This work by Daniel Ting Chong for Design Indaba, a design conference that took place on February 2019 in South Africa, is not new, but I thought it was well worth a mention on Designer Daily.
For this project, the designer went fully experimental and used AI tools to create the brand. Inputting 13 geometric forms of all kinds into an AI software, Ting Chong used it to create a large number of variations. He then combined it with important information about the design conference, for example, the parking’s location or the full schedule, to let the AI do most of the work.
This experiment allowed the branding expert to test the limits of AI to do creative work. Looking at the results, it seems that there is a future for computational design.
On the process and the designer’s role in this new way of working, it seems that he would need to evolve into a “design planner”, to choose what shapes and colors he will feed the AI, and a “design curator”, to make decisions regarding the visuals to choose.
This work by Daniel Ting Chong for Design Indaba, a design conference that took place on February 2019 in South Africa, is not new, but I thought it was well worth a mention on Designer Daily.
For this project, the designer went fully experimental and used AI tools to create the brand. Inputting 13 geometric forms of all kinds into an AI software, Ting Chong used it to create a large number of variations. He then combined it with important information about the design conference, for example, the parking’s location or the full schedule, to let the AI do most of the work.
This experiment allowed the branding expert to test the limits of AI to do creative work. Looking at the results, it seems that there is a future for computational design.
On the process and the designer’s role in this new way of working, it seems that he would need to evolve into a “design planner”, to choose what shapes and colors he will feed the AI, and a “design curator”, to make decisions regarding the visuals to choose.
This work by Daniel Ting Chong for Design Indaba, a design conference that took place on February 2019 in South Africa, is not new, but I thought it was well worth a mention on Designer Daily.
For this project, the designer went fully experimental and used AI tools to create the brand. Inputting 13 geometric forms of all kinds into an AI software, Ting Chong used it to create a large number of variations. He then combined it with important information about the design conference, for example, the parking’s location or the full schedule, to let the AI do most of the work.
This experiment allowed the branding expert to test the limits of AI to do creative work. Looking at the results, it seems that there is a future for computational design.
On the process and the designer’s role in this new way of working, it seems that he would need to evolve into a “design planner”, to choose what shapes and colors he will feed the AI, and a “design curator”, to make decisions regarding the visuals to choose.
Ever seen a documentary about penguins protecting their eggs from the freezing cold? If yes, you have already seen them in the position that inspired Peleg Design’s designers to imagine these cool egg-holders.
In this case, each penguin is designed in a way that makes the design complete only when the egg is inserted. Also, the purpose of these is the opposite of the penguins’ goal when protecting their eggs from the cold, these eggs are destined to be inserted in hot boiling water!
Ever seen a documentary about penguins protecting their eggs from the freezing cold? If yes, you have already seen them in the position that inspired Peleg Design’s designers to imagine these cool egg-holders.
In this case, each penguin is designed in a way that makes the design complete only when the egg is inserted. Also, the purpose of these is the opposite of the penguins’ goal when protecting their eggs from the cold, these eggs are destined to be inserted in hot boiling water!
Ever seen a documentary about penguins protecting their eggs from the freezing cold? If yes, you have already seen them in the position that inspired Peleg Design’s designers to imagine these cool egg-holders.
In this case, each penguin is designed in a way that makes the design complete only when the egg is inserted. Also, the purpose of these is the opposite of the penguins’ goal when protecting their eggs from the cold, these eggs are destined to be inserted in hot boiling water!
Designing logos is hard! It takes time, skills, experience, creativity, and you never know how your work will be perceived if you are the designer. On the client’s side, you are investing considerable money without knowing if you will be satisfied with the outcoming logo.
Knowing this, it’s impressive to see what Looka has achieved with its free logo designing tool. Powered by AI, the tool allows you to not only create a professional logo in a matter of minutes but also to design all the branding elements you need as well as social media kits.
The Process: How Designing With Looka Works
One of Looka’s main advantage is probably the onboarding process. On-screen, the logo design tool takes you through a series of questions to better understand your needs and your visual tastes.
This is actually the way graphic designers work when interviewing their clients to get started on a logo design. The only difference is that the process is so much faster with Looka.
The logo selection helps the IA to understand your tastes in the matter of logo design.During the process, Looka tries to identify the type of color schemes that would work best for you.
Once you are done with the questionnaire, some logos will be generated based on your answers. You can choose the logo that best matches your needs, then it’s possible to click into the logo and see all the different variations of colors, fonts, symbols, graphics, etc.
The Results: Great Logo Design & Branding
As you can see below, the results you can obtain with Looka are quite stunning. With the Looka Enterprise package, you get the full branding experience and can download ready-to-use business cards and other branding assets for printing or for the web.
To get a quality design like these, it doesn’t take a long process or cost huge money, so get started right away!
Quick Creation of Social Media Kits
Another priceless feature of Looka is the possibility to create visuals for social media extremely quickly. In a time when you need to manage a lot of accounts to be seen online, this will save you some precious time.
