I was living under a rock 🫣

Happy Fridayyyy! 👋

Twitter (X, whatever) is the best place to find awesome content and designers. I’ve been actively using it for a year now and I’ve found most of my favorite designers that inspire me there. And I’ve learned a lot.

It’s amazing that I still come across new people, like Dann Petty, whom I discovered just today. I’ve been living under a rock. HE IS THE COOLEST DESIGNER.

You really need to check out his work (not sponsored), especially his courses and design commercials. His skills are sharp, but his vibe is what pulls me in. Awesome dude.

Now, onto this week’s topic:

1. I’ve got to tell you, inner shadows are epic. Most designers rarely use shadows, except to maybe highlight certain content, but flat styles still rule the industry.
   
   There are some new trends though, and after seeing some cool ideas on Twitter, I decided to try them out. And wow, the results are amazing. Shadows add a dynamic quality that really brings designs to life.
   
   The secret is to mess around with them and use multiple shadows together, not just one. Inner shadows are even more fun because they let you add highlights to make anything… well… pop!
   
   Here’s an example from a recent app icon project I did:
   
   

   

   
   I did a quick research and saw that even if the apps with flat UI use some effects for the app icon to stand out more. They should grab the user's attention and look fresh on the App Store or your home screen to help with conversions and retention.
   
   I also used some transparency to bring everything together. Here’s the Figma link if you want to play with it.
   
   

2. I tried out this AI tool called Limitless.ai for automatic meeting notes. It’s pretty cool. Just download it, link it to your Google account, and you can start recording meetings.
   
   I love that it doesn’t join the meeting (which is always weird), though you always have to manually hit record. It creates a transcript and a good summary. I’m not a fan of writing meeting notes, but I need them because I often forget our decisions after a few weeks. I bet you struggle with this as well. Try it out. It’s free.

   
   

3. Write issues, not user stories. At least this is what Linear suggests and it’s been the smartest thing I’ve read this week.
   
   If you work with devs on large-scale projects, chances are you’ve seen and written a few user stories. Linear’s take is refreshing, maybe you'll find something there to make your teamwork with devs even better. Let me drop a quote from the article:
   
   ‘Write clear, simple issues that describe tasks in plain language. Write your own issues. Discuss the user experience at the product and feature level, not the task level. Instead of spending time creating user stories, spend it talking to users and thinking through features before building them.’
   
   Looks like Linear isn’t great only at landing pages. (They started a new trend that’s been everywhere since.)

That’s it for this week. If you're liking this, could you do me a favor and pass it along to a friend? Thanks!

Also, I have a question: which is your go-to note-taking app? For quick notes and detailed stuff as well. Please reply! I’m not so happy with my current choice!

Have a pixel-perfect day!

István

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