I’m quite picky when it comes to my email subscriptions; I’m hesitant to subscribe and quick to unsubscribe. Like most of us, I simply can’t be bothered reading things that are just sub-par because my time is valuable to me and I get tired of automatically deleting unopened subscription emails. I’ve distilled my top three for you. What are your favourites?
Typewolf
This is a must for designers, and will *hopefully* make you fall in love (or at least gain appreciation) with type. Typography can really make or break a design, even more so than colours and images. Good typography selection and execution is also the definitive feature of an amateur vs. professional designer. To the untrained eye, good type gives the piece a ‘je ne sai quoi’ kind of feeling (something that typographers would recognize as attention to shapes, sizing and spacing). Jeremiah Shoaf is a typographical genius and real letter nerd who can teach you these details. His weekly feature called “Typewolf Tuesday” features the latest type news, his ‘Sites of the Day’—snapshots of beautiful type examples (mostly web-based), and every now and then, a free high-quality font offering from a font foundry or type group. On his website, he also has great free and paid resources.
Invision – Inside Design
Invision started as an app that helps people make apps. They help with screenflow, prototyping, mockups and team collaboration. They also have what I would consider one of the best email subscriptions called Inside Design. Their writers come up with a plethora of blog articles that are practical, inspirational and funny. Highly addictive. It’s like having a highly creative and resourceful friend who overshares all their professional secrets with you. Since they are all about UX/UI, the reoccurring themes usually revolve around digital trends. They also have great, free design resources (mostly UI and icon kits—I’m pretty sure that I used their UI template when I had to create my first app mockups).
Monocle Minute – Weekend Edition
This one is probably the most popular one, more for inspiration than anything else—and yes, bougie too. Because it’s the Monocle, they tend to cover the widest range of culture—travel, urban life, art and lifestyle—all with a design bent to it. Plus, the editor-in-chief just so happens to be Canadian, which I think is nifty.
So there you have it: my top three!