If you’re a company considering a design contest where you solicit free work from trained designers for your websites, apps, icons, or logos, stop. It’s insulting to an entire profession and makes me think less of you, your company, and your product.

You wouldn’t call hundreds of electricians to install a light at your house and pay the “winner.” This isn’t any different.

If you’re a designer thinking about spending the time and energy participating in a design contest for a couple hundred bucks or a free year of membership to some service, don’t. Take pride in your craft. Your time and skill are worth more than a cash prize and “exposure.”

It’s 2024. Enough of this nonsense.

Noor Al-Sibai for Futurism:

O Canada, take it from your neighbors to the south: As we say down here, your new space logo “absolutely fucks.” On behalf of America: Well done.

Airbnb:

People are more flexible than ever about where and when they travel. To help them take advantage of these new possibilities, we’re introducing our biggest change in a decade—including a completely new way to search, a better way to stay longer, and an unmatched level of protection.

Amazing work by the design team involved with this.

TKO has been fun to follow. I was a little skeptical at first but they’ve been bringing on great talent, the books they’ve shown off so far look beautiful, their pricing model and format availability is completely new, and they’re letting people read the first issues of their books for free on their site. It might just be the revolution comics need right now.

I’m going to have to break down and order some of the books soon as an early Christmas present to myself. I really like the look of Sara by Garth Ennis and Steve Epting, and Goodnight Paradise by Joshua Dysart and Alberto Ponticelli.

I also really love the design of TKO. Their logo, typography, on-book corner boxes, merch, etc. It’s simple, easily identifiable, and feels distinctly comics.

Gus Lubin for Business Insider:

Play Music’s latest update blows up the concierge in favor of a new array of recommendations that pull from not only relevant activities (e.g., “focusing”) but also recent listening and recommended classics, new releases, and customized stations. In short, it’s pulling from a much wider range of sources. It’s also getting more use out of Play’s carefully curated stations, many of which where buried in some dark corner of concierge.

And the whole thing adjusts based on context, giving you different recommendations on your phone, on your computer, at the gym, and in the office.

[...]

The new Play Music is not only smart but also wonderfully simple, putting it all on one neat page. If you scan the recommendations without seeing anything that excites you, you can always click “I’m Feeling Lucky Radio” for a unpredictable custom radio station based on something it knows you like. Not feeling that, and you can sort by new and top releases, create custom radio stations, and more.

Google Play Music has long been my music streaming service of choice and it just got even better. This is a great update, both aesthetically to the design of the service and technically to helping find that next great song or album too.

Also mentioned in this piece:

Spotify has excellent playlists, including the personalized Discover Weekly, and it’s great at surfacing hot new music—and for some that will make it the best. It remains a step behind Play Music on contextual recommendations, however, and if you ask me, it’s lagging in interface too, especially after Play’s update.

Apple Music? It has a clunky interface, even after a big update, with often contrived playlists.

It’s not about who has the better library of songs anymore. They’re all practically identical. Now, it’s all about how easy it is to navigate and bring the most relevant music to the surface. I’ve switched back and forth through the different services over the past year or so and, as mentioned, Google’s interface, features, and ease of use have for a long time made it the clear winner in my books. Now, with this new update, it’s not even close.

After spending some time with the new Google Play Music interface, i’ve noticed a fairly major issue. On the mobile app, it’s become much harder to specifically have new albums surfaced than it is custom radio stations. I’ll get the occasional new release but otherwise it’s entirely radio stations built around my habits. As someone who rarely used the radio feature prior, this doesn’t really fit my routine. It’s not the end of the world, as I use the desktop player most often as well as the “feeling lucky” playlist generator, but definitely something i’d want to see addressed in a future update.

Newsarama:

Newsarama will not be updating until Tuesday morning, August 30th, but please come back then for a little newness…

And keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook pages if anything big happens between now and then…

Convenient for them to have done this the week after their biggest competitor completed a redesign of their own. Clearly this was in the planning for awhile but it’s interesting timing nonetheless.

Overall, the design is pretty similar to their previous one, with most of the change coming from the new logo. While CBR’s new logo is far too plain, Newsarama’s is too obscure and, to be honest, looks out of place on their new site. Does anything about it say “comics” to you?

