Taken From the album "Maze of Sounds" by Janko Nilovic & The Soul Surfers available on Broc RecordzRecorded at Studio C.B.E By David Mestre Mixed by Igor Zhu...

Janko Nilovic & The Soul Surfers - Maze of Sounds

https://youtu.be/AuyJan6vnNc?si=ajCY-HOIUn44hs_h

The ultimate interface reference Tool for game designers.  Explore over 1,300 games, and 55,000 UI screenshots and videos, and filter by screen category, animation, colour, material, layout, texture, shapes, patterns, genre and more!

Game UI Database

https://www.gameuidatabase.com/index.php?&sort=1

https://open.substack.com/pub/ideasondesign/p/design-digest-07?r=6582g&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Part of the global Olympic brand, by Hulse & Durrell between 2019 and 2023.

Job Application for Product Designer at Substack

https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/substack/jobs/4461970005

https://www.uber.com/us/en/careers/list/?department=Design

Why AI shouldn't be treated like a marketing buzzword.

A toothbrush with AI, really?

Scavengers Reign Season 2 Teaser

https://youtu.be/kSEPJ9OtQb8?si=23HUajCtpqPLiQGN

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/design/gallery/

Exploring the impact of digital type on our lives, on software production, and on the future of design.

How Fonts Change the World: Dave Crossland, Google Fonts

https://interfacecafe.com/how-fonts-change-the-world-dave-crossland-google-fonts/

Design Digest #08

https://www.ideasondesign.com/p/design-digest-08

I tried Apple Music for a while but ultimately decided to cancel due to the price. I still found it better than Spotify, particularly the option to browse new releases for any genre. It felt like going to a record shop. On Spotify you can only do it for the most popular genres.

A job ad that requires proficiency in Arena 🤦

After digging through the work of Jan Weissenfeldt I found Janko Nilovic, an 83 years old kick-ass Montenegrin-French pianist. Good stuff. Here with the Soul Surfers.

https://youtu.be/AuyJan6vnNc?si=ajCY-HOIUn44hs_h

Just found this cool website. 
A database of game interfaces.

https://www.gameuidatabase.com/index.php?&sort=1

People complain (rightfully) about the placement of the power button on the new Mac Mini. 

Others, with a big following, go counter current to argue that it is a totally genius move. 

Some would defend Apple even if they placed the power button inside the Mac, next to the HD.

Every company seems to be branding their AI solutions with this kind of colour-gradient à la Instagram.

In the picture: Apple and Google. How original.

Received a notification on Instagram that reads: "You're only 9 likes away from earning your next achievement."

Wth?

I really like the work of Here-Now Studio. They don't feature a lot, but it feels fresh, and not formulaic. I share this and more on my latest Design Digest. 

https://open.substack.com/pub/ideasondesign/p/design-digest-07?r=6582g&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Anyways Creative created a beautiful set of Yoodles for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

I honestly didn’t know that YouTube had their own version of Google Doodles, but I really like how Yoodles are not as limited by the logo as their Google counterpart.

And finally the Harris/Walz logo seems to have been "fixed" when it comes to typography. 

For a type nerd, it was a bit irritating that some letters were deserving of ink traps, while others not.

In blue, the original; in white, the new version by Tal Leming and Ben Ostrower.

With each Olympics, the hosting city creates a brand identity that celebrates the place, but somehow ends up competing with the global Olympic brand. I wonder what if the Olympic brand took the centre stage, immersing the hosting city in its five colours for a period of time?

This might be my favourite rebrand of the year. Especially because how well it respects where the brand is coming from.

Each edition of the Olympics comes with a new mascot. It’s never the dove. But the dove is cool.

Nice! Posts is opening an investment arm 😂

This is a cool opportunity. 
Product Design at Substack.

https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/substack/jobs/4461970005

Changing jobs next week. Used read cv to export a pdf version of my cv, and a password protected project as a portfolio. Works nice 👌

This statement, used by Steve Jobs when introducing the "Think Different" campaign to a small group of employees, really tells a lot about what brand building is all about.

News circulate that Elon implants a Neurolink on a 2nd patient.

Twitter's Linda Yaccarino does that weird performance against advertisers.

What are the odds?

We can’t design think our way out of the environment problem, because the solution to this problem is a paradoxically simple one that pits the Mies Van der Rohe design philosophy against our very own human psychology: less is more, but people always want more.

