It sure looks like we are living in a world where being the “news bearer” is more important than creating the thing the news is about. Being louder, being the first to publish it. I wonder where will this take us.

Figma should add a “feedback” type of comments. Free form comments can get overwhelming and some people are not that good at verbalizing their feedback. If designers could create questionnaires as templates for comments, it would help greatly.

Thinking about the recent feature release for stacks by Sketch, I can’t help but wonder how differently Sketch and Figma got to the same place. Figma was the first one to the market with autolayout, and they got there in trailblazing mode. Did Sketch wait on purpose to develop stacks, so they could skip the R&D? If so, why?

A feature such as stacks was a solved problem for Sketch because Figma set the expectations with autolayout.

What did Figma gain to make the R&D worth it to be the first, and what did Sketch lose for it?

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Imagine asking AI for some construction or assembly instructions, and it not only describes them, but creates images, technical drawings, even animations and videos to offer visual aid.

At the moment when using products like Perplexity, ChatGPT, etc. I can get overwhelmed with text because it's really bad at brevity. It seems it wants to generate more text. Illustrations would greatly reduce this feeling and make the consumption of the information a much more natural and pleasant experience.

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I've been thinking about how people interface with the world, and I realized that the absolute worst position to be in is to be high consciousness, low agency.

What I mean by that is that you always understand what's wrong in a situation, but at the same time you lack the will—or… something or other—to act in order to make it better. You end up being the person responsible for pointing out the flaws in things. And if you don't, it eats you up from the inside. It's a harsh reality.

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There is no good or bad art. There is relevant, and irrelevant art.

In order to be able to say that a piece of art is good, it means that it represented something valuable at the time it came to be. It had a very specific feature needed at its inception.

Sometimes that’s something new, something no one was able to do before. Other times it’s something no one dares to do. And sometimes it’s just something someone needs at that point time.

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You will never be able to create more value by increasing efficiency. Save that for the factory floor. On a personal level, it's just productivity porn. No system which enables you to do more stuff is ever going to help you to do more meaningful work.

Efficiency implies the extraction of value, not its creation. Find ways to do less, but achieve more.

I will do my best to do so as well.

Thank you for taking the time to read what I put out. Happy new year.

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Great tool by the way.

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One of the biggest problems designers have is the fact that they have never been on the other end of the client-vendor relationship. Get your face out of Figma and go be a client. You will gain a newfound respect for their role, and they will no longer have to treat you like a baby.

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Adopting an aesthetic is not differentiating. It's siding with a larger group, or fitting in to a pre-existing style in order to remove risk. This is why following trends, and designing within systems is safe.

I find it rather interesting that in Serbian we use the same word for “favor” and “service”: usluga. In English it’s clear which one implies an exchange.

The lack of specification results in improvisation. It's up to you to decide whether that's the goal, or not.

The founders and stakeholders will probably be better at your job than you at first, and that's OK. They've already invested time in it, and most likely know the problem space.

It's up to them to give you a fair chance to succeed, and it's up to you to give it your best shot. Everything else is just playing games and wasting each-other's time.

Is your organization utilizing design purposefully and strategically?

Are you asked for input when business decisions are made?

When it comes to design work, are you pressured to execute in a certain way by non-experts?

Figure this out, and you will know how your company views design.

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As an attorney the best complimentary skill you can learn is typography. Lawyers tend to produce the worst documents in every way imaginable.

Recently I've been trying to change my vocabulary when talking about what we do.

“Product design” was passed on from the physical world and always required additional explanation, which is why I find “software design” a much more clear, and better fitting term.

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I'm certain most people have been in this situation where an expectation is placed on us to run the show like it's our own. It's amazing when someone trusts you so much that they are willing to do that.

Unfortunately, more often than not this expectation is placed without its prerequisite which is at least a certain level of autonomy. In product this is usually manifested with realizations such as "team members are not looking at the product holistically", "no one is coming up with ideas", or "they are only executing, and no one is innovating".

