UX design
fromSmashing Magazine
4 days agoA Practical Guide To Design Principles - Smashing Magazine
Design principles align teams, inform decisions, and embody organizational values, serving as essential tools in the design process.
'In this paper a novel optical illusion is described in which purple structures (dots) are perceived as purple at the point of fixation, while the surrounding structures (dots) of the same purple colour are perceived toward a blue hue.'
Static images don't show motion. You can't inspect real product structure. You don't see how interfaces evolve over time. You rarely understand what actually works in production. So I decided to go deep. I reviewed every major design reference platform I could find - not just the popular ones - and analyzed how they actually help in real-world work. The conclusion?
From Do Ho Suh's ethereal architecture to Kimsooja's irridescent mirrors to Lauren Halsey's fringed tapestry, a new book from Monacelli celebrates a broad spectrum of light and color. Rainbow Dreams features more than 200 installations, sculptures, paintings, photographs, and more that revel in the possibilities of pigment. Bound in a smooth gradient that extends to the pages' edges, this vivid survey is a celebratory, playful object in itself.
Its newest, though, is a single-fan book with more than 600 spot colors, and it's priced at just $99. Pantone for beginners. Pantone on Thursday announced its Pantone Capsule: Signature Edition. Housed in a collectible, cylindrical case that wouldn't look out of place in a Sephora, the guide is a sort of Pantone 101 that come on coated and uncoated paper stock with colors selected from across more than 60 years of Pantone history.
A graphic designer that isn't limited to working in 2D, Ward Goes has been working in aluminium of late. His recent solo show in Rotterdam, Literally Anything, was full of things that moved beyond the screen or printed page, including some wonderful metal signage and archival storage. The exhibition at Alley Space was the result of the designer's decision to pursue more tactical investigations alongside his commissioned work at the start of 2025.
Architect-turned-interior designer Anh Ly, founder and CEO of Mim Concept, explains why the color surged in the first place: "Butter yellow had a magic moment because it felt optimistic and comforting, especially during a time when people were craving warmth at home." Now, that emotional pull is also what's working against it. "It fell short on resale since it's a very emotion-specific color. Buyers tend to see it as personal rather than neutral, which makes it harder for them to imagine themselves in the space," Ly adds.
There have been a few drafts of a specification function for this functionality, most recently, contrast-color() (formerly color-contrast()) in the CSS Color Module Level 5 draft. But with Safari and Firefox being the only browsers that have implemented it so far, the final version of this functionality is likely still a ways off. There has been a lot of functionality added to CSS in the meantime; enough that I wanted to see whether we could implement it in a cross-browser friendly way today. Here's what I have: color: oklch(from <your color> round(1.21 - L) 0 0);
One predictable pain point with contrast-color() is that it only returns black and white named colors. From a design systems perspective, that's not ideal because you want your colors. You want your harmonious brand and the colors you and your team spent thousands of man hours in meetings deciding on. Those colors. In fact, an earlier version of Safari had color-contrast() (confusing I know, naming is hard) which allowed you to pass in a list of best candidates to choose from. I beleive that proposal got mired in standards discussions, color contrast algorithms, and competing proposals; and contrast-color() is what survived which got simplified down to a binary result.
Our Must-Have Fonts for 2025 list was our most popular ever, but our must-have fonts for 2026 list aims to set the bar even higher. Finding the best typefaces among thousands can be pretty daunting! So, to make things easier, we've curated a list of outstanding must-have typefaces for the coming year. The ten font families in the list share something important in common - an explicitly human touch, not machine-made or prompt-produced, but born from human minds and crafted by human hands.
We examine the online debate ignited by Pantone's Colour of the Year, Cloud Dancer. This episode dives into the discussion prompted by Pantone, unpacking the uneasy relationship between colour and fascism. From hardline efforts to regulate colour in public life to the ways vibrancy and maximalism reassert themselves, we explore how colour becomes a quiet form of resistance across art, fashion, film, and design.
Making a small bathroom both beautiful and functional is a tall task; after all, they're often short on light, floor space and lofty ceilings. Creating a design for tiny bathrooms should focus on using every inch of space effectively - but since each of these spaces (no matter how small!) have walls, a paint color may be your most important choice.
The 2026 Color Collection from 3form highlights hues that have anchored design across generations and cultures for thousands of years. The brand's sixth grouping is a departure from last year's palette, which emphasized the emotional power of select shades. With the guiding theme "Color that Connects," the new line features tones that are celebrated by communities around the globe. Inspiration for the palette came from exploring natural pigments used to make certain colors, and how they were found in various locales over time.