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🤿 new wave of web design

🤿 new wave of web design

+ the design founder blueprint

Ridd
September 12, 2024

The new Outerbase website is an interesting case study in current design trends…

I fired off a quick tweet about it that went pretty viral so I decided to expand on my ideas in a more polished article.

Here’s my thinking on how to stand out as web design trends evolve 👇

QUICK STORY

So I’m in this Slack group with a bunch of awesome designers that you probably know...

And there’s a trend I’m noticing 👀

People are switching to Framer like crazy

Ryan Scott said building his site "felt like pure magic" (probably because it feels so familiar coming from Figma).

Maybe today is the day you join us on the Framer train :)

📺 THIS WEEK’S EPISODE

Investing in the next generation of design founders

Ben Blumenrose was one of the earliest designers at Facebook and has spent the last 12 years building Designer Fund.

That’s allowed him to invest in many of the design founders that you’ve heard from on the Dive Club podcast (like Jorn from Framer or Colin from Visual Electric).

So the goal of this conversation is to tap into Ben’s perspective as a designer turned investor. This episode creates a blueprint for people interested in designing for startups or maybe even building a company of your own.

Some highlights:

The story of investing in Framer
How second-time founders think differently
Understanding your gaps as a design founder
What it looks like to truly act as an owner at a startup
What Ben looks for when investing in design founders
What types of market opportunities Ben is most excited about
How Ben transformed customer support in his first month at FB
The things you should learn on the job before launching a startup
a lot more

Listen on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts 👇

My key takeaways

1 — When design matters most

Have you ridden in a Waymo yet? The design is truly impressive. Everything from the interior to the interfaces and even the music all contribute to a serene environment. But none of this matters if your car crashes. That’s because in the first phase of a market the technology itself is the differentiating factor.

It’s why Midjourney blew up despite requiring Discord and why George Kedenburg prototypes in Python.

“It’s clear as day that engineers run an industry when the UI is a text input”

Ben Blumenrose

In phase 2, the user experience layer is what separates products. This is where Ben likes to invest (and also why I’m excited about design’s Visual Electric moment).

Eventually in phase 3, good UX becomes table stakes. At this point it’s much harder for design to be the difference-maker (ex: in consumer social where the bar is super high). At this point it’s all about distribution and positioning.

2 — What Ben looks for in design founders

Often times design founders are too precious about craft and details. That’s why Ben wants to see the speed at which you build. Are you capable of receiving feedback and shipping a new prototype the following week? That will get Ben to pay attention.

3 — Difference between first and second-time founders

First-time founders are obsessed with product.

Second-time founders are obsessed with distribution. They have answers for how they’ll get their first few customers, strategies for pricing, partnerships, etc. And as technology continues to drive down the cost of software, distribution will become even more essential.

🔗 FEATURED RESOURCE

Handoff Helpers for Figma

I haven’t shared this in over a year, but ICYMI I spent a lot of time creating the perfect annotation library for Figma.

My favorite part is a flexible Pointer component that allows you to annotate in any direction, embed links, change-logs, third-party logos, etc.

There’s even an embedded video that walks you through some of my handoff practices and how I organize my Figma files 👇

🧃 INSPIRATION JUICE

3 designs I saved this week

1. Fun icon style

I’m a sucker for anything that strategically breaks the frame. So right away this caught my eye. But then the more you study it, the more you appreciate the inner shadows and tiny details that make this composition excellent.

I’m definitely going to try to find an excuse to explore this style.

See it live →

2. Gradient cards from Shopify

I had to take a second to figure out why this design stood out to me. Sure, the gradients are nice. Ya, maybe even the 0px border radius is unique…

But then I saw it! It’s the shadow style at the bottom of the composition. That heavy oval blur makes everything feel like it’s floating and really ties it all together. Definitely something you can borrow 👌

See it live →

3. Bento testimonials

If there’s one thing you’ll never catch me doing on a website, it’s dumping all of my testimonials into a boring wall of love that’s easy to skim past.

That’s why I liked this approach on the Tuple website. My eyes are immediately drawn to Farhan’s face which makes me pause just enough to read what he has to say.

See it live →

🔗 FEATURED RESOURCE

The startup designer

This article is my love language. It’s everything I appreciate about being an early designer at a startup packaged into a simple list.

And if you’re not familiar… Stammy joined Limitless as a designer and was eventually promoted to co-founder so he knows what he’s talking about.

I want to pull out one idea that relates to something Henry Modisett said about needing “strategic taste to know what's worth spending time on”

“The startup designer knows where to compromise on quality, when to push for it hard, and how to advocate for it beyond intuition, armed with customer feedback, insights, and company goals”

Paul Stamatiou

If you’re at all interested in designing for startups then this article is a must-read 👇