FEATURE
Soft Skills Vs. Power Skills—Is There A Difference?
Power skills are the newly popularized term for soft skills, because many experts say that soft skills are the most important and hardest skills to build in the world of business, and rightfully so.
CREATIVITY
Eminem's Notebooks Are a Masterclass in How Anyone Can Be More Creative
Eminem revealed his songwriting process to Anderson Cooper by sharing pages from his notebooks and loose-leaf pages where he writes down lyric ideas. The notebooks also offer an important lesson to everyone who wants to be more creative in their life or work: Creativity is messy
Beyond numbers: Proving the value of design(ers)
Design is a process. But because of our obsession with hard data, designers are only evaluated on their outputs — the thing that they made. How well someone moves through the process, or the care someone puts into understanding the problem is often lost when we measure success only with numbers.
CURIOSITY
John Maeda | Design in Tech Report
If it's SXSW, it must mean it's time for John Maeda's Design in Tech Report. In his 2024 report: "Design Against AI", this former MIT professor and the author of How to Speak Machine—reminds people in creative and tech fields that they need to demystify the invisible by studying what’s under the hood.
Watch the video, drive the presentation, but don't miss it
VISUAL
The new Disney+ logo is a beautiful compromise
To mark its official merging with Hulu, Disney+ has rolled out a new logo for its streaming service app. Out with the blue, in with the teal.
According to a Disney+ spokesperson, the biggest source of inspiration was the Aurora Borealis - the northern lights phenomenon...
UX
Design without process, or the form factor trap
A good reminder that the value of design isn’t actually in producing visual artifacts, but in the process that leverages those artifacts. Documenting a design decision¹ in a visual artifact — that can be disseminated among appropriate audiences — is what makes that decision tangible and testable. Cycling through that feedback loop between design decisions, visual documentation, and the audience — and increasing the fidelity of both your thinking and your artifacts — is how design works.
Generative UI and Outcome-Oriented Design
NNG anticipates that genUI will allow for highly personalized, tailor-made interfaces that suit the needs of each individual. Read on to see how designers may need to change the way they work.
INCLUSIVE
A Practical Guide To Designing For Colorblind People
Smashing Magazine's Vitaly Friedman reminds us that color accessibility is more than just ticking boxes. Even with good contrast, some color palettes can make interfaces challenging for users. Vitaly shares practical guidelines to ensure more inclusive design for colorblind people.