Design is more than how it looks — it’s how it works. The Verge brings you the best of design from the web, the home, the software world, and architecture.
Why Figma CEO Dylan Field is optimistic about AI and the future of design
The leader of design toolmaker Figma on life after the failed Adobe deal and what comes next in a live interview from SXSW.
Lots to talk about — life after the Adobe deal went away, of course, but much more interestingly there’s a lot going on with the web, design, and AI, and Figma’s right in the middle of it. We’ll see you there! (And check out the rest of the Vox Media Podcast Stage schedule, it’ll be a party.)
The “Your apps” row is getting a refresh with rounded app icons and more of them as well as a new shortcut to free channels and quick access to reorder apps and add more.
Google says the tweaks are rolling out starting today and coming to all devices over the “next few months.”
Judging by the comments on last week’s post, everyone is adjusting to the new default font for the Microsoft Office apps either well, terribly, or somewhere in between.
For people who like font-related puns, here’s another video to watch, and if you can’t stand Aptos as the Microsoft 365 standard-bearer, this support page has the details on how to change it.
Microsoft 365 office suite users on TikTok are picking up on the switch to Aptos that was announced and started rolling out last fall:
This new look specifies an updated standard color palette and type font that are applied throughout Microsoft Office. The new theme will affect only your document, not the look and feel of Microsoft 365.
If it’s bugging you, this support page can explain how to change the default font or theme across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
Tim Cook shared a fun animation celebrating the 40th anniversary of the original Macintosh, and hidden amongst the colorful array of products and iconography is none other than Clarus, a lesser-known piece of Mac history otherwise referred to as the “dogcow.”
Designed by legendary graphic designer Susan Kare for the original Macintosh as part of the Cairo font, Clarus continues to make cameos in Apple’s software. Stephen Hackett has a great write-up at 512 Pixels on Clarus that I highly recommend, especially on a day like today.
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Homes need to be built for better internet
A lot of homes are being built, but a lack of understanding of internet infrastructure and a need to cut costs means they kind of suck for internet.
Braun: Designed to Keep is a book worth holding onto
A century of design — with and without Dieter Rams — giving credit where credit is due.
Wilco have debuted “Loft Sans,” a new typeface for the band — and for its fans to license. It’s only $30, which is less than half the price of a Wilco hoodie. Good deal.
I still have sketchbooks full of perspective and figure-drawing practice, experiments with comic book layouts, shading, endless sketches of my feet and hands.
But somehow I never decided to just study how light works in a water droplet? This post from Apple design alum Michael Darius about the influence of Wes Modes’ “Anatomy of a Water Drop” on the Aqua design of Mac OS X has a fun scan to pore over.
[skeuomorphic.design]
Goodbye, Touch Bar, you held incredible promise
The Touch Bar was meant to be the future of computing, but a lack of interest from developers and Apple itself turned it into a mere proof of concept.
Sometimes the internet delivers you a portal to a world in which someone is deeply overthinking 24 packs of crayons and like, hell yes. Hell yes.
After a period of beta testing, NASA rolled out an updated eighth revision of its website last week. The modernized image layouts and text look fine, even if I’m a little nostalgic for the seemingly-ancient previous version that was last updated in the mid 2010s. (The Internet Archive shows even earlier revisions, like 2007’s v5.0 update.)
This new version of NASA.gov is also launching ahead of a full NASA App revamp and NASA Plus video on-demand streaming launch later this year, promising an “ad-free, no cost, and family-friendly streaming service,” with live coverage plus collections of original video series and a few new series.
The Formula One racer has a futuristic new helmet — designed with the help of Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama — that makes him look a bit like a robot, or like a long-lost member of a certain French electronic musical duo.
Car and Driver noticed that the blue oval emblem found on the new 2024 Ford F-150 has been redesigned. The slightly larger white script and removal of the outer chrome ring are subtle changes, but significant when placed on America’s bestselling vehicle since, well, forever.
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Stitching together an archive of an endangered Palestinian art
Palestinian embroidery is a centuries-old tradition. Can digitizing hard-to-access patterns help preserve it for a new generation?
iOS 17 is moving the end call button as it brings in the Contact Poster, but where would things end up with a more significant rework?
John Gruber notes that Microsoft announced Aptos, a new default font, without actually showing all the characters at standard sizes. And like a true font nerd, he could not let that stand.
So I took matters into my own hands, and created rudimentary specimens for each of Microsoft’s five new typefaces (and Calibri to boot). A–Z in upper- and lowercase, 0–9, and the most common punctuation marks. Then a paragraph of sample text at 11 points. Dear reader, you really owe me for this one, because I had to use the web app version of Word, by way of Microsoft 365 to produce these PDFs. To describe this software as brutal and frustrating is an understatement. Herewith, the PDF specimens, and my brief comments.
[Daring Fireball]
I don’t care, I want them. More on this $1.3m 19-units only Diablo restomod from Eccentrica Cars at Autoblog.
How The Witcher explores its own history through fashion, architecture, and weapons
The minds behind the show’s visual design explain how they built a world that spans more than a thousand years in time.
The Washington Post has an interesting, interactive article on how different typefaces can influence how legible something is and how fast you can read it. It turns out there isn’t any one perfect typeface for everyone — lots of factors come in to play to determine which is best for you.
For me, I read sans-serif styles the fastest, but when I want to get into Serious Book Mode, I’m probably choosing a serif typeface.
(And yes, it’s typeface, not font.)
[Washington Post]
It’s hard to pick a favorite bike build at The Q YouTube channel. The split wheel one? Square wheels? The bendy, locky one?
For the intersection of people who love engineering, bikes, and ASMR. Go watch.
And instead of showing off the rumored production version of the much-loved N Vision 74 concept and its hydrogen fuel cell hybrid powerplant, Hyundai chose to restore that car’s inspiration — the “retro-futuristic classic” Pony Concept Coupe from 1974.
Gas-powered via an 82-horsepower 1.2-liter 4-cylinder engine, I think the Pony concept pulls off the angular styling better than the Cybertruck, and the slide controls in the dash are still better than any in-car touchscreen display. Bring those back too.
It’s fascinating to me how independent Beats still is. Nearly nine years after Apple announced its acquisition of the brand co-founded by Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, today Beats released a design video for the Studio Buds Plus. In it, you hear this:
“Our proprietary chipset makes them super simple to use. It offers a host of native features to both Apple and Android users. In fact, we’re the only company to offer this.”
This is an Apple-owned business highlighting that it’s not using the same silicon as AirPods. (I love how Beats illustrates the point with a vinyl record.)
It’s one of the hottest concept cars in years, and now a report from Korea’s Money Today says a production version will hit on May 27th (via The Drive). Please be real!
The Finnish games studio, best-known for classics like Alan Wake and Max Payne, has updated its logo for the first time in more than two decades. As with most modern logo refreshes, Remedy’s new look is much more streamlined — but it also seems to capture the elusive and unsettling quality of its most recent creation, the supernatural thriller Control.
LoveFrom, Ive’s design firm, has a custom typeface called LoveFrom Serif. It was revealed on the agency’s website a couple years ago, but I just found out about it today when looking at the Steve Jobs ebook, which features this note at the end.
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This is what it looks like to be colorblind
Apparently, the very idea of colorblindness is hard to visualize. Take a shot at looking through my eyes.