Digital Design Digest for May

Embacy

Stories

May 31, 2022

<div class="p-lr-text pb-104"><h2>1. Historic update for Instagram</h2><div class="pt-24"><p class="h4-style">Generally speaking, design for Meta products isn’t something to write home about. Neither product design, nor graphic. Nonetheless, Instagram made something interesting.</p></div></div>

<div class="p-lr-text pb-104"><div class="pt-24"><p class="h3-style">For a regular user the only difference is that black mark in stories. But for communication, Instagram now has a distinct visual style. With its own font:</p></div></div>

<div class="p-lr-text pb-104"><h2>2. CNET with emphasis on the headlines</h2><div class="pt-24"><p class="h4-style">CNET, one of the biggest online media on tech, updated their style with Collins. It is already actively used on their Instagram, where they have more than a million followers.</p></div></div>

<div class="p-lr-text pb-104"><div class="pt-24"><p class="h4-style">It’s an interesting decision for a tech media, to use red accents and a serif. It works surprisingly well, in no small part due to Collins’ expertise. The style drives focus to the text, empowering the wonderful taglines.</p></div></div>

<div class="p-lr-text pb-104"><h2>3. Sileon is ribbed</h2><div class="pt-24"><p class="h4-style">Swedish fintech <a href="https://sileon.com/" class="underline">Sileon</a> helps small business get what their need in "buy now pay later" format.</p></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mb-80"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">The style works off this ribbed glass texture. It’s meant to represent Sileon’s "behind your scene" approach and their positioning:</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mb-128"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">We quickly saw Sileon as the best kind of partner — a silent one, doing everything for their customers’ businesses, while staying out of the spotlight themselves.</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mb-128"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">Made by <a href="https://esseninternational.com/work/sileon/" class="underline">Essen International</a></p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h2-style">4. Foodvisor — saccharine branding for healthy food</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mt-24 mb-128"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">These pastels:</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mb-128"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">The all-too-soft serif:</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mb-128"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">Cutesy illustrations:</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mb-80"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">Despite the project being made by the great <a href="https://koto.studio/project/foodvisor/" class="underline">Koto</a>, there’s already simply too much like this. All the way too friendly and supposedly kind branding. Even if the goal is to make a human-centric and warm identity, there’s got to be a better way.</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mb-128"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h2-style">T5. Jiffy — robin to the rescue</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mb-128"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">This robin became a symbol for the London delivery service <a href="https://jiffygrocery.co.uk/" class="underline">Jiffy</a>. Cute lil guy.</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mb-128"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">Made by <a href="https://shuka.design/" class="underline">Shuka</a></p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h2-style">6. Ironclad — healthy enterprise</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mt-24 mb-128"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">Often enough, the style for a late stage digital company makes your eyes bleed. Or, at best, just invoke absolutely no emotions whatsoever. Always nice to see an exception to this rule, such as <a href="https://ironcladapp.com/" class="underline">Ironclad</a></p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mb-128"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">Tidy font with a pleasant watercolor palette. And he most important and complicated part of the project is managing to fit together well these illustrations with the UI:</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h2-style">7. Nextml — straightforward machine learning</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mt-24 mb-128"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">Per usual, we end the digest with one of our projects. Enter <a href="https://www.nextml.com/" class="underline">Nextml</a> — a swedish company working with machine learning.</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mb-128"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">Their positioning is all about being straightforward. That’s why the style, the site, the copy, everything is exactly how they are. It’s easy to make complicated things, it’s hard to make something simple. But it is an exciting process.</p></div></div></div>

<div class="p-lr mb-128"><div class="g-7-15"><div class="transp-bl"></div><p class="h4-style">This digest is a bit shorter that usual — there simply wasn’t that much interesting stuff going on in May. Or we could’ve missed something, nobody’s perfect. Anyway, see you in a month, and enjoy the summer.</p></div></div></div>