Twitter is launching a redesign of its iOS, Android, TweetDeck and Twitter Lite apps. The redesign is intended to make the service “feel lighter, faster, and easier to use” and features a number of changes that mean an update is pending for twitter.com too.

As with any redesign, there’s some good, some bad, and some probably-ok-once-we-get-used-to-it.

The new design is expected to start appearing worldwide over the coming days and weeks, although much of the update seems to be aimed at bringing iOS in line with Android meaning iOS users will likely notice the changes first.

Like Twitter for Android, Twitter for iOS now puts all your settings, profile, and access to additional accounts in one place, keeping the main UI focussed on the primary functions. Links now open in Safari viewer, so if you’re signed in to other services, your login will be carried over.

iOS and Android versions now update live, so you can see your retweets, likes, and replies ticking up without refreshing.
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Typography has been refined across the board for greater consistency and bolder headlines. There are also improved accessibility options, including increased color contrast.

Spectral is the newest addition to Google’s font library. Designed by Production Type, the team behind great fonts such as Gemeli, or Cogito, Spectral is a beautiful screen-first font.

Based in Paris, Production Type is a digital type design agency that’s involved with online distribution of retail fonts, but it also does custom typeface work in industrial, luxury and media sectors. Commissioned by Google to design a type for immersive reading, Production Type delivered Spectral.

Spectral, the Font for Documents

The font was created for long, distraction free reads. Therefore, Product Type tried to keep the font as simple as possible. Still, they’ve managed to design lettering that looks distinct from similar serifs. And while it’s intended to be a functional font, it’s also elegant. It’s a great choice if you want to add some personality to documents, but without going too far.

One of the most oft-repeated criticisms of any design is that it’s “poor user experience”. UX is set up as the ultimate achievement for any design project. But is this an over-simplification of the designer’s role? Should everything be about user experience?

To paraphrase Leonard Hofstadter: “UX is a ‘smart decision’; it is like a bran muffin—a thing that you’re choosing because it is good for you…But sometimes, you want things in your design to be a Cinnabon, you know? A strawberry Pop Tart. Something you’re excited about even though it could give you diabetes”.

Today I’ve put together a list of sites that are rarely credited with good user experience, but that are still praise-worthy despite—or perhaps because of—that fact. We can admire their originality, their interactions, and their creative direction.

1. Scrolling: parallax, long and infinite

While scrolling, in all its hypostases, underlies a bunch of today’s websites—especially those that bring to life a storytelling experience—UX gurus find this technique “mauvais ton”. They consider it bad for many reasons:

    users may not know what to do when first they stumble upon such a site;
    users can feel confused and frustrated;
    users often become bored after several minutes of constant moving;
    there is no way out, whatsoever;
    the navigation is not transparent and habitual;
    relatively bad site performance;
    in some cases, it does not work in mobile devices;
    etc.

However, we still eagerly click on a website that promises to take us on a long exciting adventure. Does the “comfort zone” matter? When all you need to do is to toy with a mouse scroll wheel and amuse yourself with some inventive tricks.

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers.

The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that were posted, so don’t miss out and subscribe to our newsletter and follow the site daily for all the news.

Every CSS developer should know about Sass to see what it offers. This superset of CSS has revolutionized stylesheets much like jQuery revolutionized JavaScript.

And alongside many CSS UI frameworks we also have SCSS/Sass frontend frameworks. Most of these are pretty new but gaining traction quickly.

We’ve curated 9 of the best free SCSS frameworks here so if you’re a Sass user then you’ll definitely want to check these out.

1. Sierra

The Sierra framework is touted as one of the lightest and smallest SCSS frameworks on the market. Currently in v2.0 it weighs a total of 37KB.

This may not be literally the smallest option out there, but even the minified Bootstrap stylesheet totals ~120KB so Sierra is pretty light. It’s also well organized with separate files for mixins, buttons, tables, typography, and other common page elements.

This file separation is standard for Sass development and it makes your job much easier when customizing the framework.

You’ll find a complete live demo with all the main elements on Sierra’s main page along with setup documentation on GitHub. I’d rate this in the top three of all Sass frameworks so it’s definitely worth a look if you’re curious.

Foundation 6.4 has been released by the team over at Zurb, and while it’s packed with tweaks and improvements that you’d expect from any release, the big news is that the Flexbox-based grid is now the default layout tool.

