This week in design (WK31)

2px borders are problematic, designers literally don't do anything, @lukesbeard resigns, Figma is bad for design, & sexy serifs

Happy Friday!

Welcome to the fourth issue of TWID - the only design newsletter on the internet written by me.

Before we jump into this week’s ✨ drama ✨ – a massive thank you to the people that, for some reason, decided to pay for this newsletter. It’s absolutely not necessary, but your support means the world, & I appreciate ya’ll more than you know.

Ok that’s enough. Thanks for being here, let’s get into the sauce 🥫

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WK31

2px borders are “glorification of the mundane”

Juicy 2px borders have been all the rage this week. Atilla kicked off the discussion by sharing some of his work on a basketball app 🏀

Personally, I think “the grip” looks pretty dope. Thicker borders feel friendlier and more inviting (not to mention how nicely they pair with that gradient fill).

Cool, let’s like the tweet and move on. Right?

Hmm, no I know, let’s instead get upset that people are nerding out on button treatments and make a statement 😡

Uhh, wait no - pretty sure Atilla was just sharing some of his work and other people were enjoying it. Right?

Idk about all that, kinda sounds like a personal problem to me.

It’s not that serious 🧘‍♂️

@brijanp says designers don’t solve problems

Honestly, not 100% sure if this is engagement bait or just a really bad take.

Not everyone needs to be a doctor or a scientist - some people want to create pretty things & make products easier and more enjoyable to use (or use 2px borders on their buttons, it’s ok)

Good designers make the complex simple, the mundane exciting, and the ordinary extraordinary. I would say that’s a pretty textbook definition of “problem solving” …

And if not… well at least being a designer solves some of our financial problems 😂

Luke Beard, Any Distance CEO, resigns

Last week, a number of women came forward and shared some of their traumatic experiences working with Luke. The story got a lot of attention (rightfully so), and people have called for some accountability (rightfully so x2)

Since then – 

@lukesbeard deactivated his twitter account

I’m not an expert, but that doesn’t look like accountability to me.

@anydistanceclub released a statement

Luke is out, and his co-founder & CTO - @dankuntz has taken over as CEO.

It’s definitely a good first step by the company, but like @dallasbarnes pointed out - these are probably not the worst repercussions for Luke.

Figma is bad for web design

From a guy that brought us bangers such as ↓

“Doodling a picture of a website in figma is no better than doodling a picture of a website with crayons.”

Comes another excellent design take:

I’m convinced this is just 🎣 bait, but on the off chance that it’s not - exploring design in code seems like a really inefficient way to go about designing something.

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Design Dopamine 💊

I always say that it’s really difficult to pick just one project to highlight, but not this time. Ertekin made it very easy by dropping this (dare I say) masterpiece ↓

Libre Caslon Condensed by @ertekinno

The only thing I love more than beautiful serifs are beautiful condensed (& open source) serifs.

This font, which is created by modifying the "Libre Caslon Text" font family, offers a harmonious blend of elegance and readability, making it an ideal choice for various design projects.

I mean… just look at it, I don’t know what else to tell you. It’s stunning, nostalgic, and open source. I’ll be abusing this in upcoming projects, thanks.

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That’s a wrap for WK31

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

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

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