📝 Issue #456: Design Shopping, Zoom Launches Zapps, Exciting New Tools for Designers, Reimagining Art Direction, and more…

Did you know you can get a free .design domain name for your website? A .design domain name is just like .com but it’s more relevant to what we do as designers, making it ideal for building a memorable brand and showcasing your work. Get creative and claim your free .design domain name before it's gone!

Like it or loathe it, there’s no denying the impact Material Design’s floating action button has had on user interface design. Jordan Kushins likes it, and in this love letter to the little blue disk he talks to the Google designers involved in its creation from the early concepts, up to the future-proof FAB we have today.

Every month we publish a roundup of the latest tools, apps, and resources for designers and developers, from the previous four weeks. In October’s edition you’ll find an excellent API, cool templates, useful SaaS, some excellent JavaScript libraries, tons of free icons, and some awesome free fonts.

For any team, getting client buy-in means a smoother design process, a happy client, and a more successful project. Kelly Schummer talks us through the client engagement process that design agency 10up refer to as “Design Shopping”. It’s a must-read case study for anyone designing large-scale sites.

Radix Icons are a set of free icons designed on a 15px by 15px grid. There are hundreds to choose from, and the set features some lovely alternatives, such as an eye open or blinking. There are a range of design-orientated icons, and you can download them all for Figma, Sketch, IconJar, SVG, or install with npm.

The global pandemic has transformed the way we work, moving us from large collaborative environments, into small private spaces; changing the nature of creative processes. Christina Campbell, Maria Gonzalez, and Jennifer Tan report on the challenges of art direction at Slack in the new remote work era.

tiiny.host is an awesome option for anyone who needs to host web projects or app prototypes quickly and easily. Just upload a zip file of your static site and it’s live on the web in under a minute. It’s perfect for sending previews to clients, or testing across devices. There’s a free plan and paid plans start at $8.

A design language is a set of rules and principles that guide the decisions designers make. Design languages allow teams of designers to work consistently, producing work that is simple to use and immediately familiar. The team at UXPin take a closer look at design languages in this practical guide.

Just about everyone you know is on Zoom, with adoption of the video platform far outstripping its own projections thanks to lockdowns and social distancing. Zoom is using the momentum to launch Zapps, an ecosystem of apps for its video conferencing. Asana, Trello, Slack, and more are already available.

From health trackers, to luxury digital devices, and everything in-between, wearables are becoming an increasingly common feature of the tech world. Despite this there’s little research on how to design for them. Avinash Bussa presents this much-needed in-depth guide to smartwatch design principles.