Weekly Design Reading List #4: Learnings From Bauhaus, Web became Unreadable, Designing at 10,000 Feet

Welcome to the last reading list of the year. 2016 has been a roller coaster in terms of both the good and bad. This is the time when every individual and organisation looks back at the entire year and takes some time off daily routine and relax for a bit.

Before the new year comes up next, here’s yet another Weekly Design Reading List to keep you company for the next few days of vacation time.

Graphic Design

1. Regula Ysewijn’s Pride & Pudding is on many lists of the best cookery books of 2016, and features some unconventional illustrations by her husband, Bruno. He tells how he crafted the same in Bruno Vergauwen On Illustrating This Year’s Hottest Cookery Book.
2. To keep up with the evolving taste of the consumer and the world they live in, brands are usually forced to adapt and mould their logo. Sometimes a brand can lose its way over too much change, and longstanding brands can actually benefit from returning to their iconic roots rather than diverting away from them. Read more on Why Logos Are Going Retro.
3. In the 1920s and 30s, a period of increasing mechanisation, Bauhaus teachers and students challenged the conventions of fine art, architecture and design by advocating a return to individual craftsmanship. DesignLab documents Learning in the Bauhaus School: Five Lessons For Today’s Designers.

Picture Credit: Prototypr.io

UI Design

1. Sarah Drasner tells how to leverage existing structures and workflows to reduce friction when it comes to animation and create cohesive and performant user experiences. Read more in Animation in Design Systems.
2. A good style guide must be adopted by all the team members, such as developers, product owners, project managers and even the client, which will generate better communication and greater collaboration between them. Seba Mantel writes about the creation process of this “evolved” style guide in How To Create A Front End Framework with Sketch
3. “The power of the Web is in its universality,” wrote Tim Berners-Lee, director of the World Wide Web consortium. But if the web is relayed through text that’s difficult to read, it curtails that open access by excluding large swaths of people. Kevin Marks describes more in How the Web Became Unreadable.

Picture Credit: Backchannel

UX Design

1. We all know the importance of talking to users, sometimes we just need — or have the time and budget for — quick insights from a handful of people. Here are some ways to conduct Minimum Viable Usability Testing.
2. In the user experience (UX) industry, benchmarking is a practice that measures the usability of a website. Benchmarking helps the UX researcher understand the current state of the site so the team can attack problem areas and improve them. Ben Rogers says, Benchmark Your UX At All Costs.

Picture Credit: 24 Ways

3. We call the internet a firehose, yet we’re loathe to turn it off (or even down). The amount of information we consume daily is staggering — and yet our ability to fully understand it all remains frustratingly insufficient. Lisa Maria Martin tells us why Information Literacy Is a Design Problem.

News

1. Apple’s Newest MacBook Pro Is The First MacBook Not Recommended By Consumer Reports.
2. If you are a fan of Android, you might have heard of Cyanogen before. Cyanogen was supposed to become the next big Android system, with the company trying to build a better Android than even Google. Read more in Cyanogen OS Shuts Services.
3. For 40 years now, NASCAR has had the same logo. It’s amazing that this logo managed to stand the test of time for as long as it did, but NASCAR managed to strike gold when they came up with the new logo.

Picture Credit: Forbes

Life and Beyond

1. Meri Williams says when we help the user be badass, then we are really making a difference and elaborates on Preparing to Be Badass Next Year.
2. By developing our taste and ability to identify strengths and weaknesses in designs, we end up setting a high bar for your work. Learn more about how one can Develop An Eye For Design.
3. Designers should understand that innovation for existing businesses and products must take the existing business model into account. Christian Beck discusses the experimental, evolutionary and exploratory way to look at Innovation in Designing At 10,000 Feet.

Picture Credit: Innovate Map

And with that, I will close for the week. Also Hey, if you like what you just read, please support me with a donation via Paypal.me or share this resource by hitting the green “Recommend” icon so that other people may also stumble upon this reading list.

You can find me on Facebook, where I share a lot of interesting content on design, development, art and music. You can also find more about me on my website.

Wishing everyone a happy new year 2017!