Five Links #61
Five links for your inbox from this week.
1. Type Foundry Direction
Last week, I shared a post on typeface licenses. This site is a useful resource as it lets you see licensing terms and restrictions up front.
2. The Deaths of Effective Altruism
Yet Sam Bankman-Fried is the perfect prophet of EA, the epitome of its moral bankruptcy. The EA saga is not just a modern fable of corruption by money and fame, told in exaflops of computing power. This is a stranger story of how some small-time philosophers captured some big-bet billionaires, who in turn captured the philosophers—and how the two groups spun themselves into an opulent vortex that has sucked up thousands of bright minds worldwide.
(This piece seems to alternate between being publicly available and “for subscribers only” – perhaps as an A/B test. If you’re having trouble accessing, it’s available the Wayback Machine from when it was regularly available.)
3. Horizon
This page shows an approximation of the sky at your approximate location, rendered as a CSS gradient. One to keep in your back pocket should you ever find yourself working in a windowless room. :)
4. What Makes a Good Accessibility Designer?
A nice breakdown of some principles to make progress as a designer working with accessibility.
5. I don’t like sand
I’ve noticed a proliferation of AI alt text generators recently. Aside from the risk of over-announcement (not all images need or should have alt text), this blog post is a great example of another challenge with using AI to perform this task: there’s a good chance the description will lack crucial context.
What am I up to?
- I’ve been thinking about where/how designers learn about, evolve and refine their design process. For the designers out there – I’d love to hear your thoughts.
- Unoffice Hours continue on a fortnightly schedule. The next available slot is 3 September.
- I’m offering design consultations to give feedback on design work without the commitment of a larger project. Discounted rate available for another nine days.
- I’m currently booking projects from October/November onwards.
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Until next time,
Dave
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