Well, what can I say, no one wants that shitty deal. And the bigger the organization, the more of this there is.

My official stance on the matter was always: if my vote doesn't count and I am not empowered to make decisions, I cannot be held responsible for the outcomes.

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I've had the “pleasure” to experience both versions of working with friends; I've worked with friends who I'm no longer friends with, and friends I'm still working with.

I personally feel that working with people I care about personally brings out the best in me, and I do my best work. I need that “chemistry”.

However, working with friends is a grownup relationship. In order for it to work you need to possess a great amount of emotional intelligence and maturity.

I know from experience—mine and others'—that once you survive a couple of shipwrecks you're probably good for the long run.

Go for it!

Back in the 90s I had a habit of going to a music store and buying new music based on the design of the album cover alone. I always believed that the cover should capture the sensibility of the music it represents, and good ones definitely do.

One of my favorites I discovered this way is the band …And you will know us by the trail of dead, and their self-titled album.

Their music was something completely new and fascinating to a 16-year-old me. I guess it's called post-hard-core or something, doesn't matter. What matters is that their name and cover art perfectly represented the sensibility of their music, and set my expectations up for the experience of listening to it.

Take that as you will, but there's a huge takeaway in there in regards to design and digital products.

Our industry is overflowing with acronyms—looking at you, marketing—and at this point, I don’t even know how we manage to understand each other anymore.

Sure, they save some time but overusing them is just passe. It’s not in good taste.

When you’re talking to a colleague, that’s actually OK as there’s virtually no risk of miscommunication. But when you’re talking to people outside of your domain of expertise it’s good to tone it down, and just use normal words. They will be able to feel better because they won’t have to look them up or keep asking you to clarify, and you will actually have a better chance of getting your point across.

We all know the narrative: designers and developers are opposing forces. The vision, and the implementation are always at odds with each other.

Bullshit. This is junior thinking.

The opportunities which are missed if designers and developers don't work together are astonishing.

• There's more time and effort spent going back and forth, because there are more design iterations and code refactors before features are completed.
• A non-trivial amount of time and energy is spent in meetings, arguing and fighting over who is right, and who gets their way.
• All this in turn costs the organization money, and increases risk by delaying the moment the product hits the market.

This can all be alleviated if designers and developers find a way to include each other in their creative processes.

I am certain I saw this somewhere and that I didn't come up with it, but I can't recall where so I wanted to recreate it for posterity.

You will mostly hear about the Eisenhower matrix in the context of prioritization of work, and this one is the same just in the context of digital product design.

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It is only by association with a product, a service, a business, or a corporation that a logo takes on any real meaning. It derives its meaning and usefulness from the quality of that which it symbolizes.

Paul Rand

The first idea is just that — first idea. Almost a gut reaction to the problem. Yet we often treat it as the final one. We stick to that one — first thought — give it a lot of love, refine it, nurture it and defend it. Until it proves to be wrong. And we get frustrated.

Janko speaking the truth. And it only makes sense, because if you limit yourself to a single way of solving a design problem, it’s going to be precious to you, and if it turns out to not work so well you’re going to have to go back and come up with another one. To some this may not be an issue, but to a lot of us it’s a psychological step back, an admittance to defeat even.

As the years pass I am more and more convinced that starting lo-fi and exploring many directions is the way to go. Not only do you get the benefit of being able to compare different solutions to a problem, but the client management ends up being much easier as a consequence of a more transparent design process.

Requesting a quality result out of a project due yesterday is like having someone teach you how to fistfight really quick because you have to fight this really big dude tomorrow.

It’s not going to happen. He can show you a trick or two, but that’s it.

Face it, accept the fact that you’ve made some bad decisions, and that you’ll have to do the best you can with what you have at your disposal.

I.e. pray to God you’ll not get your ass kicked too hard.