Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

Severance's Retro-Futuristic Design: A Dystopian World Built Through Aesthetics

2025-04-11

Apple TV+'s *Severance* masterfully crafts a disturbing retro-futuristic world through its meticulous design. Lumon Industries' headquarters, the Bell Works, warps mid-century modernism into a sinister corporate labyrinth. From the sterile, symmetrical corridors to the curated domestic spaces, every element reinforces Lumon's eerie duality. Dieter Rams' minimalist designs heighten the unsettling atmosphere, while color, typography, and art shape this hypnotic world. The contrasting architectural styles—mid-century modern juxtaposed with organic architecture—further emphasize the dystopian setting. Even artwork serves as a tool of psychological control, reinforcing a cult-like reverence for the company founder. The show cleverly uses design language to create a world both familiar and alien, prompting reflection on power, control, and the nature of humanity.

(www.designboom.com)

Design dystopia

Beginner's Guide to Bow Making: A Step-by-Step Tutorial

2025-04-11

This tutorial breaks down the bow making process into easily digestible chunks. Whether you're using a laptop or a phone/tablet, you'll find a menu to navigate the different sections. It's recommended to start with Part 1, but you can jump to any section that interests you. While not exhaustive, this tutorial provides a step-by-step guide to get you started, offering encouragement and inspiration along the way. Remember, learning anything new takes time and patience; take it one step at a time, and you'll overcome any fears and be on your way to making your own bow.

(www.howtomakealongbow.co.uk)

Design bow making handicraft tutorial

Roame is Hiring a Founding Product Designer ($100k-$175k)

2025-04-11

Flight search engine Roame, backed by Y Combinator and others, seeks a Founding Product Designer. This is a full-ownership role encompassing UI/UX, visual design, branding, and video production. The ideal candidate is passionate about travel and points, thrives in fast-paced environments, and embraces a strong work ethic. Compensation includes a salary of $100,000-$175,000, equity (0.25%-0.75%), and comprehensive benefits. Located in San Francisco.

(www.ycombinator.com)

Design

Utamaro's Yamauba Series: A Balancing Act of Aesthetics and Taboo

2025-04-10

Kitagawa Utamaro's *Yamauba* series presents a paradoxical image of the Yamauba: untamed eyebrows and hair suggest her outcast status, yet fine robes and delicate features soften her monstrous origins. Some scholars interpret this as a way to subtly convey sensuality while evading censorship, pointing to a few images with exposed breasts. However, this interpretation overlooks the majority of the series, which aren't overtly erotic, and Utamaro's history of publishing more explicit works. His eventual punishment stemmed from political content, not explicitness, highlighting the complex censorship of the time and the delicate balance between artistic expression and societal taboos.

(publicdomainreview.org)

Design Ukiyo-e Kitagawa Utamaro Art Censorship

Banning Billboards: A Simple Fix for Urban Aesthetics

2025-04-07

City improvements often require vast sums and years of planning. However, one simple change could dramatically improve urban aesthetics: banning billboards. While city design review boards meticulously scrutinize building designs, massive, visually intrusive advertisements escape this oversight. These billboards, often placed in highly visible locations, detract from the peacefulness of the urban environment. The author argues that banning them would benefit the vast majority, with only a few billboard-owning landowners opposing the change.

(iambateman.com)

Design billboards city aesthetics

The Enduring Legacy of the 88x31 Pixel Button

2025-04-05

This article delves into the origins and enduring popularity of the ubiquitous 88x31 pixel button on the internet. Tracing its roots back to the mid-1990s, the article explores how Netscape's "Netscape Now" program utilized this button size, later leading to widespread adoption on platforms like Geocities. Despite its small size, its ease of creation, distribution, and customization made it a unique symbol of early web culture. Even in today's high-resolution screen era, the 88x31 pixel button persists, tied to nostalgia and a distinct aesthetic of the early internet. The article also explores alternative button sizes and offers perspectives on the future of the 88x31 pixel button.

(ultrasciencelabs.com)

Design

Nebula Sans: A New Brand Font for Nebula Streaming Service

2025-04-05

Nebula, a premium streaming service from independent creators, has released its new brand typeface, Nebula Sans. Based on Source Sans and designed as a drop-in replacement for Whitney SSm, Nebula Sans is available under the SIL Open Font License for anyone to use. A short documentary details the story behind Nebula Sans. Featuring two styles in six weights, it's suitable for interfaces, print, and any graphical, digital, physical, metaphysical, metaphorical, or allegorical needs.

