Welcome to the 38th edition of Design Brief – your weekly fix of news, tips and updates from the world of design. This week, we dug up a few stories about design systems, typography in emails and practical design discovery. We’ve also got great news for Offscreen fans: the magazine’s new incarnation with impressive new features has just been released. Enjoy!
Users interact with software on devices with different screen sizes, so digital designers can’t base their work on standard grid systems like printed media do. They deal with many parameters and dynamic data, which makes it hard to stick to grid systems. Read more
More about design systems in a post by Christian Beck. The author tries to explain design systems and their role in UX. Design systems have evolved in the past two decades giving creators consistency, optimisation, efficiency and scale. But at the cost of something different. Read more
Having discovered that users expressed confusion and frustration with MyFitnessPal app, the author decided to conduct usability tests to spot issues with the application. As a result, not only did she come up with potential solutions, but she also had a chance to her improve design skills. Read more
A great interview with Paul Airy, the author of A Type of Email, in which he shares “the clearest, most tangibly applied set of guidelines” for HTML typography in emails. Interesting insights, lessons learned and practical tips from the “email geek”. Read more
Dan Brown, a web designer and co-founder of EightShapes, LLC, reveals the secrets of effective product design discovery and emphasises the crucial role it plays in projects’ success. Read more
An insightful story from an IBM designer about his first six months in the company. IBM seems like a good place for a design career path if you want to develop skills effectively and contribute to big projects. Read more
It’s finally here! After seven months, the new Offscreen with brand new design has been released. The big launch brings big changes: a fresh look, extra magazine specs, a different subscription model, new Offscreen accounts, a revamped weekly newsletter and a reworked backend. Read more
