Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Every Friday, we'll be sharing a round-up of what's happening in the Design Industry, such as new digital product announcements, platforms being launched, unique peer projects, interesting experiments and much more. Follow along as we keep a pulse on exciting news in design each week.
Here's our recap for the week of August 9th through 15th, 2014.
1. Gravit
Unlock your design potential and unleash your creativity! Gravit is the newest free design tool to help you express yourselves in a new way in your creative projects. Download and try the beta now.
2. 3D Object Manipulation in 2D Photos
A collection of brilliant minds created this 3D manipulation engine that allows users the ability to create animated elements within static 2D images.
3. LookBack: Awesome
Record your activity on any app or website as a playback video. No SDK needed.
4. Framer Studio 1.5
Over last weekend, the folks behind Framer Studio released version 1.5. It comes with a new, native code editor and tons of advanced features.
5. Square Appointments
A new extension of the Square platform, Appointments is an online scheduling platform that puts you ahead of schedule. It acts like a built-in receptionist, allowing customers to make appointments which are easy to use.
6. Google Developers: Principles of Site Design
Google and AnswerLab undertook an intensive research study examining how a range of users interacted with a diverse set of mobile sites. The goal, to answer the question: what makes a good mobile site?
7. The Creative Class
Watch short films from creative icons that are currently working across multiple design industries. A beautiful video site experience in which you can watch shorts on creative leaders.
8. OutCanvas
Easily showcase your work. Get more time for what you love by building out an awesome online portfolio that puts your work out there in less than 5 minutes.
9. Microsoft 1994
Microsoft commissioned the Paravel team to design and relaunch their original 1994 website.
10. Represent.IO
Represent claims to be the best way to create a beautiful and professional resume in minutes. Give it a try if you like.
11. Designer Cards
A deck of creative cards that asks questions that will challenge and improve your designs.
12. Marka
A collection of beautiful icon transformations, Marka can make your transitions between icons and shapes in code look magical.
13. Startup Stock Photos
Another free stock photography microsite, Startup Stock photos offers free photo selections geared towards product launches, and solicits users to contribute their own images.
14. First Person Hyperlapse Videos
Check out this new method of speeding up shaky 10x time-lapse video into a smooth accelerated visual experience. Via a Microsoft research team.
15. OM/One
OM/ONE is the world’s first levitating bluetooth speaker by Om Audio. You gotta check this out.
16. Sketchbook 7
Autodesk just released the latest version of Sketchbook last week, with all new tools, feature improvements and a new pricing model. Totally worth looking into if you love drawing on desktop, tablet or phone.
17. UX is not UI
Erik Flowers posted an article two years ago about how UX is not UI. He had numerous request for a single page, 2-column comparison document of UX vs. UI.
18. FontFlex
A new lightweight jQuery extension that dynamically changes font sizes according to screen / browser width. It’s intended to be used with responsive or adaptive CSS layouts.
19. Cost of An App
Read through this in-depth post by SFCD about how much they’ve estimated that it costs them to design and code an iOS app.
20. Square Website Redesign
Led by Dave Johannes, Square launched its brand new website. It contains beautifully-displayed information about the ecosystem of products and apps offered by the Square brand.
21. Surface Magazine
Need a fresh new magazine to add to your reading list? Then you won’t want to miss this American magazine of global contemporary design.
22. Slides: New Editor
The new Slides editor is now available in public beta. It has tons of improved functionality that makes it easy for anyone to put together a stylish presentation.
23. CSS Guidelin.es
Love organized code? Have a look at this advice and guidelines site about writing sane, manageable, scalable CSS.
24. Knit
Leave digital hidden notes for your friends to discover via smart phone.
What Did We Miss?
That does it for all the great design industry links we found this week. Join the conversation by adding interesting sites or resources you found below.