Hey you, product designers in the US, Uber seems to have a lot of open positions!

https://www.uber.com/us/en/careers/list/?department=Design

It’s cliché to say that "money doesn't bring happiness," and although the idea that satisfaction comes from impressing yourself might also be commonplace for some people, it short-circuited my brain and gave validation to some weird choices.

I just had a video call to discuss the pricing of a product, but only after the call I realized I had just talked to one of the graphic designers whose work I admire the most. I should have googled a bit. 😅

Toothbrush with AI.
AI-powered Bird Feeder.
8k AI upscaling TV.

Really?

In the past I’ve read a couple of books about twitter. The key difference is that those were more founding story kind of books. This one is probably the exact opposite. 

Cool title.

I really dislike the trend of beginning social media posts with "Designers..." 

I know it’s not meant like that, but it comes across as condescending, like a king talking to its peasants.

Can’t believe this show got cancelled, especially after being awarded at the Emmys.

https://youtu.be/kSEPJ9OtQb8?si=23HUajCtpqPLiQGN

The current trend of hardware with AI companions… as if people have all the time in the world for meaningless chats. I can’t even stay in touch with people I care about 🙃

Toys 'R Us was planing a rebrand right before filling for bankruptcy. Tupperware rebranded right before filling for bankruptcy. Jaguar has been in trouble for some time and now they rebrand. It this rebrand also a last ditch effort?

The trend of slightly tilting cards and making things look like a collage, or a pinboard. Sometimes, like in this case, it looks cool. Other times it makes no sense.

Sony used to have great industrial design. Retro Futuristic. Then they did the PS5…

Great gallery: https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/design/gallery/

This morning, I was looking for a toy store and passed by this beautiful entrance from the HAW university at the Armgartstraße.

One thing  I didn’t like about the visual identity for the Paris Olympics is how they abandoned the traditional pictograms for crest-like symmetrical compositions. 

They look good, but the sports are very difficult (or nearly impossible) to decipher at a glance.

It’s really fascinating how, over the course of 20 years, the internet went from “free information” to “let’s steal information and make money.” Big tech is destroying the internet, or at least changing it for the worse.

Most startup founders hope for successful exits, but it’s heartbreaking to see how Bento has had no updates since being acquired by Linktree earlier this year.

They used to release new features almost weekly.

If you ever wondered how Google Fonts works, and how they get quality fonts there, this is a great listen/read. Spoiler alert: designers get commissioned to design fonts for Google Fonts. 

https://interfacecafe.com/how-fonts-change-the-world-dave-crossland-google-fonts/

I've been collecting interesting brand-related jobs that I find. I do it mostly for myself, but eventually it helps someone else. It's mostly for brand(ing) roles and with a focus on Europe (likely Germany) based or remote friendly.

https://www.ideasondesign.com/p/jobs

Tupperware rebranded recently, and now they file for bankruptcy. 

Unfortunately, I have the impression that this is somewhat common: companies do rebrands as a last ditch effort to generate some hype.

MatterXH is a new addition to the Matter family by the Displaay type foundry. I think the XH stands for a higher x-Height which makes it work great for logos.

I love that technology keeps evolving and that our devices can do more stuff with every new app, feature, and generation. The possibilities are endless and that’s addictive, but at the same time, I would love my phone to do much less.

Figma has 4 million users.
Adobe has 30 million users.
Canva has 100 million users.

Damn…

I just published a new design digest where I compiled a bunch of links for Olympic-related design stuff. Take a look. 

https://www.ideasondesign.com/p/design-digest-08

And… I deleted Facebook, again. It didn’t last more than a week this time. I wanted to reconnect with extended family and old school friends, but unfortunately Facebook isn’t what it used to be anymore. It’s even worse now. I kept messenger tho. Let’s see how long that one lasts.

The Mozilla rebrand is cool. 
I love how retro the Dino+Flag logo looks like.

https://www.jkrglobal.com/work/mozilla

Do you remember any Sci Fi movies where tech gets attributed a distinctive colour? 

A bit like the green in Matrix or the red in 2001: A space Odissey.

Not that it matters to anyone, but apparently Medium is letting go their symbol. They removed it from their app icon, favicon, and website.

Things keep getting more interesting on the AI front. 

It seems like Runway trained their new AI video model on pirated movies, the work of many famous YouTubers, and… Taylor Swift videoclips!

Beautiful old LP cover by David M. Seager for Radio Free America 1974