Fictional Characters are Officially Coming to Sora as OpenAI Manages Copyright Chaos (1 minute read)
OpenAI's Sora team leader, Bill Peebles, announced that officially sanctioned fictional character cameos are coming to the video platform, following widespread unauthorized use of copyrighted characters, including disturbing SpongeBob and Pokémon content. CEO Sam Altman reversed the company's opt-out copyright policy over the weekend, promising rightsholders more granular opt-in controls similar to likeness rights and introducing revenue sharing for character usage. The payment model details remain uncertain and will require experimentation to finalize, though Altman claims rightsholders are enthusiastic about enabling "interactive fan fiction" on the platform.
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Disney+ Launching New Navigation and UX Design (4 minute read)
Disney+ is rolling out a major redesign featuring a new top navigation bar with dedicated tabs for Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN, as well as an algorithm-powered "For You" homepage that personalizes content recommendations. The overhaul includes visual updates, such as cinematic poster artwork, video carousels, and new badge tags, including "Season Finale" and "New Movie," to highlight timely content. These changes coincide with Hulu's global launch on Disney+ on October 8, as the company prepares for a fully unified app experience in the US in 2026.
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AirPods Max 2: Here's what rumors say is coming next (2 minute read)
Apple is reportedly developing a lighter AirPods Max 2 with an updated H-series chip, finally adding features found in newer AirPods models. However, the next-generation version isn't expected until 2027, so Apple plans to continue supporting the current USB-C model for several more years.
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Typography Systems That Don't Suck: The No-BS Guide to Design-Dev Alignment (3 minute read)
A typography system that aligns designers and developers starts with real screen designs, extracting patterns by function and organizing them into clear hierarchies with explicit scales for size and weight. The approach emphasizes using Figma variables for core properties and semantic naming conventions that mirror code tokens, making systems developer-friendly and eliminating guesswork. By establishing structured, flexible systems that both teams understand, organizations can reduce friction and focus on addressing meaningful problems rather than engaging in endless pixel-pushing debates.
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Why Taste Matters More (2 minute read)
Taste—the cultivated ability to discern what matters—is more crucial than technical knowledge or experience, which can be learned or automated. While knowledge provides the "how" and experience brings efficiency, taste creates vision, distinction, and cohesive design with character. In an era where AI replicates knowledge efficiently, taste remains the scarce, irreplaceable quality that truly differentiates designers.
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The perils of preference testing, plus 4 guidelines if you must (11 minute read)
Preference testing in UX research often produces misleading results because human choices are heavily influenced by cognitive biases such as framing, choice blindness, substitution, and aesthetic-usability effects. Studies show that what users say they prefer rarely aligns with what performs best in usability, so researchers should prioritize measurable metrics like task success, efficiency, and satisfaction over opinions—and if preference questions must be included, they should be supported by deeper analysis and independent usability measures.
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Typographer (Website)
Typographer is a new app by The Type Founders that lets designers easily discover, test, and collaborate with high-quality fonts without upfront licensing hassles, streamlining the creative workflow for pitching and prototyping.
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Six Winning Figma Makes—and What You Can Learn from Them (7 minute read)
Figma's first global Make-a-thon attracted over 10,000 creators competing for $100,000 in prizes. Showcasing innovative projects, winners emphasized strategies such as defining clear structural requirements, refining designs before building, utilizing modular code organization, and leveraging shorter prompts for easier iteration. The competition demonstrated Figma Make's capability to bridge design and development, with projects ranging from custom font creators to weather-based synthesizers and AR package designers.
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Designing Agentic Loops (8 minute read)
Coding agents like Claude Code can brute force solutions by running tools in loops, but require carefully designed "agentic loops" with appropriate tools and credentials to be effective. Running agents in YOLO mode (auto-approving commands) within sandboxed environments like GitHub Codespaces balances productivity with security risks, including data loss and exfiltration attacks. This approach works best for problems with clear success criteria involving trial and error, such as debugging, performance optimization, or dependency upgrades, especially when supported by solid automated test suites.
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How PONDER challenged bland BI branding with Tandem's seven-pixel logo (5 minute read)
Tandem, a Copenhagen-based BI consultancy, partnered with PONDER to create a bold, human-centred brand that breaks away from the industry's generic, tech-driven sameness. Centered on the theme of duality—balancing technical precision with commercial accessibility—the new identity features a minimalist seven-pixel gear logo, a flexible pixel-based design system, balanced typography, and a warm yet professional color palette, resulting in a brand that feels both systematic and approachable, reflecting Tandem's mission to make data solutions people actually want to use.
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Negotiating truth (5 minute read)
Modern search and AI systems have turned information-seeking into a negotiation of truth, where the speed and confidence of delivery influence belief more than accuracy.
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