Editorial
Design Engineering?
A new position is listed on Vercel's website, and it's pretty interesting:
Design Engineers at Vercel blend aesthetic sensibility with technical skills. This allows us to deeply understand a problem, then design, build, and ship a solution autonomously.
It's not a new phenomenon; actually, my first official title in the design business was webmaster. That means I needed to design, then code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), and even set up the web servers and upload the files using FTP. In the further days, ASP, JSP and indeed database design. Of course, nobody does this anymore because things have become complicated, technologies have diversified, and projects have enlarged.
But if you learn some web front-end development, SwiftUI, or Kotlin, it's obvious this will open new horizons for you. And believe me, it's fun!
News
Why it seems like the sky is falling for digital design
A must-read article written by Jan Takacs
Many switched jobs. UX was everywhere and we witnessed a huge influx of new people entering the industry, often with questionable credentials.
It seemed like the future was as bright as the sun and the only way the industry could go was up–until it didn’t.
Work-Life Balance? Prove it. Empathy? Show it.
Maybe it's not a "directly" product design-related article, but it's a must-read for all professionals.
What are your company values? Work-life balance? Prove it. Empathy? Show it. “Innovation can happen anywhere”? Yes it can.
Tools
Penpot 2.0: Supercharge your web design workflow (Open-Source!)
Penpot launched version 2.0, improving this free, open-source design platform. This update is a web design dream come true, with a new CSS grid layout tool that lets you easily create layouts. Plus, Penpot 2.0 can now automatically generate clean HTML and CSS code from your existing SVGs and styles.
Hopefully, it will extend to other domains, such as mobile, but it doesn't have a view/mirror app yet.