(nebulasans.com)

Design

Sparks: A Typeface for Creating Sparklines in Text

2025-04-05

After the Flood, a design consultancy, has released Sparks, a new typeface that leverages OpenType's contextual alternates feature to generate sparklines directly within text. By inserting data points in a specific format between numbers (e.g., `123{30,60,90}456`), users can create sparklines. Sparks is compatible with various browsers and software, offering bar, dot, and dot-line styles with five weight variations. While the underlying mechanism is complex, it offers a novel and convenient method for data visualization.

(github.com)

Design

The Vanishing of Color: A Modern Aesthetic Shift

2025-04-02

From cars and brands to film, grayscale and monochrome are dominating the world. This article explores the reasons behind this phenomenon, arguing it's not just about materials or fashion trends, but rooted in Western philosophy's long-standing devaluation of color. From Plato to Kant, reason was prioritized over senses, with color seen as sensory interference hindering the understanding of truth. Modernism further dismissed color as excessive ornamentation, pursuing pure form. However, the article argues this rejection of color ignores the harmonious unity of color and form, exemplified by the vibrant hues of Baroque art, where emotion and reason coexist. It's time to embrace color again, enriching our lives.

(www.culture-critic.com)

Design Aesthetics

Viral Animal Illustrations Made Entirely of Circles

2025-04-02

Artist Dori's stunning illustrations of animals, constructed entirely from circles, have gone viral. The simple yet elegant designs sparked a wave of requests for high-resolution wallpapers and prints. Dori not only shared her creative process but also eventually published a full tutorial on Smashing Magazine. This story highlights the power of creative design and the engaging interaction between artist and audience.

(www.dorithegiant.com)

Design illustration

Approximating Ellipses with Circular Arcs: A Practical Drafting Technique

2025-04-01

Traditional methods of drawing ellipses have limitations in practical applications. This article introduces a technique for approximating ellipses using multiple circular arcs with fixed radii. The method involves drawing an ellipse in CAD software, dividing it into segments of equal angles, and then mapping the chords and radii of these segments onto the ellipse. This results in a series of circular arcs that form an approximate ellipse. This approach is particularly useful in fields like architectural design, allowing for flexibility in adjusting the number and angles of the arcs to achieve desired shapes and aesthetics.

(medium.com)

Design geometric drawing

AI Website Builders Showdown: Fast, Professional Landing Pages, But Don't Expect Magic

2025-03-30

A seasoned designer tested four AI website builders – Cursor, v0, Lovable, and Bolt – to prototype a landing page for CodeYam software. The results? All tools (except Cursor) were easy to use and produced simple, professional results, but lacked groundbreaking design. Cursor was powerful but overly complex; v0 boasted a great UI and ease of use; Lovable excelled at content generation; and Bolt was too basic. Overall, these tools deliver fast, professional landing pages, but don't expect revolutionary designs.

(blog.codeyam.com)

Design AI website builder software tools

David Lynch's Commercials: Where Art Meets Commerce

2025-03-29

David Lynch, renowned for surrealist films like Eraserhead and Blue Velvet, has surprisingly lent his distinctive artistic vision to the world of commercials. From Calvin Klein fragrance ads to Georgia Coffee campaigns and even New York City's anti-littering initiatives, Lynch's commercials seamlessly blend his signature unsettling atmosphere with commercial objectives. Interestingly, some of these ads aired primarily in Europe and Asia, hinting at a wider global appreciation for his unique style.

(www.openculture.com)

Design commercials

Rediscovering Piranesi's Perspective Trick: A Forgotten Artistic Technique

2025-03-27

This article delves into the unique perspective technique employed by 18th-century artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Unlike traditional perspective, Piranesi's trick uses a near-large, far-small ratio when depicting a series of similar objects, rather than true perspective convergence. This technique, while violating perspective rules, enhances image readability and comprehension. The article analyzes the mathematical principles of this technique and, through comparison with traditional perspective, demonstrates its potential applications in image processing and mapmaking. The author even developed an algorithm to apply this technique to image editing software, offering a fresh perspective on image manipulation.

(medium.com)

Design

A Quilt's Story: Deconstructing the Myths of Clothing Quality

2025-03-26

This article recounts the creation of a patchwork quilt using worn textiles from friends and family, sparking a reflection on the quality of mass-produced clothing. The author argues that garment quality isn't solely determined by origin or maker, but by brands' control over costs and production processes. Low-quality fast fashion reflects brand choices to cut costs, not the skill of the workers. The piece challenges stereotypes about East Asian women's sewing abilities, advocating for a focus on brand and supply chain responsibility instead.

