Resources for Designers I'm always searching for design articles, tools, templates, and courses on the web. These recommendations are not sponsored in any way, but just stuff I've found and liked or bookmarked for future use. I hope you find them helpful!
Design Systems
If you're interested in learning how to get started, sell the benefits, explore libraries, or measure the impact of a system, check out these links.
Radix - An open-source component library of unstyled, accessibility-focused UI primitives for building high-quality, custom-designed web applications using React
Design Systems 101 - Nielsen Norman Group overview of design systems.
Atomic Design by Brad Frost - A must-read before you start any design system.
Design Systems for Developers by Storybook - I am not a developer, but this site helped me communicate better with devs when building a design system, and the UI is cute and so well organized.
Design System Buy-in Deck - Help sell the benefits of a design system to leadership.
Designsystemsrepo.com - A frequently updated collection of Design System examples, articles, tools and, talks.
Designsystems.com - Figma’s design system publication.
Measuring Design System Impact - An article on the introduction of meaningful metrics in design systems.
Design Ops
If you lead a design team or hope to in the future these are assets that helped me plan resources, define goals, communicate better with my employees, and establish myself as a strategic design leader.
Org Design for Design Orgs - This book provides guidelines for creating and leading design teams within your organization and explores ways to use design as part of broader strategic planning. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The 5 - 15 method - Invented by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard. The 5 -15 report allows team members to communicate successes without feeling awkward, capture important lessons, demonstrate awareness of next steps, and alert you to setbacks without asking for support. The 5-15 report is intended to take no more than five minutes to read and 15 minutes to write.
The Designer Self Assessment - A tool created by Thoughtbot Creative Studio for designers to evaluate where their design skillset currently and help plan for the future. ⭐️⭐️
Design Maturity Model Misc.
Workshops, Elearning & Certifications
I worked in the e-learning industry for most of my career and consider myself a life-long learner. I’ve been able to continuously upskill myself with online courses throughout my career. Elearning and career boot camps make a career in design accessible to anyone with a little time, money and, a laptop. I have more learning courses bookmarked than I can ever find time to take but here are a few I’ve enjoyed or would like to take in the future.
Learn UI Design - The Learn UI Design course helped me understand UI design principles and put them into practice. After taking this course, user interface design became my favorite type of work and enabled me to build my first design system. I found this course through the author’s great blog content and email newsletter. Highly recommended! ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Nielsen Norman Group Training - Founder Don Norman coined the term "user experience" while working at Apple. NNG has hundreds of free articles on best practices in user research, user experience, interaction design, and design process. They also offer online and in-person workshops and conferences you can attend to earn credits to earn a UX certification. Industry experts teach the interactive sessions, providing detailed learning materials. (I've referred back to those 200-page decks many times). Additionally, these workshops are a great way to network with others in the industry. I've earned the UX Management Certification through NNG and am working towards the Master Certification.
CORE Discovery by the Future - This course is a game-changer. If you struggle with client miscommunication, unclear goals and, endless revisions the CORE Discovery Framework will show you how to hold strategic discovery sessions that will help you and your client to define business goals, deliverables and, a clear vision for your project. I have used this strategy as a freelancer and in-house for branding and web and digital design projects. I’ve worked with several agencies as a client, and this process is as good, if not better than any discovery process they have offered.
Miscellaneous Tools, Books & Templates
Accessibility.gov - A ‘quick-start’ guide for embedding accessibility and inclusive design practices into your team’s workflow.
Content Strategy Toolkit - Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design; it’s decoration. This book provides a step-by-step process for building a content strategy and includes dozens of helpful templates. This book is excellent for those who are interested in content strategy or UX designers who want to expand their skill sets.
How to Make Sense of Any Mess by Abby Covert - Aims to help individuals make sense of complex information systems, whether they're dealing with websites, applications, workplaces, or any other scenario where information organization is crucial.
Notion - A crazy flexible digital workspace tool. You can use it for team collaboration, taking notes, creating a wiki, planning work, creating templates and briefs, organizing and tagging content, and project management. It’s completely customizable and can replace a lot of tools. It’s so flexible it can be intimidating but I’ve learned to love it.
Grammer.ly - I have always been intimidated by copywriting, and after just a few months of using Grammer.ly, I feel like I could write and edit just about anything.
Miro - A digital whiteboard tool. Excellent for remote collaboration, brainstorms, workshops etc. There are many other similar tools but this is the one I have had the most experience with. One of my favorite features is the Miroverse. A collection of the best boards from the Miro community you can use for your projects!
I’ve mentioned how much I loved the Learn UI design course. The author, Erik Kennedy, also offers a few FREE tools. A Smooth Gradient Generator, Data Visualization Color Generator, & Accessible Color Generator that helps you find the closest color variation to a brand color that meets contrast guidelines.
Logo Design Client Proposal Template by the logosmith & The Perfect Proposal from thefuture - If you are doing freelance work, these will save you so many headaches and ensure you get paid. ⭐️⭐️