🧑‍🎨 Design

Hey designers! A lot has changed in the last few years. For those of you who are Web, UI, or UX focused: what's your preferred design software and why?

As far as I know, the main options are:

For me, I chose Adobe XD because the other Adobe apps (Photoshop and Illustrator) are such a big part of my business, it made sense to stick with an Adobe product. It's more cost-effective, I don't trust purely cloud-based design tools, and I can easily bounce between the apps I need (XD, PS, AI). I've been loving Adobe XD — it was a smooth and natural transition away from Photoshop.

Let's hear your thoughts!

My Senior UX Designer taught me to save time in less than 2 minutes

When you’re building a product, time is often more valuable than money.

https://uxplanet.org/my-senior-ux-designer-taught-me-to-save-time-in-less-than-2-minutes-815a34c2ff3e

This isn't the most well-written article I've seen, but there are a lot of great tips in here for product designers on how to establish a process and save time.

Definitely worth a read!

So FourSquare (the "check-in" app from 10 years ago that no one has heard from since) just launched a whole new brand.

A new look and feel: introducing Foursquare Everywhere

When we started Foursquare over a decade ago, we never imagined the incredible evolution we’d undergo as a company.

https://foursquare.com/article/a-new-look-and-feel-introducing-foursquare-everywhere/

For reference, here's the "logo history" from the article:

And here's the new logo:

In my opinion, this is just terrible. It feels like an "unbrand", not a "rebrand". It's totally generic and lifeless, like so many other "rebrands" that have been done recently.

The first goal of the redesign was to remain "playful", but nothing about the new logo is playful or even vaguely interesting for that matter. I've already forgotten what it looks like.

Not only that, but the design carries through even more poorly to websites and apps:

It's just so weak. It looks like something a first-year college student designed for a group project. And what the heck is that hideous gradient?!

Yes, it sheds everything that gave it individuality, uniqueness, and character and replaced it with something so generic, lifeless, boring, and forgettable that the only people who like it work at the branding agency.

I obviously have my opinion, but does anyone else have thoughts on this? Does anyone like it? If so, can you share why?