(ruthtillman.com)

Design fast fashion textile production

The Subtle Art of the En Dash and Em Dash

2025-03-26

This article clearly explains the difference in usage between en dashes and em dashes, and how to efficiently insert them in Word and Google Docs. The author uses vivid examples to illustrate that en dashes are used for ranges (e.g., time range 7–10pm), while em dashes are used for emphasis, parenthetical asides, or abrupt breaks in speech. The article also compares these two symbols with hyphens and provides several shortcut keys and manual insertion methods to help readers avoid ambiguity caused by improper punctuation.

(www.lighthouseproofreading.co.uk)

Design punctuation

Kylie Minogue's Obscure Techno-Pop Anthem About a Font

2025-03-25

In 1997, pop icon Kylie Minogue teamed up with producer Towa Tei for the surprisingly catchy "GBI (German Bold Italic)", a song uniquely sung from the perspective of a typeface. This wasn't just a song; it was a creative font design experiment. Artist Hiro Sugiyama created the GBI font to accompany the track, included as a data track on Tei's album and available for download. The single and font design, a blend of late-90s techno and pop culture, remain relatively obscure today, but hold a unique place in design and music history, with occasional use by select artists.

(abcdinamo.com)

Design

The Innovation Plateau in Data Visualization: From Golden Age to Stagnation

2025-03-25

This article explores the reasons behind the stagnation of innovation in the field of data visualization. The author looks back at the booming development of data visualization around 2010, with numerous novel interactive charts emerging. However, a decade later, innovation seems to have stalled, with common interactive forms like scrollytelling dominating, leading to visual fatigue. The article argues that mobile-first reading habits, the demand for easily understandable content, and conservative investment strategies during economic downturns have all contributed to this phenomenon. Despite the slowdown in innovation, the author believes this is just a natural phase in the innovation cycle, and new breakthroughs are still to be expected in the future.

(www.shirleywu.studio)

Design

Nostalgic Colored Bar Paper: Web Simulation and History

2025-03-24

This article revisits the colored bar paper popular until the late 1990s, which used colored horizontal bars to aid reading. The author simulates various colors (including green, blue, yellow, and more) of bar paper effects on a webpage and explains how to mimic this style in modern software and web design. The article also touches upon the historical context and the different approaches to simulating this effect in different software and web environments.

(mw.rat.bz)

Design retro style printing paper

Modernist Revival of Reverse Painting

2025-03-23

By the early 1900s, reverse painting, or tinsel painting in its American iteration, had fallen out of favor, considered a feminine craft and outdated. However, starting in the 1910s, artists like Marsden Hartley and Rebecca Salsbury James revitalized the technique, expanding on traditional themes and exploring new color palettes, lines, and spatial approaches, giving a modernist twist to this old craft. This coincided with similar work by Janoszanka in Poland, showcasing the power of artistic innovation to reinterpret traditional techniques.

(publicdomainreview.org)

Design reverse painting modernism art history

Krita Region Exporter Plugin: Easily Export Canvas Regions

2025-03-22

This Krita plugin lets you export any region of your canvas, with optional resizing. Installation: Place the `region_exporter` folder in your Krita resources folder's `pykrita` subfolder. Place `region_exporter.desktop` in the root of your Krita resources folder and `region_exporter.action` in the `actions` subfolder. Usage: Use the Ctrl+Shift+E shortcut or the Tools menu. Enter coordinates, size, rotation, and layer selection options to export your image.

(github.com)

Design Image Export

Responsive Hexagon Grids with Pure CSS: A Float-Based Approach

2025-03-20

This article demonstrates creating fully responsive hexagon grids without media queries, JavaScript, or excessive hacks. By cleverly using `clip-path`, `float`, and `shape-outside`, along with CSS variables for size and spacing, a flexible layout is achieved. The technique is extended to create grids of rhombuses, octagons, and more. CSS Grid is employed for centering and overflow control, resulting in a responsive, adaptive grid system with customizable shapes.

(css-tricks.com)

Design Responsive Design Shape Grids

The Past, Present, and Uncertain Future of Desktop UI Design

2025-03-18

From Engelbart's 1968 'Mother of All Demos' to today's touchscreen ubiquity, this article traces the evolution of desktop user interface design. Examining iconic examples like the Xerox Alto and Sun Starfire, it explores visions for future UIs, including touch, voice control, and infinite canvases. However, the author argues many innovations haven't been true improvements, adding friction instead. The article concludes that the future of desktop UI might not be radical reinvention, but rather incremental refinement of existing designs, emphasizing consistency and familiarity over novelty.