In short, this possibility allows you to download your logo in a bunch of different formats for social media profiles, they even include some formats that we tend to forget, such as the email signature image, for example.
There is Even a Website Builder Included!
On top of all these amazing features, Looka provides you with a website builder, which will be good enough for most websites, thanks to the many included features.
This extra-feature gives you almost all you need to quickly and cheaply build a strong presence for your company both online and offline.
There are already over 5 million entrepreneurs who trusted Looka to handle their branding, there is a good reason for that, just give it a try for yourself!
Designing logos is hard! It takes time, skills, experience, creativity, and you never know how your work will be perceived if you are the designer. On the client’s side, you are investing considerable money without knowing if you will be satisfied with the outcoming logo.
Knowing this, it’s impressive to see what Looka has achieved with its free logo designing tool. Powered by AI, the tool allows you to not only create a professional logo in a matter of minutes but also to design all the branding elements you need as well as social media kits.
The Process: How Designing With Looka Works
One of Looka’s main advantage is probably the onboarding process. On-screen, the logo design tool takes you through a series of questions to better understand your needs and your visual tastes.
This is actually the way graphic designers work when interviewing their clients to get started on a logo design. The only difference is that the process is so much faster with Looka.
The logo selection helps the IA to understand your tastes in the matter of logo design.During the process, Looka tries to identify the type of color schemes that would work best for you.
Once you are done with the questionnaire, some logos will be generated based on your answers. You can choose the logo that best matches your needs, then it’s possible to click into the logo and see all the different variations of colors, fonts, symbols, graphics, etc.
The Results: Great Logo Design & Branding
As you can see below, the results you can obtain with Looka are quite stunning. With the Looka Enterprise package, you get the full branding experience and can download ready-to-use business cards and other branding assets for printing or for the web.
To get a quality design like these, it doesn’t take a long process or cost huge money, so get started right away!
Quick Creation of Social Media Kits
Another priceless feature of Looka is the possibility to create visuals for social media extremely quickly. In a time when you need to manage a lot of accounts to be seen online, this will save you some precious time.
In short, this possibility allows you to download your logo in a bunch of different formats for social media profiles, they even include some formats that we tend to forget, such as the email signature image, for example.
There is Even a Website Builder Included!
On top of all these amazing features, Looka provides you with a website builder, which will be good enough for most websites, thanks to the many included features.
This extra-feature gives you almost all you need to quickly and cheaply build a strong presence for your company both online and offline.
There are already over 5 million entrepreneurs who trusted Looka to handle their branding, there is a good reason for that, just give it a try for yourself!
You’ve created a Progressive Web App (PWA), designed an icon to represent it, and now you’re installing it to your Android home screen.
But, if you have a recent Android phone, your icons will show up like this:
What happened? Well, Android Oreo introduced adaptive icons, a new icon format that enforces the same shape for all icons on the home screen. Icons that don’t follow the new format are given a white background.
However, there is a new web feature called maskable icons that is coming soon to Firefox Preview and other web browsers. This new icon format will let your PWAs have their own adaptive icons on Android.
I work at Mozilla and have implemented support for maskable icons in Firefox Preview. I’ll show you how to add them to your own PWAs for Android.
What are maskable and adaptive icons?
Until a few years ago, Android app icons were freeform and could be any shape. This meant that web apps could also reuse the same transparent icon when pinned to the home screen.
However, manufacturers, like Samsung, wanted to make all icons on a device the same shape to keep things consistent. Some manufacturers even wanted different shapes. To deal with the variety of requirements from manufacturers and devices, Android introduced “adaptive icons.” You supply an image with extra space around the edges, and Android will crop it to the correct shape.
But web apps are designed to work on any platform, so they don’t have APIs to create these special Android icons. Instead, icons would get squished into white boxes like this:
Lo and behold, last September a brand new API descended upon us and was added to the W3C spec. Maskable icons allow web developers to specify a full-bleed icon that will be cropped. It’s platform agnostic, so Windows could use them for tiles or iOS could use them for icons.
How to create maskable icons
Since the maskable icon format is designed work with any platform, the size and ratios are different from the size and ratios of Android’s adaptive icons. This means you can’t reuse the same asset.
Maskable icons can be any size, and you can continue to use the same sizes that you’d use for normal transparent icons. But when designing the icon, ensure that important information is within a “safe zone” circle with a radius equal to 40% of the image’s size.
The safe zone
All pixels within this zone are guaranteed to be visible. Pixels outside the zone may be cropped off depending on the icon shape and the platform.
Warning: If you already have an Android app, avoid copying and pasting the icon from your Android app to your web app. The ratios are different, so your icons would look too small.
Adding the icon to your Web App Manifest
Once the icons are created, you can add an entry to your Web App Manifest similar to other icon assets. The Web App Manifest provides information about your web app in a JSON file, and includes an "icons" array.
Maskable icons use a special new key, "purpose", to indicate that they are meant to be used with icon masks. Icons with transparent backgrounds have a default "purpose" of "any", and icons can be used for multiple purposes by separating each option with a space.
