Experimental
Astronaut is a site in which you pretend to be floating in space, gazing at people and fleeting moments through a small window. You'll flip through unnamed and unedited videos that have almost zero previous views. It's mesmerizing to watch these raw and honest moments, one after the other. A captivating glimpse at humanity.
Inspiration
A hand-picked collection of App Store design screenshots. That's it. Nothing else. If you're looking for inspiration on product shots for your mobile app, check out this site. It's interesting to see how many products use similar styles and strategies. Maybe they're all taking influence from each other, lol.
Resource
I recently came across this writing style guide by MailChimp. It's such a fantastic resource that lets you see how they write clear and consistent content across teams and channels. It goes beyond basic grammar and includes voice and tone, principles, writing for social media, and, my favorite, writing for accessibility. They created this style guide for their internal team, but you can use and adapt it for your own product needs. It’s public and available under a Creative Commons license.
Illustrator
Mariery is a designer and illustrator from Panama who is the founder of Mezclao Studio. She uses colorful, blocky, and organic surface pattern designs that give life and movement to her work. Click on dat FOLLOW button!
Opportunities
If you look beyond the GIFs and the buzz, you'll find that Buzzfeed deeply cares about design. They have a comprehensive style guide called Solid, an active design publication where they share about their process, and their news organization is quite respected. A friend of mine, who I much admire, works as a designer there and told me about this position. If you're a product designer looking for a new opportunity in NY or are thinking about moving there, maybe apply?
Thoughts
Milton Glaser is among the most celebrated graphic designers in the US. He has made some of the world’s most recognizable visual arts like the I ❤️NY logo and New York Magazine.
He once said: “There are three responses to a piece of design—yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.”
I take this as working towards that visceral reaction you can get from people when experiencing your creations. It can be a product, an experience, a poster, or a tiny graffiti in the corner of a wall. Whatever you do, you add a little extra, something that makes it unique, out of the ordinary. When you design aspiring to get a response that goes beyond just a simple ok, everything else will fall into place.
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