Design Digest #5
Design for the AI age, graphic design in Severance and much more.
Table of Contents
- Midjourney V7
- Figma Release Notes 2025
- Curated Design Websites
- Karri Saarinen’s 10 rules for crafting products that stand out
- Deep Dive: Designing Figma's UI3 icons
- Our interfaces have lost their senses
- The case against conversational interfaces
- Design for the AI age
- The Insane Graphic Design in Severance
- Notion Mail available to everyone
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Midjourney V7
Midjourney has released version 7 of its image model, introducing several major updates. One of the most exciting features is “Draft Mode,” which generates images up to 10 times faster and at half the cost. Another cool addition is “Voice Mode,” that allows you to simply talk and watch your endless flow of ideas coming to life.
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Figma Release Notes 2025
Luis and Alexia from Figma first showcased a fun addition - Figpals, you can find them right in your toolbar and get yourself a buddy that follows your cursor.
Then they introduced noticeable accessibility changes - an updated color picker that shows whether your designs meet accessibility standards.
The update also includes
- New features to streamline the handoff process, such as annotations and measurements available in design mode;
- All Layers Collapse button;
- Finally, fixed the problem where you didn't know what the last shadow you added was by introducing auto flyouts;
- Modes and collections reordering;
- PPTX import/export in Slides;
- and many other tweaks.
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Curated Design Websites
- Bounti | Employee Training and Operations Platform.
- GENIE | Raising the bar on AI.
- Oskar Qian | Striving to simplify complexity, build connection between human and machine intelligence.
- incident.io | All-in-one incident management platform.
- Rivian | Electric Adventure Vehicles.
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Karri Saarinen’s 10 rules for crafting products that stand out
Karri Saarinen, CEO and co-founder of Linear, shared the principles he uses to create delightful experiences that focus on craft. Karri offers an alternative approach to the Zuckerberg "move fast and break things" as the market becomes more mature and design conscious.
- Commit to quality at the leadership level;
- When it comes to building teams, go small and aim high;
- Do away with handoff;
- Resist creating specialized product teams;
- Consider the spec your baseline minimum viable product, not your goal;
- Quality is not perfection;
- The best design is opinionated;
- The simplest way to increase quality is to reduce scope;
- Don’t get locked into one way of doing things;
- Data can be a crutch.
You will also hear from Karri at Config 2025!
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Deep Dive: Designing Figma's UI3 icons
Deep Dive is a series where you can look inside the Figma files of top designers. This time Jay sat down with Tim Van Damme, who showed us how he designed the icons for Figma's UI3.
Tim shared his process, why they decided to redesign the icons from UI2, how to make icons playful, the benefits of custom icons, and more.
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Our interfaces have lost their senses
Amelia Wattenberger, Principal Research Engineer at GitHub, discusses how digital interfaces have become overly simplistic, neglecting the human senses. She traces this trend from early tactile computing methods to today's flat, touch-based screens.
Amelia argues for incorporating multiple sensory inputs such as sound, touch, and motion into interfaces to create more engaging and intuitive experiences.
Explore the article -
The case against conversational interfaces
Julian breaks down why conversational interfaces like chatbots and voice assistants aren't always ideal.
Talking feels natural, but it's actually quite slow. We can think much faster than we can speak or type, so natural language becomes a bottleneck.
He also points out that interfaces like gestures, keyboard shortcuts, or buttons are much more efficient. They convey more meaning with less effort.
Explore the article -
Design for the AI age
Another article in our digest by Karri Saarinen, CEO and co-founder of Linear. This time he reflects on the evolving role of design in the context of artificial intelligence.
Traditional UIs are structured and predictable, but AI brings randomness to defined user journeys. Instead of just chatbots, Karri suggests we should design tools that blend AI with familiar interfaces, giving users flexibility without losing clarity or control.
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The Insane Graphic Design in Severance
Severance uses graphic design like no other movie. The brand, logo, typography, and other design choices create an unsettling feeling.
Matt Thorne's video explains exactly how these design details work.
Explore the article -
Notion Mail available to everyone
Remember when Notion bought Skiff? It is now Notion Mail and finally available to everyone!
Notion Mail is personalized to your work and beautifully designed. Some nice things we at really like about it:
- AI label features that sorts all of your emails into views automatically;
- Predefined scheduling and follow-ups;
- Notion Calendar integration.
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