Issue 9 ·
Issue Nine
Designing In Iran · The New Twitter · Designing a Brand in VR
From the 2017 archive. These picks reflect their original publication date; external sites and offers may have changed.
Welcome to Issue Nine of Very Cool Weekly.
I've put together a nice mix of design and development articles for you this week. We've got something near and dear to my heart: Iranian design. There's a breakdown of the new Twitter design, how to VR-first brand, a VERY FUN typography game, a technical article on how Instagram upgraded their platform serving 400,000,000 users per day, and why I switched from using tabs to using spaces in my code.
I'd also like to ask that if you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider sharing @verycoolweekly on Twitter. It really goes a long way!
Editorial pick · via Tobias Van Schneider
Designing In Iran
As half-Iranian, this article from Tobias Van Schneider really struck a chord with me. Typically, modern Iran is perceived as very oppressive and not conducive to the arts. In an interview with Studio Melli, it's clear that some Iranian designers are working hard to buck that stereotype.
Editorial pick · via Twitter
The New Twitter
The original image preview is no longer available. The editorial pick and its source link are preserved below.
Yesterday, Twitter launched some major design refinements to their web and iOS platforms. While I'm personally not a fan of the new circle profiles, they did a great job with some of the other core UX elements (comments vs reply, for example). Click through to read the changelog.
Editorial pick · via Google Design
Designing a Brand in VR
Joshua To, a design director for Daydream talks through navigating through VR-first brand design. While the article starts off straightforward, it quickly jumps to the complexities involved with designing a logo for VR while making it work in 2D scenarios.
Editorial pick · via Better Web Type
Triangle - The Perfect Paragraph Typography Game
The original image preview is no longer available. The editorial pick and its source link are preserved below.
Does your type game need some work? Try out this game from Better Web Type and I guarantee you'll come out a better web typographer. Surprisingly, this game from Better Web Type is not only super entertaining, but super educational too. You know you wanna give it a try.
Editorial pick · via The New Stack
Instagram Makes a Smooth Move to Python 3
400,000,000 users a day. That's an intimidating number. Consider how the Instagram team felt when they decided to upgrade their entire platform. Shivers. Instagram engineers Hui Ding and Lisa Guo talk about not only the technical details behind the migration, but also some of the higher-level decisions behind moving forward with such a massive project.
Editorial pick · via Stack Overflow Blog
Developers Who Use Spaces Make More Money Than Those Who Use Tabs
So I use tabs. After reading this article on Stack Overflow, I think I'm going to switch over to using spaces. You know, because it's more detailed. Right. That's definitely why. Make sure to read through some of the comments after the article. My favorite? "WHAT IF PEOPLE WHO USE SPACES ARE PAID BY THE HOUR AND TAKE LONGER TO TYPE STUFF?"