Before the logo, the website, or the color palette gets approved, there’s the mood board. It’s where early ideas start to take form. They’re not fully designed and not totally final, but close enough to spark conversations, shape direction, and get everyone on the same page.
As always, we’re keeping an eye on the latest tools making life easier for our fellow developers. In this post, we’ve picked some handy open-source tools made for developers like you, whether you’re working with AI, PHP, JavaScript, TypeScript, or Node.js.
Swedish design is world-renowned for its clean lines, minimalist approach, and functional beauty, and that same philosophy shines through in typography.
System design is often taught through solutions specific to particular domains, such as databases, operating systems, or computer architecture, each with its own methods and vocabulary. While this diversity is a strength, it can obscure cross-cutting principles that recur across domains. This paper proposes a preliminary taxonomy of system design principles distilled from several domains in computer systems. The goal is a shared, concise vocabulary that helps students, researchers, and…
I joined the company as the first full-time employee and, over five years, tried on multiple roles — from product design to strategic planning. I helped the product evolve from an idea to a market-ready service, went through one pivot, and gathered a lot of insights along the way. Here’s what I learned — I hope these lessons help you avoid common mistakes in your own journey.
This week, I found myself surprisingly invested in the great modal drawer debate. A perfect reminder that even the smallest UX choices spark strong feelings. In this issue, you’ll find smart takes on notifications, a neat CSS image grid trick, and a peek at design careers without the usual fluff.
Ever wondered where that bold, slab-serif “college look” comes from? It goes way back to mid‑19th century Ivy League sportswear. Harvard’s baseball team embroidered an “H” on their flannel jackets in 1865, making them the first varsity-style letter sweaters.
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets AI assistants connect with external data sources, tools, or systems. This makes them much more useful by allowing them to do things like run code, manage files, and interact with APIs.
Welcome to this week’s Unicorn Club. If you’re as fascinated by those subtle CSS discoveries as I am, don’t miss Chris Coyier’s journey into animation-composition and stacked transforms. It’s a good reminder that sometimes the ‘aha’ moments come from just digging into how things actually work, not just following docs.
Let’s be honest for a second. Most “free Lightroom preset” packs are garbage. They’re either a bait-and-switch for a paid bundle, or they’re so over-the-top they make your photos look like a cartoon parody from 2014. As a designer, your eye is trained for nuance, for balance, for an aesthetic that communicates something. Slapping a garish, one-size-fits-all filter on your work just feels… wrong.
