✏ Issue #488: Best New Websites, Helsinki Design System, Email Sequence Templates, Running WordPress Headless, and more…

Every month we publish this inspiring roundup of the best sites we’ve seen launched on the web in the previous four weeks. In May’s edition, the influence of Brutalism is still strong, but immersive experiences, especially VR and 3D, are making their presence felt. Plus, there’s a bonus old favorite in honor of May 4th. Enjoy!

Design systems are a hot topic in the design world, and whether you’re looking for a design system to follow or inspiration for your own, you should check out the design system for the city of Helsinki. Created to keep Helsinki’s digital communications consistent, it’s a great open-source resource for designers and developers.

Like most product teams, Spotify is continually reassessing its UI to improve user experience. In this fascinating post, the team explains its rationale for changing the color of buttons, with a close examination of its brand color vs. its UI color. It’s a must-read post for anyone tasked with designing a UI, especially for mobile.

Graphite is a new site builder hoping to take on the established options by offering in-app tools familiar to designers. You can start with a template, or design from scratch using the fully responsive grid, add animation, then publish your new site with a single click. Graphite is currently in beta, and you can try it out for free.

We know that first impressions count, and before users read our text, they scan our images, so it’s vital that brand imagery feels authentic and representative. Suzanne Scacca breaks down the rules for selecting inclusive imagery for websites and avoiding the pitfalls of whitewashed stock photos in this great post.

Email sequences are the series of emails that top companies use to engage with new customers. CRM Close has put together this incredible free collection of 47 email sequences from apps like Asana, Zoom, and Salesforce. Use them to steal ideas and perfect your own email sequence to maximize your sales and customer retention.

Planning a design career can be tough; there are often unexpected hurdles and downright obstacles in the way. One surefire way to ensure you’re on the right track is to understand what drives you as a designer; where your happy place is. Peter Cho dishes out some great advice on the subject in this honest, self-reflective article.

Monolithic CMS are becoming increasingly unpopular with enterprise customers as content teams look to find a single point of truth for multiple platforms. What you might not realize is that the daddy of all CMS, WordPress, can be run as a headless CMS; in this easy-to-follow tutorial, Will Morris explains how, with the help of Next.js.