1984.design
1984.design
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Recommended readings

Red are my faves — Barron

Blue are my faves — Carolyn

If you want even MORE readings... check my bookmarks here.

General Design

Research & Destroy — Daniel Van Der Velden How much of "design" is just differentiating luxury goods? Are we truly "solving problems?"

Design Is Capitalism — Jennifer Daniel

Fuck Content — Michael Rock

All Technology Is Assistive — Sara Hendren

Design Justice (book) — Sasha Costanza-Chock Examining the theory and practice of technology design through a social justice lens

Design for the Real World (book) — Victor Papanek

Branding/Visual Design

Why Does Every Lifestyle Startup Look The Same? — Eliza Brooke

Do You Want Typography Or Do You Want The Truth? — Erik Carter What's wrong with graphic design as a profession?

Coding/Computing/Programming

What Is Code? — Paul Ford In-depth exploration of how software works from a technical but also cultural/societal perspective.

Up & Down the Ladder of Abstraction — Bret Victor How do we use computation & visualization to design & learn about systems?

Coding is Not The New Literacy — Chris Granger What do you get out of programming?

Interactive/Digital Design

What Screens Want — Frank Chimero Good primer on what makes designing natively for screens, instead of just using old practices.

A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design — Bret Victor Good look at why our vision of the future might not make any sense.

Fear Of Screens — Nathan Jurgenson Why do we assume screens are immoral/ "not real life?" An argument against digital dualism.

Your UI is your product’s humble compensation for not being telepathic — Morten Just What is your interface compensating for? 

Mobile First — Benedict Evans What does it mean to design for a mobile device?

On Weaponised Design — Cade How do the things we design harm people, intentionally or unintentionally?

Magic Ink — Bret Victor Does everything need to be highly interactive to be useful?

Design for Real Life (book) — Eric Meyer & Sara Wachter-Boettcher How do we create digital products for real-life scenarios, not just ideal happy-path cases? Particular focus on writing & product mechanics

Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech (book) — Sara Wachter-Boettcher

How E-Commerce Sites Manipulate You Into Buying Things You May Not Want — NYT Primer on tactics to drive purchase/action on websites/apps.

Problem-Framing & Product Thinking

Are you solving the right problems? — Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg Explanation of why problem-framing is important.

Why Product Thinking is the Next Big Thing in UX Design — Nikkel Blaase What's the difference between a product and a feature?

"Artificial Intelligence"

Ways to Think About Machine Learning — Benedict Evans What does machine learning enable that's different than existing technology?

Working

A Guide to Working With Clients — HAWRAF Practical guide to freelancing/running a studio.

How Do You Organize Your Design Files? — Carolyn Zhang

How to Get a Design Job — Lydia White

In Defense of Generalism — Chloe Scheffe

More

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Design Books by Womxn & People of Color

Blogs

UI Movement — Blog about interface animations/transitions

Little Big Details — Blog about small UI/UX details

Really Good UX — Case studies about good UX moments

Hover States — Experimental Web Design

Flowing Data — Datavis Case Studies

Newsletters

CZ's picks (these are all about tech, not design, but might be interesting anyway)

Stratechery — strategy and business analysis of tech. Mostly covers big tech companies (FAANG+)

Benedict's Newsletter — a VC (venture capitalist) sharing smart analysis of tech news

Example issue

Exponential View — tech, econ, climate news