#design

Color is the most overused tool in design. A useful test: convert your design to grayscale. Does the hierarchy still hold? If not, you're relying on…

An icon resembles what it represents (a photo of a dog represents dogs). A symbol has an arbitrary relation to its referent (the word "dog" doesn't lo…

The Gestalt principles describe how the visual system groups elements into perceived wholes. The key ones for design: Proximity: elements close toget…

A grid is a promise to the reader: things in similar places mean similar things. Break the grid only with intent. Every deviation is a signal — make…

Go got this right: small interfaces, no inheritance. A type satisfies an interface by having the methods. No "implements" keyword. No taxonomy to mai…

Biomimicry — designing technology by copying natural systems — is a productive but often overstated framework. What nature optimizes for is reproduct…

Good typography is the typography you don't notice. The moment you think "oh, nice font" — something is wrong. The text has called attention to itsel…

Mingei (民藝, "folk crafts") was a movement founded by Yanagi Sōetsu in 1920s Japan to recover and valorize the everyday objects made by anonymous craft…

Le Corbusier's Modulor (1948) was a system of proportions based on the human body and the golden ratio, intended to produce buildings scaled to human…