December 24, 2024 Smashing Newsletter: Issue #488
This newsletter issue was sent out to 192,352 subscribers on Tuesday, December 24, 2024.
Editorial
As we are nearing the holidays in between the years, we would love to use the chance to do just one simple thing: to send you some of our wholehearted, warmest greetings to you. We met some of you in person, but we haven’t met most of you just yet.
Perhaps it will change in 2025. And perhaps even more wonderful things will change next year. Let it be a calm, peaceful, optimistic, generous, and beautiful year; a year full of memories and small and positive surprises. Full of clarity, hope, and enthusiasm.
Most importantly, let it be the happiest year for you with a lot of love, support, and kindness that surrounds you and that you spread to people around you.
On our hands, we’re happy to share some fun and useful gems to explore over the holidays. Nothing too serious, and nothing too work-related. But hopefully, something that might put a smile on your face.
Happy 2025, everyone! 🎉🥳
— Vitaly
1. Live Radio From Around The World
About 44,000 radio stations broadcast around the world today, connecting people and places — from the biggest megacities to the remotest corners of the planet. If you’re up for a musical journey through countries, languages, and music styles, Radio Garden makes exploring live radio from all around the world as easy as turning a globe.
Once you’re on the Radio Garden site, turn the globe to start your journey. Each radio station appears as a green dot — click it, and it will start playing immediately. You can also search for your favorite stations and places or explore current content and playlists.
Maybe you’ll land on an Arctic Outpost station that brings you shellac records from the first half of the 20th century, pick up on Afro-Creole dialects in Suriname, or experience some Filipino holiday vibes in English and Tagalog? Happy listening! (cm)
2. Fun Interactive Experiences
We all need a little bit of distraction sometimes, and especially when you’re stuck on a tough problem at work, it can work wonders to occupy your mind with something completely different for a moment. For occasions like these, be sure to keep the site Neal.fun nearby.
Neal Agarwal is a master of creating fascinating mini-games and interactive experiences that make you wonder and have fun and that cater to lots of aha moments along the way. His collection on Neal.fun includes more than 30 of them.
Whether it’s scrolling your way to space to discover which aircraft and animal makes it to which altitude, launching an asteroid to learn more about its impact, solving absurd trolley problems, exploring weird and cool Street View finds, or attempting to draw a perfect circle — there sure is something in it for you. Enjoy! (cm)
3. Discover Movies Based On Your Mood
So, you’re looking forward to a cozy movie night at home, but you still need some inspiration on what to watch? Instead of endlessly scrolling through your favorite streaming platform to find something that sparks your interest, how about a movie that matches your current mood? Mood2Movie is here to help.
Just select one of 18 feelings on the Mood2Movie site, and it will recommend a movie based on it. You’re feeling cheerful? Then “Rio” could be for you. Reflective? How about “The Social Dilemma”? Each recommendation comes with a trailer and a short description of the plot. If you’re not happy with the result, you can skip it to get a new recommendation. (cm)
4. Visual History Of The Latin Alphabet
It is often suggested that the Latin alphabet evolved in a linear way, from the Roman Capitalis to Antiqua scripts to today’s Grotesk. However, this is only one possible view among many, and the history of type and script is, at its core, a network, as the ARETE project beautifully shows.
Created by experts at the UCLAB at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, ARETE visualizes the historical developments and formal relationships of the different scripts and typefaces of the Latin alphabet over the centuries — from Archaic Latin to modern handwriting scripts of today. Lots of interesting insights are guaranteed for anyone with a sweet spot for typography. (cm)
5. Upcoming Workshops and Conferences
That’s right! We run online workshops on frontend and design, be it accessibility, performance, or design patterns. In fact, we have a couple of workshops coming up soon, and we thought that, you know, you might want to join in as well.
As always, here’s a quick overview:
- Hybrid Apps with Web and Native Technologies dev
with Átila Fassina. Jan 9–17 - The Power of Storytelling ux
with Chiara Aliotta. Jan 20 – Feb 3 - Design Patterns for AI Interfaces ux
with Vitaly Friedman. Jan 22 – Feb 5 - New Front-End Adventures, 2025 Edition ux
with Vitaly Friedman. Jan 27 – Feb 10 - Accessible Typography for Web & UI Design Masterclass design
with Oliver Schöndorfer. Feb 10–18 - Building Modern HTML Emails dev
with Rémi Parmentier. Mar 3–11 - Jump to all workshops →
6. Tools To Simplify Everyday Tasks
You provide the input, and they provide the output as a result; that’s the idea behind IO Tools. IO Tools is an extensive suite of useful web apps for designers, developers, authors, marketers, analysts, and even gamers.
Whether you’re looking for an empty lines remover, a space-to-tab converter, a text compare tool, or a name generator, with more than 300 tools available, chances are good that IO Tools has just what you need. You can use the tools for free; however, some of them, like AI tools, consume credits (you get 50 free credits daily). One for the bookmarks. (cm)
7. New Video Course: How To Measure UX And Design Impact
Ready to dive deeper? Well, we have something very special coming up for you: Our brand-new video course “How To Measure UX & Design Impact” with Vitaly Friedman. Meet a 8-hour long journey to UX metrics and design KPIs, sailing in unchartered waters every now and again.
From establishing team-specific design KPIs to translating ambiguous objectives into practical design goals and making sense of OKRs, SUS, UMUX-Lite, TPI, KPI trees, feedback scoring, gap analysis, and Kano model, the course is filled with plenty of examples to help you measure UX. Jump to details.
8. Free Branded Video Call Backgrounds
You need to hop on a quick video call with a client, but you don’t want them to see the buzzing office in the background or your tiny home office? Instead of reverting to one of the standard virtual backgrounds that Zoom, Meets, or Teams have to offer, you might want to give Free Office Backgrounds a try.
Created by the team at Design Huddle, Free Office Backgrounds generates a branded virtual background for your video calls. You can upload a logo or an image, and will get a selection of background images as a result: industrial loft offices, friendly meeting rooms with warm wood and plants, big windows, nice furniture — different styles that all create a professional atmosphere, with your logo or image adorning the room as the centerpiece. (cm)
9. Recently Published Books 📚
Promoting best practices and providing you with practical tips to master your daily coding and design challenges has always been at the core of everything we do at Smashing.
In the past few years, we were very lucky to have worked together with some talented, caring people from the web community to publish their wealth of experience as printed books. Have you checked them out already?
- Success at Scale by Addy Osmani
- Understanding Privacy by Heather Burns
- Touch Design for Mobile Interfaces by Steven Hoober
- Check out all books →
That’s All, Folks!
Thank you so much for reading and for your support in helping us keep the web dev and design community strong with our newsletter. See you next time!
This newsletter issue was written and edited by Geoff Graham (gg), Cosima Mielke (cm), Vitaly Friedman (vf), and Iris Lješnjanin (il).
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