👋🏼 Heartfelt note and a lending hand — UMO Design Community
A heartfelt note
It’s been a while since the last issue of the newsletter. I’ve definitely missed writing and unfortunately, times have drastically changed since the last issue for the worse. The covid effect in India is really heartbreaking with numerous deaths, insufficient critical resources like oxygen, hospital beds, and even medicines for that matter. It is even more devastating to see losing faith in the government or their leadership, the inhumane behavior of some people when they violate norms or make a business out of these circumstances. Although many nations and individuals have gone through such testing times, this is uncharted territory and an extremely tough situation. Let’s stay strong, pray for the affected, and contribute towards helping the scenario. Amid all the bad news, it is really inspiring to see many people come together to help in whatever way they can.
Lending out a helping hand
Personally, I’m sure we are all doing our bit by helping out towards the Covid scenario to the best of our capabilities. With this note, we want to tell you that the UMO Design and UX India Communities are with you if you need any assistance in these matters. We call our community a family, ‘UFam’ and ‘U’ are very important to us! Without hesitation reach out to us in any way you want via social (scroll to the bottom for social links) or reply to this email and we will do our best to personally help you or hook you up with the next best resource we can find for you.
With all this said, the UMO Team will not sit back and watch this sail through. In fact, we were very quick to launch UMO Unites last year in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s been very impactful so far and continues to support the affected with various initiatives like Design X Social under it. We will be back with another issue soon with more details on our upcoming program in response to covid19. Get vaccinated, stay home and inspire others to do the same!
As usual, this issue of the newsletter brings you with a great round-up of handpicked bytes, memes and more scroll to take a look!
✌️Hand-picked bytes
Quicksand, The Art of Getting Unstuck
airbnb.design
An intimate film series from Airbnb Design showcasing how creators around the world get unstuck.
Unveiling Material,t You- The next stage for Material Design
Our ambitious vision for Material You is a multi-year journey that will evolve all of Google’s products and ecosystems. Material You comes first to Google Pixel this fall; developers get a preview today, with Android 12.
Diverse Voices
Bringing together creators from a spectrum of disciplines to share how they’re using creativity to feel empowered, inspired, and make an impact in the world. Check out this amazing collection.
Unboxing the Design Museum’s blockbuster sneakers exhibition — www.designweek.co.uk
Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street charts the rise of sports shoe, with exhibition design from InterestingProjects and graphics by Studio LP.
Design Maturity Model by InVision: The New Design Frontier — www.invisionapp.com
InVision surveyed thousands of companies to explore the relationship between design practices and business performance. What we discovered in the widest-ranging design maturity model out there will transform the way you work.
📱Tech
Fortnite trial could upend Apple’s App Store model — even if Epic loses — www.theverge.com
Next week, Apple and Epic Games will appear in court in a potentially landmark antitrust trial over whether Apple acted illegally in banning Fortnite from the App Store.
Bill Gates Left Microsoft Board Amid Probe Into Prior Relationship With Staffer — www.wsj.com
Some Microsoft directors began an investigation in 2019 into a woman’s allegations of a prior sexual relationship with Bill Gates. His spokeswoman says his decision to leave the board in 2020 wasn’t related to the matter.
The Apple Designer You’ve Never Heard of Is Making Noise — www.wired.com
Plus: The iPod’s cultural importance, the fate of Loon’s balloons, and the price of an SNL appearance.
Using AI to help find answers to common skin conditions — blog.google
Our AI-powered tool that will be available later this year helps anyone identify skin conditions using their phone’s camera.
📺 Stream Wars
AT&T’s big Discovery deal makes HBO Max’s future fuzzier — www.cnet.com
AT&T wants to spin off WarnerMedia and merge it into Discovery. What that means for HBO Max and Discovery Plus (and their next streaming services to come) isn’t exactly clear.
Amazon Reportedly In Talks to Buy MGM — www.entrepreneur.com
The online retail giant has been looking to boost its film studio and Prime Video services, according to reports.
