➕ The Conditions 38
Systems thinking for designers, Pinterest's new Identity, Twitter's new font...
+Issue 38
User Experience
Breaking away from aimless engagement – Deconstructing Engagement in order to connect with customers on their own terms.
You need to observe your users, not just survey them – Surveys are not enough and don’t tell you the whole story.
UX Lex – An evolving, interactive glossary of UX research terms.
Design
Designers today are not equipped to solve the problems of tomorrow – Why we need to see our work through a systems thinking lens.
Designers aren’t prepared to help resolve the challenges of tomorrow. Designers right now, interpret most problems as one that can be solved by studying the user.If we are looking to solve problems in education and healthcare, simply studying human behavior is not enough. Humans often merely face the effects to a problem that’s actually caused by systemic forces. We need to study systems, not just users. We need to understand this because you need to know where and how to enact upon a system to get the desired outcome. Without having an understanding you risk creating a solution that either does nothing or makes things even worse.
Behind the Anonymous mask – how V for Vendetta created a timeless symbol of protest – A new exhibition at the Cartoon Museum reveals the history of 1980s graphic novel V for Vendetta and how its signature design endures today.
Design Week’s guide to London Design Biennale 2021 – Initially postponed last year due to the pandemic, the month-long event is returning to the capital in June
Spencer Silver, who helped invent the Post-it Note, dies at age 80 – where would we all be without our beloved Post-it notes as designers?
AI & Machine Learning
We need to design distrust into AI systems to make them safer – Ayanna Howard, an acclaimed roboticist and educator, says our excessive faith in automated systems can lead us into dangerous situations.
Teach AIs forgetfulness could make them better at their jobs
GPT-3 could herald a new type of search engine – The way we search online hasn’t changed in decades. A new idea from Google researchers could make it more like talking to a human expert
Branding
Pinterest unveils an eccentric new brand identity – Led by Made Thought, the new identity aims to put the people who use it – dubbed ‘Pinners’ – front and centre by creating unique scenes reflecting their various interests.
KFC Reveals New Packaging From Wieden+Kennedy Portland
Typography
Winners of the 2021 Type Directors Club Design Awards
Twitter has unveiled the new custom typeface ‘Chirp’
‘100 books famous in typography’ – this exhibition presents pivotal books on the subject of typography, at the Grolier Club in New York. The show highlights milestones in the development and study of the art and discipline of printing, surveying five hundred years of major publications relating to this significant art form.
Photography
The everyday objects that got us through lockdown, documented by Paula Zuccotti – In Future Archaeology of a Global Lockdown, the ethnographer compiles over 1000 images taken by individuals in 50 countries, telling their lockdown tale through 15 artefacts.
Illusory Photographs of Mountain Landscapes Are Flipped 90 Degrees to Reveal Human-Like Profiles
Nature Resurges to Overtake Abandoned Architecture in a New Book of Photos by Jonk