📝 Issue #451: 3 Essential Design Trends, CoCreate:MAX, NoCode Club, Standards, and more…

Each month we publish a roundup of the three biggest trends we’ve seen gathering steam on the web in the previous four weeks. With fall on the way, we’ve detected a seasonal change in the trends that are making the news in September, with animated heroes, circular shapes, and the color yellow.

Brand guidelines are a reliable way of conveying design practicalities to clients so that they can maintain consistency across their output. Standards is a new digital platform that’s intended to replace the screenshots and PDFs that normally make up client guidelines. You can sign up for early access now.

As we head into what is traditionally conference season, the big annual events are going digital. To support 2020’s MAX conference Adobe is commissioning creative work via its CoCreate: MAX project. You can apply now, and if chosen, you’ll get paid work from Adobe that will be viewed by millions.

After years of relying on hacks to control how we display list numbers and bullets, we now have much more control over the color, size, and type of marker thanks to the new ::marker pseudo-element. Adam Argyle and Oriol Brufau introduce us to the latest increment in the development of CSS.

There is a growing number of web professionals who build sites and apps without ever touching a line of code. NoCode Club is a community for makers who build using no-code apps and tools. It’s a place to share no-code challenges, and get help when you’re stuck. You can request early access now.

Voice search is one of the most rapidly expanding technologies in the world. Driven by the ubiquity of smart devices, from phones to fridges, voice is an increasingly important input method, especially for consumer data. This great primer explains how you can tailor content to be found by voice searches.

An engaged team is at the centre of every successful product. Building that team engagement is the primary role of a project manager. Todd Royal introduces four rules for building engaged teams, from showing people that you care, to having a philosophy. It’s a must-read for anyone managing a product team.

Adding alt text to an image is one of the most commonly understood, and oldest accessibility practices, allowing those with visual impairments to understand the content of images. However, bad alt text is as bad as no alt text, in Alexa Heinrich’s excellent post you’ll learn exactly how to write alt text well.

FounderPool is an interesting new approach to diversifying the equity in your startup, while also benefitting from the experience of other founders. Match with other startups with similar profiles, then pool some of your equity, motivating you to help each other succeed. You can apply for an invite now.