473 Design Dispatch #02
Hope you enjoy this edition! We've curated a selection of our favorite tools, insights, and design heroes to inspire and elevate your creative journey.
FOUR Design Heroes of all times
Paula Scher is one of the most acclaimed graphic designers in the world. She has been a principal in the New York office of the distinguished international design consultancy Pentagram since 1991. Among her many achievements, what stands out to us is her incredible side project where she hand-painted a series of giant maps. This project, which evolved into a book, showcases her creativity and attention to detail in the most fantastic way.
A true pioneer in the world of design, Milton Glaser created some of the most iconic design pieces, including the "I Love New York" logo and the famous David Bowie poster. Known for his relentless pursuit of improvement, Glaser was a modern renaissance man, blending intellectual depth with a rich visual language in his work. His legacy continues to inspire designers around the globe.
Often regarded as the father of modern typography, Erik Spiekermann has designed some of the most widely used fonts today, such as Meta, Fira, and Officina. Beyond his contributions to typography, we admire his witty and candid presence on Twitter, where he humorously critiques the current state of branding and design.
Massimo Vignelli, an Italian designer, is renowned for creating the beautiful Design System for the New York Subway. A visionary ahead of his time, Vignelli co-founded Vignelli Associates with his wife, Lella. His motto, "If you can design one thing, you can design everything," is reflected in the wide range of his work, demonstrating his genius and versatility.
SEVEN Digital Tools to get your shit together
Lummi.ai offers the best free stock photos and royalty-free images, powered by robots everywhere. Say goodbye to boring stock photos with Lummi's creative image generation. It also features a Figma plugin, allowing you to use these images directly in your designs. We've been using it for a while, and our designs have seriously leveled up thanks to some beautiful images.
Fonts Ninja helps you identify fonts used on any website instantly. With its browser extension, you can inspect and purchase fonts effortlessly, making it an essential tool for designers to follow layout structures and typography hierarchy. It's a great tool to learn all about the nuances of typography.
Fonts In Use is a comprehensive library showcasing real-world applications of different typefaces. It's an excellent resource for finding inspiration and seeing how various fonts perform in practical settings.
Standards is a digital style guide builder created by Standards Manual, that helps teams maintain consistency across all their design projects. It allows you to create and manage brand guidelines, ensuring everyone stays on the same page. Details make the design. The precision in its design and content is outstanding. Brands like Hermann Miller and Skillshare use Standards to create their brand guidelines.
Lumos is a cutting-edge framework for building Webflow sites, designed with efficiency, scalability, and accessibility at its core. Created by the great Timothy Ricks, the one and only Webflow wizard, it's like living in the future. Make sure you watch his YouTube videos with your hand ready to press pause to follow along, as he works at 2x speed.
Bring illustrations into your projects. It provides customizable illustrations from artists around the world, making it easy to add unique and vibrant visuals to your designs.
Brand the Change / Case Studies
Brand the Change is a book, an absolute masterpiece on branding and brand strategy. It's more than that—it's a community and a source of valuable resources. For just 15 euros, you can access detailed analyses of incredible brands like Patagonia, exploring their brand purpose, promises, values, and more. Their site is packed with material, so don't miss out!
THREE YouTube Channels to binge-watch
The Spirited Man is an unlimited series about the spirited man or woman who lives inside all of us (and fixing things).
ArchDaily
For architecture fans like us, this is the channel of the world's most visited architecture website.femke.design
On this channel she shares her learnings and experience being a designer, which will cover everything from UX Design to User Research, Prototyping and Product.
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