USB cables: they’ve been a daily part of our lives for 23 years, but for some reason, you can NEVER plug them in correctly on the first try! Turns out…it was designed that way on purpose! It may be irritating every time you go to put your external hard drive in, but making the connector reversible would have doubled the cost of the hardware. Sometimes, design decisions have to be made after weighing all the variables and finding the best possible solution…even if it’s not perfect.
Mozilla has unveiled a new logo for Firefox…and it seems to be a little bit short on the “fox”! In an effort to show that they’re more than just a browser, Mozilla’s new Firefox logo is more abstracted and streamlined, in an effort to not just be seen as “Firefox”. Along with nixing the fox, the new logo and branding comes with an all-new custom typeface, and bright neon colors, which has been a steady design trend in tech lately.
You’ve seen them before, photos of people that seem just a little too perfect. A lot of the time they are, in fact, too good to be true, but it can be really hard to tell. Enter Adobe: they’ve created a new AI that can call out manipulation by its own software. Specifically, the “Space Aware Liquify” action in Photoshop, a common tool in the arsenal of photo retouchers. And not only can the algorithm figure out when the tool has been used 99% of the time, it can restore the photo to its un-retouched state!
June is Pride month, and Adidas has debuted a new line that celebrates LGBTQ+ representation! Nothing gimmicky here, this collection is an achievement of good design, and the pieces wouldn’t look out of place in any month of the year…unless you wore the sandals in December! We love seeing companies being inclusive….and using design to do it!
Even though we’re all still waiting for your Hogwarts letter (it’s just lost in the mail, right?), we can make ourselves feel a little more connected to the magical world, thanks to a new Harry Potter Vans collection. The shoe company has a new collection that surely features all your favorite characters, and they look great, to boot. From shoes (obviously), to backpacks and apparel, there’s something here for every Harry Potter fan! We love seeing design cross over into unexpected collaborations, especially when it’s such a beloved literature series.
Apparently, less than 1% of people can get this color perception quiz correct. You know what we said to that? Challenge accepted! We think our graphic design skills give us a leg up here! This quiz is pretty challenging, and the results have some pretty interesting implications. Apparently, women score better than men, color perception declines as you get older, and even the language you speak can have ramifications on how well you do.
