The next evolution of type on Medium

It’s late Thursday night in the Medium office, a week before the 2.0 launch. Marcin, a fellow designer and typographer, is sitting a few feet away. We’ve hit that moment in every project where you’re tired — really, really tired — and are reconsidering everything you’ve done.

We pause and think, should we just keep the fonts we have? Maybe the journey was the reward.

One month earlier, we started down the road of revisiting all typography on the platform.

Type is a huge component of design at Medium. We’re a stories platform, and we render our stories with type. We take care of the typography for you. We’ve turned your normal quotes into smart quotes, adjusted the weight of underlines, made printing stories great, etc. …

The Medium design team is proud to partner with Bridge: a professional development program for experienced designers, hosted by Designer Fund.

After learning about what Designer Fund was up to with Bridge, it was clear that their mission closely aligns with our design values at Medium. We care deeply about how design impacts our users and work hard to hone our craft. That’s what Bridge is all about! Bridge designers work at design-minded companies while learning weekly from a community of design mentors.

At Medium, we’re building a new kind of media product — one centered around conversation and reaction, where audience engagement is not an afterthought but something fundamentally new and participatory. We’re a perfect fit for any Bridge designer with high ambitions and looking to make a real impact. While at Medium, Bridge designers will work with the product team, and Ev, to help experiment, refine, and ship beautiful experiences to people around the world. …

Obligatory Apple Watch post on Medium to follow.

I’ve had my watch one day. This is what I like:

• I’ve stopped mindlessly checking my phone, and in turn used my phone much less 👍
• I always know what meeting is next, and where I need to be. This is super helpful throughout the workday.
• For some reason I like knowing the temperature outside, the watch makes this very easy.
• It’s well-made and fits comfortably.

A conversation between myself and Tyler Howarth, the most recent member of the Medium Design team, before he joined.

On Friday, Feb 27, Tyler Howarth wrote:

I’m super excited to come in next week and meet more of the team.

Since we did a mini portfolio review/chat — I’d like to know if you have any constructive thoughts or ideas for my presentation next Friday. Anything I should focus on? Is there anything that I was unclear about?

Thanks!

On Friday, Feb 27, I wrote:

Absolutely, and I appreciate you asking. Here’s my thoughts:

• Put together a narrative of what you’ve done.
• Show us a wide variety of skills between product, visuals, and interactions/prototypes.
• Be open about successes and failures.
• And tell us why Medium, why now.

Show us why you love doing this ☺

I wasn’t always a Product Designer. I spent years working in corporate America. Deep corporate.

I went to college at a small Engineering school in Michigan called Kettering University, formerly known as General Motors Institute. The program as internally described:

Students alternate academic terms of classes taught by respected faculty with academic terms of full-time professional employment at highly regarded corporate partners.

My first co-op company was Tower Automotive, a Tier 1 auto supplier that designs and manufactures structural components for cars and trucks.

During my tenure at Tower, most of my time was spent supporting Ben Roush, VP Global Lean Six Sigma. …

Keep it casual.

Yesterday we changed some things around on Medium. Ev breaks it down here.

Huge shoutout to Brian.pm, Andrew3886, Koopertino, Joy.js, Fatrick, Stirmanjis, and my design partner in crime Marcin Lawrence.

I can’t wait to show you what’s next.

1This was originally published on April 2, 2014 on Hatch, our internal version of Medium. Check out Hatching Inside Medium for more context.

Building blocks of a story

Inline content, layouts, and parts

When Medium first launched the story page it looked something like this:

At the start of September we began an exploratory project called Plus Plus. Four months later Medium 1.0 launched, known internally as one-dot-oh, which included the concept of covers and full bleeds to the story page.

Cover photo by @dpup

I woke up, but not to a noise blaring from my phone. The blurry screen read 7:19am. The plane was expected to take off at 9, with or without me.

The original plan was to be out the door and in a car nineteen minutes prior. There was no way to make it on time, especially with holiday security lines. I called 1–800-Delta-support looking to hop on the next available flight. It would cost me but I had to get home.

I was in a bind and she knew it. A lovely lady on the other end of my cry for help. After a few quiet moments she said: “to switch your flight to the 11:20 departure I will have to charge you $947.” …