Design Digest #07

Kamala is Brat, Design for Space, and AI Spells.

Jul 28, 2024

Welcome to the 7th edition of the Ideas on Design Digest! Last time, I wrote about resistance to change in branding. I also shared some interesting reads, like how CIA used modern art against communism, or the Decathlon rebranding by Wolff Olins. If you missed it, you can read it here.

The start of my design journey was heavily influenced by the vector illustrations of Robert Lindström (Design Chapel). In 2002, I didn't have Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw, the two most popular vector-based design tools of the day, but I had Adobe Photoshop. And that’s what I used to create my own version of Lindström's human figure illustrations made of hundreds of layered vector shapes.

Later, I started using Adobe Illustrator, but had to switch to Macromedia Freehand in my first job. Reluctantly, but for the sake of collaboration, as Freehand was the tool that everyone else was using at the time. Looking back, it was far superior, but eventually Adobe acquired Macromedia, discontinued Freehand, and I was back to Illustrator. Changes didn't stop there and over the years I’ve learned enough tools to know that tools come and tools go.

Today, Figma is the king of design tools, but outside of the design community, it seems like everyone is rather designing things with Canva. To put it into perspective, Figma has around 4 million monthly users, while Canva has nearly 200 million! And just recently, Canva acquired Affinity, a professional software suite that competes with the Adobe Creative Cloud.

I am not sure if Canva will end up overtaking Figma or even Adobe when it comes to professional designers. Not that it really matters, but just in case it does, we may want to start getting familiar with it.

Other things on my mind:

Curiosity: What the Hell is Brat?

I noticed Brat because of the conversation around the new Kamala Harris campaign branding. Apparently, it takes from a social media trend inspired by pop star Charli XCX's Brat album cover. According to BBC, Brat symbolises a "rejection of the 'clean girl' aesthetic popularized by TikTok." It also seems to symbolise a rejection of typographic conventions. The distorted sans-serif hurts my eyes!

→ BBC: What is Kamala Harris ‘Brat’ rebrand all about?

→ Creative Bloq: What brands can learn from Brat

Inspiration: Emblems for Space Missions

I can't remember how I came across the work of Patricia Klein, but I’m fascinated by her personal project Embroidered Emblems for Space Missions. I find them simply beautiful. And as a sci-fi nerd myself, I wish there was a career like that: Graphic Designer for Space programs. Maybe there is.

→ Emblems of Space by Patricia Klein

Project Spotlight: Olink

It always inspires me to find studios and design work that break the norms, especially because design is becoming increasingly more homogeneous and formulaic. Here-Now doesn't have a huge body of work on their website, but their design philosophy is great, and so is the branding for Olink.

→ Here-Now studio website

→ Olink case by Here-Now

Book: Spells Volume 01

Spells is probably the fist book of its type. It features a collection of the best image generation prompts, capturing this unique moment in time where prompting still feels creative – largely due to the unexpected quality of the results. I think it won’t last for long, as image generation tools seem to be evolving towards more control, and less unexpectedness.

→ Spells Volume 01

Resources: Canva Templates for Instagram

I have been creating templates for the Canva Community and offering them for free. Here, you can find a bundle of 8 minimal templates that I created for Instagram. They feature AI-generated pictures and a construction grid. If you’re not familiar with Canva yet, maybe this will help you get started.

→ Access Canva Free Templates

Jobs: Picks of the Month

And before I leave you, here are some interesting open positions I found this month:

Figma - Design Director, Enterprise (US)
Mobbin - Graphic Designer (Singapore, or Remote)
Vercel - Senior Brand Designer (US, EU, Remote)
DoorDash - Senior Brand Strategist (US)