Aesthetics aside, the biggest issue with the site isn’t the design itself but the advertisements. You basically need to be running an ad-blocker to browse the site because of the sheer size and demand of some of the ads they’re running. It’s shameful and acts as a perfect example for ad-blockers to exist.

Heidi MacDonald for The Beat:

At least one of the top rotating stories on the new site is about comics. And there are still previews and so on. And the forums are still there, with, predictably old timers moaning, managing editor Albert Ching manfully trying to answer questions and one wag posting, “Jonah Weiland sold his comic book site, and what happened next will shock you!” Readers are not happy with the new look for the moment, complaining about industry standard things like large images and responsive design.

Also, the old Comicbookresources had awful pop up ads of late that froze my browser and sent bats flying across my screen. They seem to be waiting in the attic while the new redesign shakes out, but if the new look enables to site to do away with those kind of ads, than it’s all for the best.

It’s been a rough couple of days during the transition to the new site. For the first day or so I couldn’t access the site using the the full URL, only via CBR.com, many images were or still are distorted or low-res, and the site’s layout seemed to change a number of times in a very short period of time. That said, many of the major bugs seem to have been squashed.

One of my major issues with the site now is just how painfully generic it looks. I would have almost confused it with the current Comic Book design if I wasn’t looking close enough. Also, Share is not a great typeface for headers, or really anything for that matter, as it looks too plain and cheap in my opinion.

Some particularly disappointing design choices aside, the site feels modern and works well enough on mobile devices. It’ll be interesting to see, as Heidi mentions in the piece above, how they handle ads and special columns once they clean up the core experience and roll out new features.

Andrew Kim via Paul Thurrott:

“We also wanted to simplify the hardware to align with the new Windows 10 design language that was being developed in unison,” he continues. “This simplification started with implementing a unibody construction that reduces the external shell count to just three parts. We also dramatically reduced the size of the device and removed the bulky external power supply. The final design is architectural, logical and easily accessible thanks to its surprisingly low price point.”

I’ve never been a fan of the Xbox but this thing is gorgeous. To be honest, I actually really liked the design of the original One as well, sort of reminded me of an old VCR, but this takes it to a whole other level.

Nick Salerni for iPhone in Canada:

The black colour on the iPhone looks incredibly stylish, complete with little details like the shade of the antenna bands. Another thing we can clearly see is the absence of a 3.5mm jack on the bottom of the unit and a total of two speakers.

My concern here is the “S” badge that appears on the back of the device. This goes counter to almost every report and doesn’t add up with Apple’s naming structure at all. That said, this looks really sharp. I’m really hoping that we end up with this colour option when the phone is presumably announced sometime in September.

Bryan Clark for The Next Web:

Paper was beautifully designed and almost universally adored by the design community for its novel animations, clean UI and immersive experience that provided an entirely ad-free way to view your newsfeed. The app transformed the typical newsfeed into a Apple News-esque reader, complete with customizable sections for a variety of topics from food to politics.

I think I understand why they’re moving away from the app, likely because Paper doesn’t encourage the velocity normal users require while browsing Facebook, but damn if it isn’t disappointing. Paper was unlike anything Facebook has ever done and likely will ever do again.

Meagan Damore for CBR:

Following its debut on “Rebirth,” the logo — which was developed in partnership with Pentagram — will begin to appear on various digital platforms, including DC websites, social media channels, the DC All Access webseries and the DC All Access app. It shows many similarities to earlier DC Comics logos, particularly the one introduced in 1972.

Initially, I liked this new look but the more I see it, the more it feels overly generic and unfinished. I’m hoping it comes across better on the covers of the books when it debuts during Rebirth because, currently, DC’s use of the logo on their social media accounts isn’t particularly flattering. Not to mention how strange it is to see DC ushering in a new identity so soon after the last one.

There are some alternative designs fans have come up with worth checking out and designer Khoi Vinh has a great analysis of the logo and summarizes it far better than I ever could.

