The Best Articles in Design
The most useful articles in Design from around the web—beginners to advanced—curated by thought leaders and our community. We focus on timeless pieces and update the list whenever we discover new, must-read articles or videos—make sure to bookmark and revisit this page.
Top 5 Design Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in Design by Refind users in 2023 so far.
What is ...?
New to Design? These articles make an excellent introduction.
What is a picture?
If we want to understand what a picture is, then we must look at the difference between perception and imagination.
A gentle introduction to Domain Driven Design
Starting into DDD is hard, even though it’s heavily praised by their practitioners. This article introduces the topic, gently.
A beginner’s guide to Design Tokens
Learn the basics of what design tokens are, how they’re used, their benefits, and some tools and resources to get you started.
The Woman Who Theorized Color: An Introduction to Mary Gartside’s New Theory of Colours (1808)
Shared by 1015, including Jennifer Ouellette, Tamsen Webster, Message Strategist (she/her), Marcos
How to ...?
How to create a perfect home-office desk
Gretchen Hansen, founder and CEO of the online interior design company Decorist offers advice for getting your best work done at home.
How to get started with hand-lettering
Earlier this year, I pushed out a tweet about my desire to be a beginner again, learn something new and took a particular interest in hand…
Trending
These links are currently making the rounds in Design on Refind.
Navigating the Discovery Phase
Kicking off a big design project? Ashley shares tips and tricks for the all-important discovery phase.
What it means to design a platform
Editor’s note: This essay was adapted from a post I wrote on an employees-only blog at Stripe. After four months of parental leave, I came back to work and noticed something different. Many of the…
The power of perceived progress: motivating users through design
A list of UX concepts and examples for improving onboarding, checkout processes, and low-converting user flows.
«humans have a cognitive bias to prefer immediate over delayed gratification, meaning we tend to favor short-term rewards over long-term one»
Good Design Is Intentional
Guidance for designing ethically humane digital products and services through patterns focused on user well-being.
3 mindsets to level up your design portfolio game
Product designer Ramses Cabello walks us through his experience on creating and publishing a design portfolio.
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in Design—all under 10 minutes.
The heuristics of Neurodesign
A guide to design for the brain with intention and results.
«Neurodesign is an emerging field of design practice that accounts for how our brains are wired to create designs that promote simplicity, emote joy, and drive action»
AI and the Future of Design: What will the designer of 2025 look like?
Co-CEO of Artefact, Rob Girling gives advice to a generation of future designers to help them thrive in the future world of AI.
Phaidon Condenses/Updates 3-Volume Series into Single "1000 Design Classics" Book
Phaidon's forthcoming 1000 Design Classics really should be called 1000 Industrial Design Classics, as nearly everything in it was mass-produced, but I'll be grateful the book exists rather than…
How designers can start using AI at work today
Existing and future use-cases for AI in web and product design
Using design thinking to create ideas that better meet customers' needs and desires
We usually post about design inspiration and we tend to focus on the visual side of things. We also understand that design is form plus function in harmony. So for this post we'd love to share a UX…
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in Design.
Design Principles: why a design works
Cognitive ease happens when there is no cognitive strain. When a design works, people experience cognitive ease.
Why Everything Looks the Same
How economic globalization, generational transition, and technology converge to flatten the consumer experience
Excel is your most overlooked design tool
A designer’s perspective on the world’s #1 spreadsheet tool — how to build infographics, dashboards, presentations & more
The business power of design: understanding Airbnb’s redesign
In software, design can be one of the most important levers of growth.
The aesthetics of our new fictions
Visual symbols are powerful ways to make social constructs —from fashion to government— feel legitimate, trustworthy, and familiar. What's the role that design play in shaping our future fictions?
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in Design, including:
swissmiss
Here to defend the bright corners of the world with @creativemorning, @tattly, @teuxdeux, @friendsworkhere. My story in 5 mins: http://youtu.be/rUtABHdlAzg
Cory LaViska
Just a guy with a laptop and a dream. Building @shoelace_style at @fontawesome.
Meng To
Founder at @designcodeio. I teach designers code and developers design.
zeldman
Author. Designer. Web Standards Godfather. Employer Brand at @Automattic. Publisher, @AListApart, @ABookApart. Ava’s dad. Pete’s brother. He/him.
Publications
We monitor hundreds of publications, blogs, newsletters, and news sources in Design, including:
UX Collective
Curated stories on user experience, usability, and product design. By @fabriciot and @caioab.
Spotify Design
Musings from the Spotify Design Team
Fast Company
Inspiring readers to think beyond traditional boundaries & create the future of business. Subscribe to our daily newsletter: http://fastcompany.com/newsletters
Brad Frost
Design system consultant, web designer, speaker, writer, & musician. Author of Atomic Design. Mastadon: https://mastodon.social/@brad_frost
Print magazine
PRINT IS ALIVE. http://bit.ly/2qJ9fw2
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Every day Refind picks 5 links from around the web for every user, tailored to the user’s interests. Picking only a handful of links means focusing on what’s relevant and useful. We favor timeless pieces—links with long shelf-lives, articles that are still relevant one month, one year, or even ten years from now. These lists of the best resources on any topic are the result of years of careful curation.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
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The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Which sources does Refind monitor in Design?
We monitor hundreds of sources in Design, including UX Collective, Spotify Design, Fast Company, Brad Frost, Print magazine, and many more.
Who are the thought leaders in Design?
We follow dozens of thought leaders in Design, including Oliver Reichenstein, swissmiss, Cory LaViska, Meng To, zeldman.
Missing a thought leader? Submit them here
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