Google Photos and Maps Logos are Reportedly Changing. See the New Icons (2 minute read)
Google is reportedly updating the logos for Google Maps and Google Photos with a new gradient color scheme. The changes are subtle, maintaining the familiar logos while introducing smooth gradient colors that mirror Google's recent rebranding effort, which highlights AI capabilities. Google previously updated its main logo in September with similar gradient styling, stating the brighter design reflected "the surge of AI-driven innovation" across its products.
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Tempo's $5M Seed To Empower the Design Engineering Movement (3 minute read)
Tempo raised $5 million in seed funding from Golden Ventures, Y Combinator, Box Group, and other investors to build a design tool that enables designers to work directly with production codebases. The tool addresses the disconnect between design and engineering by providing an infinite canvas where teams collaborate on real production code using actual design system components, eliminating traditional hand-offs. Tempo aims to empower the emerging design engineer role while maintaining precision and manual control that professional designers need beyond AI prompting alone.
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OLED MacBook Pro redesign may be exclusive to M6 Pro and M6 Max models (3 minute read)
Apple is planning a redesigned MacBook Pro with OLED, touch support, and a thinner chassis, but it will only come to the higher-end M6 Pro/Max models expected between late 2026 and early 2027. The base 14-inch MacBook Pro will stick with the current design for at least another year, meaning buyers who want the redesign must choose a higher-end model.
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We Made Design Efficient and Killed the Magic (2 minute read)
Visual design in tech has become standardized and soulless, with most products adopting the same safe aesthetics—clean layouts, sans-serif fonts, rounded corners—because efficiency-driven workflows prioritize repeatability over creative exploration. A new generation of companies, such as Framer, Linear, and Notion, is rediscovering that a visual identity creates a competitive advantage, investing in distinctive aesthetics that communicate personality and maturity. The future belongs to designers who use taste and conviction to create products with character, not just polish, making visual design a strategic differentiator rather than decoration.
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"How is that even possible?" Affinity reveals how it's able to go 100% free forever (4 minute read)
Affinity's three creative apps have been merged into one free, permanently available app, resulting in over a million downloads in the first week. Canva says there's no catch—no data selling or AI training on user files. Wider pro adoption of free Affinity will ultimately drive more designers toward Canva, making the move a long-term bet on creative freedom rather than a subscription-driven model.
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Is Figma in its accessibility era? (6 minute read)
Most design tools remain inaccessible—even to the users who rely on them—because they were built around outdated assumptions that users are able-bodied, well-sighted mouse users. Figma is breaking that pattern by adding enhanced contrast modes and real keyboard navigation, proving that meaningful accessibility retrofits are possible, while highlighting how inaccessible tools limit who can design, reinforce exclusion, and hinder the industry's ability to produce inclusive products.
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You're Not Bad at Presenting; You Just Haven't Mastered the Right Way (Yet) (31 minute read)
Presenting is a learnable skill, not an innate talent, and most professionals struggle with it because they've been taught surface-level tips rather than tools for managing nerves and building genuine connections. The real fear isn't public speaking itself, but losing control and being misunderstood. Confidence emerges when presenters shift from self-monitoring to actively listening to their audience, using the same conversational instincts they already possess in everyday interactions to create meaning and drive action.
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Los York's pixel-based system gives Netflix's Eyeline a bold new vision (4 minute read)
The new Eyeline identity centers on the pixel as the core building block—a metaphor for creativity and technology—forming a modular grid system that scales seamlessly across its VFX, Studios, and Labs divisions, each distinguished by RGB color coding. With a typographic mix of Netflix Sans and ITC Garamond and a clean, minimal visual approach, Los York created a flexible, future-ready brand that avoids VFX clichés while unifying Eyeline's global teams and celebrating both its technical precision and cinematic creativity.
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