The Designest is a design blog we've started to deliver fresh news & trends of the industry as well as the most essential resources & tutorials you must have been searching for.
Have you seen Futura?
— by Ksenia Pedchenko
The success Futura has achieved can be compared with the renowned Helvetica. It reached the top of its popularity in the middle of the XX century and is still so popular as a commercial typeface that we can speak of Futura obsession.
Ampersand: History & Use of The At-Hand Glyph
— by Ksenia Pedchenko
Let me introduce you an ampersand, the typography mammoth which is as ancient as the Imperium Romanum as well as popular within bloggers, marketers, advertisers and many other masters of text. Well, it’s used so often that I could NOT pass by. Moreover, this phenomenon is above graphic design.
Credits for the original logo go to Bauhaus100
Celebrating 100 Years of the Bauhaus School
— by Ksenia Pedchenko
The prominent movement celebrates its 100th anniversary — it means a century has passed since such great names as Walter Gropius, Paul Klee, Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, and others introduced a bold, rational and functional approach to the design.
As Easy as on Your Smartphone: Emoji Shortcuts for Mac and Windows
— by Ksenia Pedchenko
Our Slack and Telegram conversations in The Designest are overfilled with stickers, GIFs, and emojis. Luckily there are less of those who feel hostile towards non-verbal communication and more of those who are trying to make the process of using them more comfortable.
Japanese Packaging Design: The Play of Accents, Traditions and Extremes
— by Ksenia Pedchenko
The constructs of Japanese design remain a mystery wrapped into an enigma that the rest of the creative industry endeavours to perceive. There is so much behind it: mentality, history and culture aspects. And despite the world is getting more and more borderless we know surprisingly little about what Japanese design is and how it’s realised in web, typography, social media or branding & packaging.
OverPR: The Fictional Beast of Freelance Graphic Design or a Real Menace?
— by Milena Abrosimova
Every freelance designer is familiar with this limbo-like space where you're wondering between the projects. Until the next job comes up. But what amazed me so much this week is that even very popular and influencing creatives get there as well sometime. Precisely because they are so famous, they begin to look unavailable! 🤯
Character created by Anton Fritsler from kit8
Stay User-Oriented up to The 404 Page
— by Ksenia Pedchenko
Not a discovery: design is getting more and more human. Finally, we design rather for living people than robots (Hey, SEO!). Copyright and microcopies, chatbots — they aren’t for a tick anymore, but for better interactions between you, your product and the user.
Helvetica and The Aesthetics of Swiss Design
— by Ksenia Pedchenko
Wrapped into Helvetica, Swiss Design unveils more essentials than you expect from a legend. A model of artistic honesty, pure good taste — is it all that captures designers’ hearts?
Web Brutalism, a Style for Design Rebels
— by Ksenia Pedchenko
I can exactly remember how I once discovered web brutalism — lots of thanks to Dropbox — and how I suffered after that. However, as the time passed, I discovered more and more such websites and fell desperately for the brutalist design. It’s like with Kandinsky’s abstract art. You call it weird first, and then you find yourself in the gallery making tweets about how exclusive it is.
Create Seamless Watercolor Pattern in Photoshop
— by Greg Lapin
How would you picture seamless? That's what I've came up with working on a cover for a great video tutorial for The Designest blog.
