This week in design (WK32)

Slack redesign, concentric corner radii, design is branding (but it’s also a lot of other things), types of designers, and the Natural History Museum

Happy Friday!

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

Huge week for us – both in terms of content & unreal growth of this little newsletter (we 2x-ed in readers since last week 🤯)

Thanks for being here. This is definitely my favourite issue to date, hope you like it.

Let’s get into the sauce 🥫

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WK32

@slackhq redesign is controversial

On Wednesday, Slack announced that they’ve redesigned their app, and the community response was … mixed.

The new Slack aims to simplify the workflow, while giving the app a major facelift in the process. Time will tell if these changes stick, but like we’ve seen with every big redesign – everyone has an opinion (obviously).

Honestly, I’m not the biggest fan of Slack to begin with, but it’s nice to see some attempts to make the enterprise (yah) app more friendly (?)

I’m still not sure how I feel about it, kinda wanna play around with it before I comment. But first impressions – it kinda feels like gmail... if that makes sense.

Design is exactly 19% typography

This week designers from far and wide whipped out their calculators and shared a very detailed looks of what actually constitutes “design” as we know it.

Here are just some of their claims ↓

As someone who is always trying to become a better designer – seeing dozens of posts about this was helpful… but it quickly became too confusing for my wrinkle-free brain to follow.

Being a big fan of the scientific method, I had to sit down and use every last neuron to try to better understand what “design” actually is.

Lucky for you, I eventually figured it out (you’re welcome).

Web design is branding

Damn it, now I have to go back to the donut chart above and revise is. Problem for another day (as always).

Jokes aside, I’m actually a really big fan of @aarolston’s take here. In my opinion, every publically visible aspect your your product / business is part of your brand (duh).

The thread above is worth a read. Aaron provides a much more eloquent explanation than I ever could.

Types of designers

Ahh the age old debate of “groups” vs “frames” (aka the final boss in the “name your layers” battle).

Comments are worth a read, but if you care about which type of designer I am - it’s actually a third secret option.

I name my components & use frames (usually), but all other layers are named “Frame 14089” – the way god intended.

Concentric corners are all the rage

Ok this really sucks.

I dreaded the day I might have to include one of my own tweets in here, but after getting like 4M views on this “tip”, I had no choice.

The worst part about going “viral,” is the part where it’s not for an original idea. I remember seeing a similar explanation years ago, & was reminded of it while talking about corners with a friend (how fun?).

Anyways, I think everyone has seen this tweet by now, but I strongly recommend looking through some of the quote tweets. Some hilarious chirps in there.

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Design Dopamine 💊

Here’s one of my favourite pieces of design that I stumbled upon this week.

Natural History Museum rebrand by @pentagram

This new brand identity was actually done about a month ago, but I must’ve missed it. Everything about this is just awesome, the colors, the type, the vision.

“The Natural History Museum needed a symbol that made reference to our planet and the universal connection between everything in nature. It features a circular formation of NHM, representing the energy of a ripple effect, which pulsates from the centre to form a three-colour sunburst.”

Huge fan of everything about this (and Pentagram), but those member cards are something else 🔥

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That’s a wrap for WK32

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, be sure to tag @twidfyi on twitter

Love you all, have a great weekend

- @aleksliving

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