XY Grid

The new grid is called the XY Grid, and it’s truly powerful thanks to the underlying Flexbox technology. In the XY grid you can control layouts both horizontally (x) and vertically (y) thanks to the super-amazing power of Flexbox.

Foundation has been playing with Flexbox for a while, in fact it was one of the first frameworks to adopt Flexbox as a layout option. Adopting new technology in this way is one of the things that’s kept Foundation ahead of the pack.

All we’ve been hearing about for months is CSS Grid for layout, but actually CSS Grid is still cooking with support not quite there yet—support for Flexbox is consistent across the board which makes Foundation 6.4 the way to layout websites. Of course, the old style grid is still there, for those people that need legacy support, but the XY Grid is so cool, you’ll want to stick with the new default.

Before you start working on creating your client’s banners, you’ll need to understand who they are targeting and what they wish to achieve with their banners. Objectives can include the following: generating brand awareness; product awareness; increasing website traffic; generating leads; making a sale; signing up to an event.

The audience the client wants to target is just as important as their objective. If you can understand their audience, you’ll be able to create ads that resonate with them. Below are two adverts from IT companies that are in the same market but target a different customer base.

Build a strong coffee shop brand with these designer coffee shop menu templates featuring eye-catching (almost aromatic!) graphics. Grab your customers with beautiful layouts and images of roasted coffee beans, coffee mugs and tea cups. Customize any of our coffee shop menus with our name and items.

Breakfast and brunch restaurant menus call for cheerful, casual themes. With their simple garden, sunrise, and pattern borders, these breakfast menu templates are made to order. The rooster crows, the eggs and bacon sizzle in the pan, and stacks of pancakes drip syrup. You'll find that each menu includes breakfast wording to help you brainstorm menu dishes, or easily edit to suit your breakfast specials.

This collection of templates is perfect for cafe menus, brasserie menus, bistro menus, sandwich shop menus, hotel restaurant menus, and other informal food establishments. Each menu layout includes sample wording, drink items, bakery items and other dishes that are typically found in a cafe.

American food menus that work.

Looking for a menu with classic American style? Our American menu collection features American iconography and themes associated with the USA, diners and the West. Use our American menu templates for a diner, a family restaurant or a cafe. The American menu designs in our collection are sure to fit your theme and style.

Breakfast and brunch restaurant menus call for cheerful, casual themes. With their simple garden, sunrise, and pattern borders, these breakfast menu templates are made to order. The rooster crows, the eggs and bacon sizzle in the pan, and stacks of pancakes drip syrup. You'll find that each menu includes breakfast wording to help you brainstorm menu dishes, or easily edit to suit your breakfast specials.

This collection of templates is perfect for cafe menus, brasserie menus, bistro menus, sandwich shop menus, hotel restaurant menus, and other informal food establishments. Each menu layout includes sample wording, drink items, bakery items and other dishes that are typically found in a cafe.

American food menus that work.

Looking for a menu with classic American style? Our American menu collection features American iconography and themes associated with the USA, diners and the West. Use our American menu templates for a diner, a family restaurant or a cafe. The American menu designs in our collection are sure to fit your theme and style.

Looking for a menu with classic American style? Our American menu collection features American iconography and themes associated with the USA, diners and the West. Use our American menu templates for a diner, a family restaurant or a cafe. The American menu designs in our collection are sure to fit your theme and style.

 High-quality, convenient printing
 Specialty sizes available
 Wide selection of templates

This collection of templates is perfect for cafe menus, brasserie menus, bistro menus, sandwich shop menus, hotel restaurant menus, and other informal food establishments. Each menu layout includes sample wording, drink items, bakery items and other dishes that are typically found in a cafe.

American food menus that work

Asian-themed restaurant menu designs to showcase your unique cuisine. From Chinese to Thai, these rich and diverse food cultures are customer favorites.

Create the ultimate menu design for your cafe or bistro, then choose our top quality professional printing - your menus will be ready in no time.

 High-quality, convenient printing
 Specialty sizes available
 Wide selection of templates

This collection of templates is perfect for cafe menus, brasserie menus, bistro menus, sandwich shop menus, hotel restaurant menus, and other informal food establishments. Each menu layout includes sample wording, drink items, bakery items and other dishes that are typically found in a cafe.

American food menus that work.

Looking for a menu with classic American style? Our American menu collection features American iconography and themes associated with the USA, diners and the West. Use our American menu templates for a diner, a family restaurant or a cafe. The American menu designs in our collection are sure to fit your theme and style.