📝 Issue #432: Glance Back, 10 Ways to Improve Dropdowns, Times New Arial, The Latest Research for Web Designers, and more…

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The potential of variable fonts is only just becoming apparent, while many designers are happy to use the technology to vary the weight of a font, others are pushing a little harder. Times New Arial is a brilliant experiment that uses variable font technology to blend Times New Roman and Arial into a single font.

Color selection is one of the key fundamentals in any visual design, and it can be tricky to get right. To help you make the most of your color options, Frances To has put together this helpful guide to choosing color for illustrations (or anything else for that matter). It’s chock-full of helpful advice.

Glance Back is an incredible project by Maya Man. It’s a simple Chrome plugin that randomly takes a photo of you during the day, and asks you to caption it with your current thoughts. Everything’s stored locally so your privacy is secure, but it’s an incredible way to create an intimate archive of your life.

Every month we scour the web for the design research you need to help make the right decisions. In this month’s edition we find that despite the Coronavirus retail experts predict an uptick in e-commerce, we discover exactly how concerned businesses are about security, and uncover a gap in technical SEO.

The Self-Reliance Project is a daily essay about what it means to be a creative during the current global pandemic. In this short, thought-provoking article, Jessica Helfand explores what it means to be an animator, what animation is and can be, and how animation relates to the way in which we see the world.

There are some digital assets that are too precious to risk losing: wedding photos, your first novel, your crypto passwords. Permanent is a nonprofit initiative that’s aiming to raise enough backers to create a digital legacy, for all people, in perpetuity. You can claim your free GB, or even make a pledge.

Of all the UI components, dropdowns have the worst reputation. Anyone who has ever tried to style a select element will know they are impossibly stubborn. But they don’t have to be terrible. Danny Sapio presents this excellent guide for knocking dropdowns into shape, with common sense advice for designers.

Managing a team is tough at any time, doubly so when you’re forced to work remotely. Scrumie is a great app that aims to solve the problem by giving you an overview of the work your team is doing, team member availability, workload transparency, and more. It’s available for free while it’s still in beta.

With the current situation, most of us are having to get more creative about our networking. The Breakfast is an awesome app for meeting a fellow creative over breakfast for an inspiring conversation. Due to lockdown restrictions it’s just gone online. It’s invite-only, but you can fill out a form and join the waiting list.