Alexandria — Issue #16: Efficiency is Deceptively Messy
A bi-weekly newsletter dedicated to bringing you the best content related to design, technology, and entrepreneurship.
Featured Article
“The Decade of Design”: How the Last 10 Years Transformed Design’s Role in Tech — www.figma.com
We didn’t want to let this decade pass without acknowledging the milestones and moments that made this happen. It turns out that a lot can unfold in 10 years, so to help us parse out the most important stuff, we spoke with 12 people across the industry, from design leaders to educators to investors. (To narrow scope, we focused on the U.S. but it’s worth noting these trends played out across the world.)
More Amazing Reads
The Efficiency-Destroying Magic of Tidying Up
florentcrivello.com
In his seminal book Seeing Like a State, James Scott describes what he calls “high modernists:” lovers of orders who mistake complexity for chaos, and rush to rearrange it from the ground up in a more centralized, orderly fashion. Scott argues that high modernists end up optimizing for a system’s legibility from their perspective, at the expense of its performance from that of the user.
Mastery: The Complete Guide to Achieving Greatness
doist.com
This guide is a deep-dive into understanding mastery and pursuing it for ourselves. It will distill down crucial information you need to walk the path of mastery, bringing together key lessons from works like Robert Greene’s Mastery, George Leonard’s Mastery, Josh Waitzkin’s The Art of Learning, and more.
Attention vs. The Chasm
seths.blog
When everyone is a marketer and when everyone has a platform and when everyone can burn trust to seek attention, this is a useful lesson for each of us. Because in the short run, while attention can feel like a proxy for innovation, when it comes to actual commitments, most customers choose trust instead of commotion.
The Loss Of Micro-Privacy
medium.com
Few applications have affected mass consumer psychology as much as messaging apps. While social media helps us build communities, a following, and a digital presence, messaging enables us to stay in touch with people we care about. With the ongoing trend of more intimate and personal communication, a myriad of privacy scandals and general social media fatigue, messaging is here to stay.
Finding Work as a New Designer
uxdesign.cc
Finding work as a digital designer can be an emotional rollercoaster, and especially so if you’re just breaking into the field. Then, simply looking at the long list of required qualifications and experience for each job posting is enough to make you break into a sweat! In this article, we’re going to take a look at some useful strategies and tips for landing new work.
How to Answer the Dreaded Question “What Do You Do?”
99u.adobe.com
Tasha Eurich’s book “Insight, the Power of Self-Awareness in a Self-deluded World” offers fresh insight into how we can look at ourselves from another perspective to spot our weaknesses. The findings include ditching the diary for super-focused daily check-ins and trying a stomach churning-named “dinner of truth.”
Resources
Subcolor Generator
subcolor.github.io
A handy tool to quickly generate colors between two colors!
Handy Fonts
handy.graphics
The Handy Fonts Pack is a collection of five lovingly-crafted hand drawn fonts for you to use in your designs & products.
City Illustrations and 3D models for Startups
www.startupmilk.com
Whether your launching in a new market, pitching a client, or localizing your app, city kit is build to help you create a custom scene of 15 major cities from around the world.
WhatsBlast Bulk Messaging
whatsblast.learn.uno
Easily send personalized mass WhatsApp messages from your mobile number.