🪙 Crypto and NFT’s
Sorry, but NFTs Are Not Design’s Democratizing Savior — eyeondesign.aiga.org
Two months ago, a wave of news coverage around NFTs began to crest across niche art blogs to the New York Times and everywhere in between. The headlines often assume a baffled posture: “What the Heck are NFTs?”; “What’s An NFT? And Why Are People Paying Millions To Buy Them?”; “What’s this craze for
Bitcoin’s growing energy problem: ‘It’s a dirty currency — www.ft.com
Elon Musk has highlighted the cryptocurrency’s environmental impact and governments are starting to take notice
Chart: How bitcoin prices move with Elon Musk’s tweets — www.vox.com
How the Tesla CEO’s tweets affect bitcoin prices, in one chart.
Multi-Pronged Regulations Answer To India’s Crypto Problem, Not Blocking Transactions: Experts — www.entrepreneur.com
It’s high time the Indian government solved the regulatory labyrinth, as per industry stakeholders, in order to not just safeguard investor’s money but also provide a clear direction to financial institutions
🖊 Graphic Design and Branding
The Beauty and Violence of Ernst Haeckel’s Illustrations — eyeondesign.aiga.org
If you’re a designer and a lover of nature, then you might have on your shelf one of the many reprintings of the 1899 collection of illustrations, Kunstformen der Natur (Art forms in Nature) by Ernst Haeckel. I myself have the 2008 printing from Prestel, that has since been replaced by a 2019 editio
London Tube’s Official Art Project By David Hockney Incites Jokes Online — designtaxi.com
Users submitted their own versions of the artwork for laughs.
🏢 Work Place
How Salesforce, Spotify, and Okta are redesigning their offices after COVID-19 — www.fastcompany.com
We’ve all been changed by the pandemic. New office designs reflect that.
Growing a Distributed Product Design Team — spotify.design
Senior Design Manager, Pilar Serna, shares how she hired and onboarded a fully distributed team that was able to collaborate efficiently from day one.
🎙 Must Listen Podcast episodes
Netflix’s Steve Johnson and Rochelle King: Making great stories accessible — Design Better Podcast — open.spotify.com
If you’re anything like us, you’ve been watching more than your fair share of Netflix this past year. And with such great original content, from ….
How to Stand Up to Your Terrible Manager — Without Getting Fired — open.spotify.com
Shirley loves her job as a product manager for a startup, but she can’t stand her manager. He’s inefficient, old-fashioned, and entirely…
🐦 Cool Tweets & Threads
✨ Meme Dealings
🌎 Happening at UMO
Recap — WiDESIGN Fest’21: Session 01–07
Women today have made significant strides in growing their contributions and influence. However, for all the accomplishments and progress made in women empower…
We’ve got Jobs for you! — www.umo.design
Find your dream job, its been curated to post suitable jobs! It’s absolutely free. Recruiters can post jobs as well.
Online Certification courses in UX, UI, Research, voice, & Leadership — www.umodesign.school
Best online UX, UI, UX research, voice, design leadership school for beginners and experts. All the courses are instructor driven and UX certification provided.
Partner With Us — UMO Design Foundation
We want to partner with like-minded NGOs, enterprises, academia, and Govts, who share our passion for serving and giving back to the community. You can take part in this in whatever capacity you can. Together we can serve the community and create social impact!
Join The Task Force — UMO Design Foundation
You could be a passionate individual, from any background, not limited to design. If you can write, sketch, photograph, blog, post on social media, or even take a video then you are gold to us. Join the task force now, contribute and make an impact!
Become A Mentor — UMO Design Foundation
UMO is a non-profit organization working towards design awareness and exchange of design sensibilities through interaction between designers and design sensitive consumers for over a decade. It is a forum dedicated to discussing, improving, and promoting the work of design communities.
See you soon!
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