Tim Hardwick for MacRumors:

Details about the upcoming Apple Music redesign have been shared by 9to5Mac. It is said to feature a “bolder, yet simpler” design that puts an emphasis on black and white backgrounds and text and more of a focus on album art. The “New” tab in Apple Music is being replaced with a “Browse” option with better organizational tools for finding new content, and Apple will encourage users to use a simplified “For You” section.

Connect, Apple Music’s artist-focused social network, will remain unchanged, as will Beats 1 Radio.

Judging from what we’ve heard about it, this seems like more of a handful of UX changes than a full overhaul but considering the fact that Apple Music has gone almost a year without any major changes, this seems like it’ll go a long way in fixing some of the initial shortcomings. Washing out the colours, cleaning up the interface, and reorganizing the tabs and information (not unlike the rumoured Instagram app changes that are incoming) will go a long way to making the service closer to some of simpler ones such as Google Play Music.

I’ve always liked the idea of having my music deeply integrated into my iPhone and iPad but the confusing way everything is organized and the fragmented system of local and cloud music just doesn’t work for me. Play Music’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” playlists, and simple interface won me over long ago. I’m interested to see if Apple can win me and others back.

Chance Miller for 9to5Mac:

Instagram, following the controversial announcement that it would change the order in which images appear in user feeds, now appears to be testing a complete redesign of its app.

I really like the direction they’re (potentially) going with this. Flushing the colour out of the app UI and really letting the pictures come to life and take centre stage. I haven’t always been the biggest fan of Instagram but it’s thoughtful, smart updates like this, rather than a couple new filters every few months, that would make me actually start using it again on a regular basis.

Who knows, maybe we’ll finally get a new iOS icon out of this too.

Android Blog:

You’ll start to see the new Google Play icons across devices and online in the coming weeks. We hope you’ll continue enjoying the Play family of products—now with a new look.

I really dig the new look. Very consistent, seems like they’ll play well with the design Google’s slowly refined over the past couple of years. I’m especially excited to see that new Play Music icon make its way (hopefully) over to iOS. The current app icon is, to put it lightly, not my favourite.

Ryan Whitwam for Android Police:

According to Motorola CEO Rick Osterloh, Lenovo will keep the Motorola name around at an organizational level, but at the consumer level you’ll see phones emblazoned with the Moto “batwing” logo and “Moto by Lenovo.” Phasing out the Motorola brand will mark the end of an era in technology. The Motorola name was on the very first cell phones, including the iconic DynaTAC (the first consumer cell phone) and StarTAC (the first flip phone). Hell, Motorola made the radios that humanity took to the moon on the Apollo missions. “Moto” doesn’t exactly have the same gravitas.

Going with the younger, trendier name makes a ton of sense. The Motorola name has a history, yes but it’s not one that resonates with the current audience of people buying their phones. Going with a simple, clean identity just looks and feels more contemporary than the original.

You could see signs of this in the designs of the store Motorola set up this holiday season. I’m excited to see where they go with it.

Ben Kuchera for Polygon:

Any two images from a Mass Effect game look like they came from not only the same game, but the same world; there is a sort of visual coherence that most games lack, or even worse, that most games simply share with each other instead of coming up with their own.

So how did the artists at BioWare pull that off? As it turns out, the secret lies in large, graceful arcs. Curved lines. It’s something Bioware used to get away from the known designs of the Star Wars series after the company’s last game, and it worked in spectacular fashion.

Great piece on one of the little design tricks the team behind Mass Effect series used to create a distinctive look for the games. It’s so interesting to me that with such a small little detail like adding curves to everything they were able to bring about an aesthetic that felt original, distinct and, most importantly, completely invisible.

It’s something I feel a lot of people who would play through the games and keep an eye on the details would notice but never were quite able to pin down just how often it repeated itself.

Ron Amadeo for Ars Technica:

With the release of Tizen, Samsung now has two smartphone interface designs under its belt. The company’s other creation is TouchWiz, the skin that ships with all of its Android phones. But for the most part, Samsung has to color inside of Google’s lines there.

Great look at the UI differences between the stock Android experience, Samsung’s TouchWiz skin (which is essentially just layered on top of Android) and the Tizen OS which currently runs their Z1 phone.

It would be interesting to see Google using something like this to steer more people to a stock experience as, unfortunately, most people assume that TouchWiz is the standard Android experience.