Issue 69

Less is more troublemaker

Hello, dear readers! 👋

In this issue, among other things:

• The role and subtleties of using minimalism in web design

• The practical value of design tokens

• The true meaning of the concept of MVP and the subtleties of its design

• How does a person's attention work and how to train it

• Free online service for animating variable fonts

• A new multimodal ChatGPT-4V(ision) model

• Online collection of photos of Prokudin-Gorsky

• 1000+ free linear icons on various topics

Enjoy reading!

🗞 News and articles

Less is more: The power of minimalist web design

An article in the Readymag blog about the origin and history of minimalism in art, its digital rebirth and application in modern web design, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of this approach.

For an expert opinion, the authors of the article turned to Carl Barenbrug, director of Minimalissimo studio, and asked him to describe the main principles of minimalistic design, as well as give some advice to designers. At the end of the article there is a selection of books on the topic from Carl.

The main principles of minimalism:

• Simplicity

• Overall restraint, but elegance and refinement in detail

• Clarity and focus on the main aspects. No unnecessary functions

• Geometricity and good shape structure

• The balance of form and functionality. Aesthetics should not compromise the benefits of design

Advantages and disadvantages:

• Minimalistic websites reduce cognitive load and facilitate decision making. This can stimulate sales growth

• When creating a minimalistic website, you will have to take care that it stands out among many similar

• Minimalistic websites load faster, but a simplified design will not suit every brand or concept. It is important to immerse users in the context

• Simplifying the site, you need to think about how it remains attractive to users. The difficulty is to do this with minimal means

• Minimalistic websites are easier to adapt to multiple devices, but are less suitable for presenting voluminous and complex information

Is your product really an MVP?

Soyeon Lee wrote about the true meaning of the concept of MVP (Minimum Viable Product), and also explained why this term is often used incorrectly.

In his article, he points out that MVP is not just the first version of the product, but it requires a minimum amount of functionality and a clear hypothesis to extract lessons from its release. This feature should be taken into account when forming the team's approach to product design and launch.

Soyeon also offered five tips based on the Lean Startup methodology, which should facilitate the development process.

⚡️ Briefly

Adobe has officially released a web version of Photoshop, which has been in beta testing since 2021. The web version is available to all holders of a subscription to standard Photoshop. There will be no free version.

The real value of tokens. And why I believe we are on the way. Erez Reznikov explained the practical value of design tokens, and also prepared a detailed guide on how to create and structure them.

New technologies

OpenAI has introduced a new multimodal ChatGPT-4V(ision) model. She can understand and synthesize voice, and also understands images. This will allow you to literally communicate with the neural network by voice as easily as with any other voice assistant.

As an example, OpenAI cited two scenarios for using multimodal mode: you can take a picture of the contents of the refrigerator and ask to make a recipe for dinner or help your child with solving a mathematical problem by photographing a textbook page.

Access to the new features is promised to be opened within the next two weeks for Plus and Enterprise users. Voice functions will only be available on iOS and Android.