"purpose": "maskable any"
Preview your icons
Do you want to see what your own maskable icons will look like? I’ve created a tool, Maskable.app, to help you evaluate how the icon appears in different shapes.
The app lets you preview your icon in various shapes that can be found on Android devices. I hope this tool helps you create unique icons for your Progressive Web Apps.
Once you’re satisfied with the results, you can start testing your app with Mozilla’s Reference Browser. This special browser is a testing ground for features before they reach Firefox Preview, and you can use it to check out how your PWA looks. Chrome is working on maskable icon support too.
Tools like PWACompat also have support for maskable icons. You can automatically generate icons for iOS and other devices based on your new maskable icons!
Time to build your own icons
If you want to more control over how your PWA icons are displayed on Android, maskable icons is the way to go. With maskable icons you can customize how your icon is displayed from edge-to-edge. Hopefully this article can get you started on creating your first maskable icon.
Before we come to how to style underlines, we should answer the question: should we underline?
In graphic design, underlines are generally seen as unsophisticated. There are nicer ways to draw emphasis, to establish hierarchy, and to demarcate titles.
If you feel the urge to underline, use bold or italic instead. In special situations, like headings, you can also consider using all caps, small caps, or changing the point size. Not convinced? I invite you to find a book, newspaper, or magazine that underlines text. That look is mostly associated with supermarket tabloids.
But the web is different. Hyperlinks are the defining feature of the internet; and from the internet’s inception, they have been underlined. It’s a universally understood convention. The meaning is crystal clear — an underline means a link.
However, plenty of popular websites have ditched underlines: The New York Times, New YorkMagazine, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Amazon, Apple, GitHub, Twitter, Wikipedia. When they removed underlines from their search results page in 2014, Google lead designer Jon Wiley argued that it created a cleaner look. Notably though, the majority of these sites have kept slight variances on the traditional lurid blue color (#0000EE) that’s been the browser default since the beginning of the web. While this provides a visual cue for the majority of users, it may not be enough to pass WCAG accessibility compliance.
Color is not used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element.
— WCAG 2.1
WCAG do not strictly mandate using underlines for links, but it does recommend them. Color blind users need to be able to discern a link. You could differentiate them in other ways, such as with a bold font-weight. Or you could keep this long-established visual affordance. But if we’re going to use underlines, we want them to look nice. Marcin Wichary, a designer at Medium, described the perfect underline as:
[…] visible, but unobtrusive — allowing people to realize what’s clickable, but without drawing too much attention to itself. It should be positioned at just the right distance from the text, sitting comfortably behind it for when descenders want to occupy the same space.
Achieving this has traditionally required CSS tricks.
The hacks we’ve had
This is one trick all developers will be familiar with: border-bottom. By emulating an underline using border-bottom, we gain control over color and thickness. These pseudo-underlines have one problem: an overly large distance from the text. They are underneath the descenders of the letters. You could potentially solve this issue by using line-height, but that comes with its own issues. A similar technique utilises box-shadow. Marcin Wichary pioneered the most sophisticated technique, using background-image to simulate an underline. They were useful hacks but are thankfully no longer needed.
Styling real underlines
Finally we can demarcate links without sacrificing style thanks to two new CSS properties.
text-underline-offset controls the position of the underline.
text-decoration-thickness controls the thickness of underlines, as well as overlines, and line-throughs.
You can also specify from-font to both of these properties which will pull the relevant metric from the used font file itself.
UX agency Clearleft make bold use of (pseudo) underlines, calling clear attention to links with colorful styling. Here’s one example of a faux underline:
a {
text-decoration: none;
border-bottom: #EA215A 0.125em solid;
}
Notice that this fake underline is clearly below the descender of the letter „y”:
Here’s the same paragraph, using DevTools to apply the same styling to a real underline using the new CSS properties:
a {
text-decoration-color: #EA215A;
text-decoration-thickness: .125em;
text-underline-offset: 1.5px;
}
You’ll notice I’m using the em unit in my example code. The spec strongly encourages using it rather than pixels so that the thickness scales with the font.
These properties have already shipped in Safari and are coming in Firefox 70.
With the move to Chromium for Microsoft’s Edge browser, we will finally have cross browser support for the text-decoration-style property, which offers the options: solid (the default), double, dotted, dashed, and wavy. When combined, these new properties open up a whole range of possibilities.
Perhaps the biggest upgrade for underlines on the web, however, has come without developers needing to do anything. In the bad old days, descenders were unceremoniously sliced through by underlines, which was far from elegant. Developers used to hack around this shortcoming by applying a text-shadow that matched the background color. text-decoration-skip-ink brought a better way to make space for descenders.
The default value of auto (left) and a value of none (right)
Handily, it’s set as the new default value for underlines; meaning the look of underlines has improved while most web developers remain unaware that this property exists. Should you want an underline to cross over glyphs, you can set this property to none.
