This week in design (WK29)

@glassdoor rebrand, @contra's marketing, design subscriptions, apple maps is hot, & cameras of the future

Jul 21, 2023

Happy Friday!

Welcome to the second issue of TWID 🧘‍♂️

At first, I thought we had a “good news / bad news” situation on our hands (good news being that design Twitter was relatively peaceful this week, and bad news being that this issue of TWID was going to be really boring) …

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your thirst for violence), that is not the case.

Thanks for being here, let’s get into the sauce 🥫

WK29

Glassdoor rebrand is controversial

Uh, ya this was definitely the biggest story this week.

On Tuesday, @talir shared a side by side comparison of @glassdoor’s rebrand and @careerpuck’s current identity, and everyone on design Twitter had an opinion ☕️

Personally, I think the resemblance is uncanny, but the community was surprisingly (at least to me) split on this.

Honestly, there are way too many takes on this rebrand & the alleged plagiarism, but I wanted to highlight a couple different perspectives so you can make up your own mind.

@jameslacey made his POV pretty clear ↓

@jamayal, on the other hand, pointed out that this design language has been widely used before by brands like Pelago Health, PandaPay, Wisl, Askly, and others 👀

Regardless of where you stand, this whole fiasco becomes a whole lot more interesting once you realize the studio behind Glassdoor’s rebrand is the same studio that rebranded Bolt a few months ago 👀

Big brain marketing from Contra

Last week, Contra bought Dann Petty an espresso machine, and this week they paid $5k worth of invoices ($10 a pop) sent by anyone using their new tool.

Considering all the buzz & engagement (not to mention new sign ups & optics), a $10 user acquisition cost (on an otherwise free campaign) is pretty good. Kudos.

⚠️ not sponsored, just really cool

Design as a subscription is debated (again, again)

Ok, ya I know... a bit hypocritical, considering I participated in this discussion again. I regret nothing (except for maybe not including “per project” as a high IQ pricing strategy).

We’re really beating this horse hard, but it’s fine. Trends are trends for a reason, and time will tell whether or not the design subscription model is a winner (for people other than you know who..)

I’ve shared my (unsolicited) opinion before, but I think @uiuxadrian summed it up nicely.

Jokes aside, it’s really cool to see freelance designers making the big bucks, so at the end of the day it doesn't matter what your pricing strategy is if it works for you. Good on ya, go get that bag 💰

Apple Maps is hot (& Google Maps is not)

“Apple Maps” was (literally) trending on Twitter this week, and not for sucking. About time, honestly. Maps has gotten a lot better over the last couple of years, and I definitely agree with @gregorymcfadden on this one.

Design Dopamine 💊

I’ve seen so much dope work on Twitter this week, that it was incredibly hard to pick just one project to highlight, but we all gotta do what we gotta do. Here’s the best thing I saw this week ↓

Insane camera concept by @nuevo_tokyo

Seeing Nuevo’s Tokyo work on VWFNDR made me feel things. You can tell that this is a work of pure passion.

VIEWFINDER A series of concept camera explorations by an open collective of camera fanatics. Ideations on new hardware, UX and interface design paradigms. straight to your inbox. Guided by passion and ruled by feasibility. 🤓

Oh and, this might actually become a reality (eventually).

Super inspiring work from Nuevo Tokyo, and I’m excited to follow along. If you’re into this as much as I am, you can find more details on this project in their Substack →

VIEWFINDER

That’s a wrap for WK29

Thanks for reading, if you enjoyed this issue (or hated it), please let me know in the comments.

If you have an idea for how I can improve TWID or want to suggest something for next week’s issue, use the suggestion box.

Love you all, have a great weekend

- @aleksliving