The five best design links, every weekday

Friday08/07

1

hvpandya.com

The hierarchy of competence

Nine stages of how people operate at work, in strict order, where each one is measured by a job it removes from your manager.

2

crashcat.dev

Crashcat

A 3D rigid body physics engine for JavaScript, designed for games and simulations.

3

microsoft.design

What happens when you can’t hide behind craft

In an era where AI has made execution nearly free, the designer’s true value no longer lies in craft alone but in having a genuine point of view.

4

headlines.games

Headlines Game

Guess the year. 5 real headlines a day.

5

nicolo.xyz

Something is changing in the unit economics of software

Why AI is compressing software margins, and what that does to the SaaS playbook.

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5 Design Links in Your Inbox Every Weekday

Thursday08/06

1

writing.mariusz.cc

The last product design tool

Honey, wake up, wireframes are so back.

2

benji.org

Drawesome

Drawing toolbar for React. Seven pens, an eraser, SVG and PNG export, no dependencies beyond React. Two lines to drop into an app.

3

figma.com

Code, craft, and the making of nested folders

From treating code as a proposal to turning handoffs into conversations, here’s how we shaped a new way of working to ship nested folders.

4

the-idea-machine.com

The idea machine

Pull the lever to generate a random project or app idea—a surprise mashup of a life space, a product format, and a twist.

5

zachholman.com

The cold email

Three of the biggest changes in my life all stemmed, in part, from cold outreach.

Wednesday08/05

1

yeseniaperezcruz.substack.com

The plateau of sad gray icons

Everyone wants to teach AI agents good taste. I just want them to stop filling every surface with icons in soft gray containers.

2

yummy-design-sprint.notion.site

Notion: design & AI workflows

Build and orchestrate agents right alongside your team’s projects, meetings, and connected apps.

3

stackoverflow.blog

Developers are attached to tools because tools encode trust

If your kitchen knife kept changing shape, weight, and edge, you’d have to relearn it every time.

4

ditherit.com

Dither it

Free online image dithering tool. Floyd-Steinberg, Atkinson, Bayer ordered dithering, animated GIFs, and multi-image upload.

5

bjorg.bjornroche.com

The AI productivity gap

Why the productivity gains from AI are still small.

Tuesday08/04

1

uxdesign.cc

Designing for the proxy

Why AI is changing who reads first.

2

anthropeum.com

Anthropeum

A daily game that challenges our understanding of human cultures. Guess where and when each artifact was made.

3

spectrum.ieee.org

The computer that helped win World War II

How Colossus cracked Germany’s encrypted communications.

4

misery.co

ShaderPad

A lightweight, dependency-free library that reduces boilerplate when working with fragment shaders.

5

dylancastillo.co

Are AI labs pelicanmaxxing?

Generating 1,000+ SVGs across 7 frontier models to test whether AI labs are training on Simon Willison’s pelican-riding-a-bicycle benchmark.

Monday08/03

1

go.granola.ai

The AI Notepad for back-to-back meetingsSponsored

Notes, actions and memory. Without a meeting bot. Give it a try on your next meeting.

2

nngroup.com

No new name has replaced “UX”

A survey of 604 tech and design professionals found that “UX” remains the default name for our field, while alternative names remain fragmented.

3

simone.computer

Web desktops

The web's biggest hand curated directory of apps and experiments that simulate desktop operating systems.

4

killthecookiebanner.eu

Kill the cookie banner

Tired of misleading cookie banners? The EU Commission has finally proposed a solution.

5

nytimes.com

Google is building an AI fence around the web it once championed

As Google incorporates more artificial intelligence into search, people are spending more time on Google. Some website operators are crying foul.

Friday07/31

1

blog.jim-nielsen.com

The AI aesthetic

How generative tool interfaces introduce specific visual idioms.

2

pcjs.org

PCjs Machines

A variety of online machine emulators written in JavaScript. Run DOS, Windows, OS/2 and other vintage PC applications.

3

survey.devographics.com

State of Devs 2026

Take the survey and help map all the aspects of a developer's life that are not code, especially as AI starts disrupting the very nature of our jobs.

4

workersdecide.tech

AI Bingo Card Generator

Generate printable bingo cards for your workplace AI implementation exercise.

5

cassidoo.co

A simple clustering algorithm for lists

I nerd-sniped myself deeply when sorting baby toys and came up with a fun pattern for doing so.

Thursday07/30

1

seangoedecke.com

You don’t have to be smart if you can think clearly

Why structured deduction stabilizes engineering performance under complex constraints.

2

originkit.dev

Originkit

A free animated component library for building modern websites. Copy code, use in Framer, or connect through MCP.

3

0xkato.xyz

How to research technical topics with AI

How I go from a technical question I cannot answer to an explanation I can reconstruct without the model.

4

hudsandguis.com

Jurassic World Rebirth UI

A collection of interfaces that help sell the plausibility of this fictional world.

5

agenticeconomytreatise.com

The Agentic Economy

Explore the argument that intelligence and the economy are converging into a single new system.

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