(www.datagubbe.se)

Design User Interface Design

Liquid Shape Distortions: Free Psychedelic Animation Generator

2025-03-17

Liquid Shape Distortions is a free, browser-based psychedelic animation generator that creates psychedelic art using liquid motion, distortion, shadows, and light. Inspired by drum & bass/acid techno music and 90s rave posters, this tool can be used to create art for music videos, concert posters, stylized animations in creative projects, or simply enjoyed alongside music. Users can utilize hotkeys and a control menu for randomization, pausing/playing, screenshots, video export, music playback, and customization of canvas size, animation speed, patterns, and colors. The animation is created with WebGL shaders, resulting in unique art each time it's run. This open-source project is free for personal and commercial use.

(collidingscopes.github.io)

Design psychedelic animation

Our Flat Interfaces Have Lost Their Senses

2025-03-16

From punch cards to touchscreens, human-computer interaction has evolved dramatically. However, today's flat interfaces, overly reliant on text input and visual elements, neglect tactile, auditory, and other sensory inputs, resulting in less rich and engaging user experiences. This article advocates for redesigning interfaces to integrate multiple interaction modalities—text, visuals, sound, haptics—to create more immersive and efficient human-computer interaction. The author suggests combining voice input and gestures for multi-sensory collaboration.

(wattenberger.com)

Design

Kerning the Hard Way: A Tale of GSUB and Striped Fonts

2025-03-14

This article details the author's struggle and eventual solution to kerning a unique font featuring vertically striped letterforms. Standard GPOS kerning techniques failed due to overlapping letter parts. The ingenious solution involved GSUB lookups to split letters into left and right components, replacing overlapping sections with custom joiners. This complex process relied heavily on custom Python scripts using the fontTools and fontFeatures libraries. While the font is incomplete, the core kerning challenge has been overcome, offering a novel approach to designing unconventional fonts.

(home.octetfont.com)

Design font design

Hollywood's Unsung Architect: The Paul R. Williams Story

2025-03-14

The documentary "Hollywood's Architect: The Paul R. Williams Story" chronicles the life of Paul Revere Williams, the first African American member of the American Institute of Architects. Overcoming immense racial barriers, Williams designed iconic buildings like LAX and homes for Hollywood legends. The film not only celebrates his extraordinary talent but also highlights the lack of diversity in architecture and the importance of preserving his legacy, prompting reflection on racial equality and cultural heritage preservation.

(www.latimes.com)

Design architecture racial equality

AI-Powered Illustration Generator: Elevate Your Visuals

2025-03-14

Need eye-catching illustrations for your app, website, or social media? This AI-powered tool creates custom graphics for everything from app interfaces and onboarding screens to website hero images and social media posts. Boost your visuals with consistent branding across user guides, tutorials, articles, online stores, and educational platforms. Make your content more engaging and your brand more memorable.

(www.illustration.app)

Design AI illustration visual design illustration generator

Liu Jiakun Wins 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize

2025-03-14

Liu Jiakun, an architect from Chengdu, China, has been awarded the prestigious 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture's highest honor. His work masterfully blends seemingly opposing elements – utopia and daily life, history and modernity, collectivism and individualism – creating buildings that respect cultural history while remaining deeply connected to the lives of ordinary citizens. He prioritizes public spaces, cleverly balancing density and openness in crowded cities, integrating buildings seamlessly into the fabric of urban life as infrastructure, landscape, and public space all at once. His designs demonstrate a reverence for culture, history, and nature, incorporating elements of classic Chinese architecture with modern design sensibilities. Examples include the gently sloping eaves of the Suzhou Museum and the window walls of the Chengdu Egret Gulf Wetland Park, showcasing both tradition and innovation.

(www.pritzkerprize.com)

Design Pritzker Prize Liu Jiakun Chinese Architecture

Level Up Your Text Game: The Ultimate Font Generator

2025-03-14

Font Generator is an online tool transforming plain text into over 180 stylish fonts. Using thousands of Unicode symbols, it creates bold, underlined, cursive, and italic styles – perfect for platforms lacking native formatting. Simply input your text, choose a font, copy, and paste. From social media posts to documents, this tool adds flair and personality to your writing.

(fontgenerator.cool)

Design font generator

Category: Design