaboration in expanding Slack Connect for Enterprise customers to building solid foundational relationships and setting clear expectations. They emphasize the importance of trust, adaptability, and frequent check-ins to align strategies, resulting in significant financial impact and momentum for the company's services.
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Launches & Tools

CSS-Only Shapes (Website)

This collection is made of pure, optimized, modern CSS shapes using a single element.

Make Social Media Posters Effortlessly (Website)

Wizad generates consistent social media posters, keeping your brand's color scheme, tone, and elements.

AI Content Generator (Figma plugin)

Rewrite your texts in Figma in a couple of clicks using OpenAI GPT-4 to generate smart, creative text suggestions.
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Miscellaneous

Rabbit R1: I spent 17 hours with it — and something's iffy about it (6 minute read)

Mashable reviewed the new Rabbit R1 and found that the gestures were addictive. It can't browse the web, doesn't text or make calls, responds faster than expected, gets some answers wrong, can see and describe things, and has a good battery life. With a price tag of $199, it seems too good to be true, and the company will find a way to squeeze more money out of its user base.

The LEGOism of Design Systems (3 minute read)

Jim Nielsen discusses the limitations of the "LEGO" analogy for design systems, arguing that prefabricated components have less value in the age of generative AI and open-source libraries. Even with prefabricated components, custom "one-off" designs are still necessary for each product, and a successful design system needs more than just prefabrication and composition.

Why We Moved Away from Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Buttons (5 minute read)

The hierarchical button style paradigm classifies buttons into primary, secondary, and tertiary importance in product design. However, there are better approaches for brands that use color playfully. This article shows how switching from hierarchy to emphasis enabled a better color system for brands that explore a broader color spectrum.
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Quick Links

The Big Sur-ification of macOS Icons (4 minute read)

macOS Big Sur changed how app icons are designed, standardized to a square with rounded corners.

Meet Theodoru, an Artist Shaped by a Blend of Surrealism and Childhood (2 minute read)

In Theodoru's words, his art is "character-based Pop Surrealism," a vibrant and whimsical style that mixes 3D characters, personal experiences, classic cartoons, and Hieronymus Bosch's grotesque elegance.

Ikea Meets Japan in this New Pattern-Filled Collection (2 minute read)

In her work, Hiroko Takahashi uses only circles and straight lines to create patterns that symbolize the 'infinite possibilities that come from the finite.'
Curated tools 🖌ī¸ , trends 🎨, and inspiration 💡 for design professionals
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