A curated list of those Web Design news and artifacts, bits and pieces that made it in the third week of February 2016. Leave a comment if you find we missed on something interesting or important, or for any reason whatsoever.
Rethinking the Pen (Tool) — The folks at Figma revisited the good old Pen tool and came up with a better alternative to paths: Vector networks. The latter are “backwards-compatible with paths but [they] offer much more flexibility and control.” Take a look. \medium.com
Pushing eye candy — GIF can be fun and attractive. Or annoying and cheesy. Walk the fine line. Here’s some tips and techniques on how to incorporate animated GIF on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. \semrush.com
Tiny touches — Micro-interactions are everywhere, even though they remain nearly invisible. This is because they are the silent keys to engagement in UX. As the author says: “focusing on optimizing key engagements can significantly affect overall site engagement and conversion.” This guide provides a full overview of why they are so important and how to get them right. \speckyboy.com
Time is on your side — Maria Popova, a contributor to the brilliant brainpickings.org, added a list of 9 books about the meanings of Time to the TED Bookstore. If you have time to read, get over to her piece.
Logogate — Back in 1991, the 49ers’ changed the team’s logo. Then they changed it back 6 days later. Here’s what happened, and why.
Material Design for Android — Mobile app developers working on Android may find this list of 20 resources related to Material Design quite useful. \tutsplus
Cool Leftovers — Here’s a bunch of cool web design elements and snippets that no one ever used. Over 2000 and counting.
Toys — A short version of the History of Sex Toys. If you want to make History, you can enter a contest and design something better for future generations. Obviously, don’t design it too good, otherwise this might be our last (generation.) \core77
High Kids — Radio Flyer has a Tesla Model S for little kids. It’s red, it’s expensive and it has a battery. \radioflyer
High Tech — Speaking of Tesla, even self-driving cars need good UX. \core77
Fake it Real — Make your audience trust you by including realistic features into the media mix. White lies never hurt anyone. \contentmarketinginstitute
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