Design Tips for Developers

In this episode Wes and Scott dive into designing for developers - tips and tricks for improving your designs, and how to up your game in small ways that will have a big impact on your projects. Sanity.io - Sponsor Sanity.io is a real-time headless CMS with a fully customizable Content Studio built in React. Get up and running by typing npm i -g @sanity/cli && sanity init in your command line. Get an awesome supercharged free developer plan on sanity.io/syntax. Mlab - Sponsor mLab is the leading Database-as-a-Service for MongoDB, powering over half a million deployments worldwide. Wes and Scott use mLab to host their own databases as well as take care of backups, security, scaling and performance. Try out a sandbox database on your next mongoDB project → https://mlab.com. Show Notes 6:18 - General Design Tips Spacing is important Using patterns and textures Subtle Patterns Hero Patterns Heroicons FlatIcon True Grit Texture Supply Steve Schoger Use subtle gradients ColorSpace Use subtle drop shadows Multiple shadows on one element can have a nice effect Don’t use true black and white (e.g. #000 or #fff) - use softer variation of black and white Use CSS Variables for custom blacks and whites CSS default colors are almost always too harsh Default browser UI is almost never the best UI Select elements, radio buttons, checkboxes, etc. can all be styled - it’s no fun, but way better than it’s ever been 40:22 - UX Design & Animation Don’t use animations when not necessary Subtle scale/transitions on hover can be a nice effect Particles.js Patagonia’s Bears Ears CSS transitions vs Physics based 51:30 - How To Get Better Follow UI-themed Instagram accounts siteInspire Dribbble UISources Follow Steve Schoger Find a free mockup and build it out pixel for pixel Take time to challenge what you think is possible or doable technically and creatively ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Scott: Louis Cole Wes: r/posthardcore Spotify Playlist Shameless Plugs Scott’s React Testing Course Wes’ Courses Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets