Margaret Andersen

Everyone is copying Netflix's UI. But Hulu might be the next big innovator

I’m not a gamer by any means. Sure I’ve played video games before, but most of my experience begins and ends with classics like The Legend of Zelda when it was still on Nintendo 64. For me, playing an open-world game like Zelda was never about final…

Louise Sandhaus Uplifts the Stories of Graphic Design’s Unsung Makers

Designers aren’t created in a vacuum. They’re shaped by their environments and the people around them, and it’s through mentorship and collaboration that they grow within their creative communities. For Louise Sandhaus, her role as a design educator…

Now, to Amazon, which until recently was an example of design rules

I was recently watching Succession and hit rewind to rewatch some particularly venomous corporate banter. Instead, the interface refreshed. Which led me to come up with some salty comments of my own. I’m not the only one. People have been complaining…

commissioned director and digital artist Karen X Cheng to create the magazine’s

If you’ve spent any time on #DesignTwitter lately, you’ll have likely come across a flurry of surreal images in your feed with tags like #dallemini, #dalle2 or #midjourney. While those hashtags might sound like a reference to NASA aircraft or…

The campaign was an international collaboration between NYC-based agency

Planning a summer trip has become increasingly complicated: skyrocketing gas prices, chaotic airline disruptions, and evolving COVID variants mean travel hasn't exactly been smooth sailing this season. But whether you’re packing your bags for an IRL…

where a panel of 3D artists and technologists explored softer visions for tech like

On the day that Elon Musk announced he would be acquiring Twitter, decentralized social network Mastodon gained roughly 30,000 new users—and hundreds of thousands of other Twitter users deactivated their accounts in response to the news. Over the…

On the Ground with Etsy Sellers on Strike

Between April 11-18th, thousands of Etsy sellers collectively put their shops on “vacation mode” to protest a 30% increase in transaction fees announced by the site. Many sellers essentially closed their stores for a week — losing income in the…

Gather's UI looks a lot like GameBoy. It's one of the best visions for the Metaverse we've seen

HBO’s hit show Girls, which followed the lives of four twenty-something women navigating life in Brooklyn, celebrated its 10-year anniversary this month. But as we look back over the period since its premiere, what’s most striking to us is how, since…

review

Letterboxd's UI has shifted movie reviews from lengthy film critic think pieces to bite-sized, at-a-glance takes written by anyone, and designed to be retweeted. If you’re searching for film review sources online, there’s a lot to choose from. Rotten…

. It's already seeing dividends, according to

There’s a lot of speculation about the Metaverse and what it will mean for the future of work. Will we actually be spending our nine to fives in virtual offices connected by VR headsets? With a global metaverse market size predicted to reach $678…

Ukraine Take Shelter

Two years ago, when then-17 year old Avi Schiffmann developed a website to track the spread of COVID-19, he never thought it would gain popularity the way it did. But the site soon grabbed a lot of attention, including from NIH director Dr. Anthony…

, match people based on memes a compared to photos, while

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 10 years since Tinder launched, and “swipe right/left” entered our dating vernacular. While the app has been criticized for normalizing a superficial, quantity over quality dating standard, the simplicity of its…

How Wordle's genius game design helped it go viral

If time is measured by digital trends and pop culture eras–Animal Crossing, Cottagecore TikTok, Tiger King et al.–then, as one Twitter user wrote, “Wordle is the sourdough starter of Omicron.” The simple web-based puzzle game, developed by software…

QR codes used to be a gimmick. Now designers are using them as a creative tool

QR codes have been around since the mid nineties, but until recently they’ve struggled to gain any real traction as a widespread design solution. Then, as public health measures prompted restaurants to remove menus and retail shops to increase…

These digital creators are making the case for clean NFTs. Can they go mainstream?

The NFT gold rush has some independent creators striking it rich, but what’s less known is that the opportunity cryptoart provides also comes at a cost to the environment. That’s why a new wave of digital artists and designers are building a movement…

The 10 biggest design trends of 2021

2021 was a year spent in flux. Time seemed to move slow and fast all at once; new technologies, spurred on by COVID, created novel ways of interacting, but left us feeling nostalgic for the past. That sense of duality also appeared in design; the…

Five Lesser-Known Works from Push Pin’s Archives

There’s little doubt you’ve heard of Push Pin Studio — the legendary collective of designers whose collective work revolutionized the field of commercial illustration. But there’s more to Push Pin than its most famous contributors like Milton Glaser…

5 Big Ideas From the 2021 AIGA Design Conference

After living through 18 months of an ongoing pandemic, our social and professional interactions have significantly changed since “The Before Times.” For many of us it’s been a period of isolation that has forced us to learn how to find social…

Exploring the Uncanny Language of AI Through a New Machine-Made Book

Exploring the creative applications of artificial intelligence is hardly a novel idea anymore. Artists and technologists have been collaborating for years on machine learning projects to produce surreal computer visions of the world around us. These…

Vallée Duhamel

This Montréal multidisciplinary studio leans on its roots in lo-fi design to capture surreal worlds in motion. When COVID-19 abruptly halted all in-person production shoots within the creative industry, Montréal-based multidisciplinary studio Vallée…