Full Stack Developers Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski dive deep into web development topics, explaining how they work and talking about their own experiences. They cover from JavaScript frameworks like React, to the latest advancements in CSS to simplifying web tooling.
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Design Foundations For Developers
In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk about design foundations for developers — tips to follow that will make your designs better!
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Show Notes6:35 - Our backgrounds in design
12:41 - Foundations
- Consistency makes a big difference
- Use “training wheel” tools until you are confident
- Always work within a system
- Less is more - subtle is better
19:39 - Color
- Color theory
- Complementary colors and shades
- Stick to color pallet generators until you are good enough
28:51 - Spacing
- More spacing than you think you need
- Vertical rhythm
- Letter spacing: -1px
- Consistent margin and padding
34:47 - Typography
- Sans vs serifs
- Finding fonts
- Use proven combinations until you know your way around
41:49 - Interaction
- Design for all states (e.g. standard, visited, active, hover, etc.)
- Animations should be quick
- Interactions should make sense
45:04 - Concerns beyond visuals
- Accessibility via color contrast
- Thin fonts and light grey are awful
- Think about the poor Windows users
48:47 - Inspiration + Resources
- Take inspiration from the best — you’ll find your own voice after enough work
- Go easy on trends - blobby characters with purple hair
- Take a trip around the world wide web
- Stripe
- Dribbble
- Site Inspire
- codrops
- Refactoring UI
- Designer Starter Pack - Andrea Crofts
- LastPass
- Colour Lovers
- Syntax 142: Travis Neilson on Skills Gap, Design, Focus and Working at Google
- Bloomberg
- Dropbox
- FontPair
- FontJoy
- Figma - Google Font Pairings
- Type Scale
- Creative Market
- Radnika Next
- Stripe
- Dribbble
- Syntax 72: Accessibility
- Firefox
- Site Inspire
- codrops
- Refactoring UI
- Adam Wathan
- Steve Schoger
- Scott: Reelgood
- Wes: Magnesium
- Scott: FullStack React with NextJS - Sign up for the year and save 25%!
- Wes: Beginner Javascript
- Scott’s Instagram
- LevelUpTutorials Instagram
- Wes’ Instagram
- Wes’ Twitter
- Wes’ Facebook
- Scott’s Twitter
- Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets