Smashing Newsletter: Issue #537

Editorial

Designers are often opinionated, and that’s a good thing. We raise uncomfortable questions, voice concerns, and question decisions. But in the words of Andy Budd, “best teams don’t treat pessimism as a threat. They treat it as insurance.” Designers aren't trying to be difficult — just to make sure a vision survives first contact with reality.

In this newsletter, we feature a few helpful tools and resources for designers — with lessons learned, advice on design career, tools, and useful techniques.

Today’s newsletter issue is kindly powered by our dear friends at Penpot, a wonderful free, open-source tool for design and code collaboration, without handoff challenges and with support for prototyping, UI design, and code — all in one tool. Heads up to the entire Penpot team for their hard work and kind support! 🧡

We hope you’ve already set your alarm clocks: Join us tomorrow for Smashing Meets Easy Accessibility (free for everyone — please spread the love!). We’ve also prepared many front-end & UX online workshops to help you plan your events early next year:

Figma Workflow Masterclass Design
with Christine Vallaure. Dec 10–16
Behavioral Design Workshop UX
with Susan and Guthrie Weinschenk. Jan 15– 29
Deep Dive On Accessibility Testing Dev
with Manuel Matuzović. Jan 19 – Feb 2
AI For Everyone: Deep-Dive Into Lovable Free
with Chirstina Vallaure. Jan 20
Design Patterns For AI Interfaces UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Feb 16 – Mar 2
Designing For Complex UIs UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Mar 3–17
Jump to all workshops →

Thanks for being smashing! 🧡 Happy designing, everyone!

— Vitaly

1. The Rhythm Of Your Screen

The length of a screen is not the problem; lack of rhythm is, argues Christopher Butler. To retain your users’ attention as they scroll and scan through a page, he shares four simple tips for better information architecture. They help you create structure and rhythm, making it easier for users to quickly process information.

2. Icon Design Principles

Designing high-quality icons is an art that requires a lot of practice to finally master it. But what exactly is the secret behind great icons? What do you need to consider to successfully convey meaning with just a few strokes? Helena Zhang explores the question, illustrating seven principles of great icon design through real-world examples.

3. Fixing A Broken Color Palette

Too many choices, inconsistencies, inaccessible combinations, and color names that are difficult to make sense of — fixing a broken color palette can seem like an overwhelming task. So, where to begin? Adam Wilson shares precious insights into how the Skyscanner team refined their color palette, along with process, naming, testing, and explorations to get there.

Fixing Skyscanner’s Broken Color Palette

4. The Only Designer

Being the only designer at a startup is exciting but also exhausting. Maria Gonzalez knows this from her own experience, and so she decided to collect tips on being the only brand, communications, visual, or business designer at a startup. If you, too, have lived it and would like to share insights on what it’s like, you are welcome to contribute your story so others can learn from it.

5. Semantic Art Gallery

Imagine an art gallery curated just for you, based on your mood and imagination. That is what the Semantic Art Gallery is all about. The AI-powered art search engine finds actual artworks from history that embody the emotion or idea that you type in, no matter how poetic or nuanced your query might be. A breathtaking example of what can be achieved with LLMs, beyond the typical prompt bar for generation.

Upcoming Workshops and Conferences

For the last years, we’ve been running accessible, practical online workshops on frontend and UX, 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.

Smashing Online Events — With online workshops, we aim to give you the same experience and access to experts as in an in-person workshop from wherever you are.

As always, here’s a quick overview:

Figma Workflow Masterclass Design
with Christine Vallaure. Dec 10–16
Behavioral Design Workshop UX
with Susan and Guthrie Weinschenk. Jan 15– 29
Deep Dive On Accessibility Testing Dev
with Manuel Matuzović. Jan 19 – Feb 2
Design Patterns For AI Interfaces UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Feb 16 – Mar 2
How To Measure UX & Design Impact UX
with Vitaly Friedman. Video course + UX Training
Jump to all workshops →

6. A Synthesizer For Color

Frustrated by existing color palette generators, Ryan Feigenbaum created Color Palette Pro, a color palette generator with a synthesizer-like interface. It generates six different color palettes based on a base color, in four styles and across eight color spaces and formats. To dive deeper into what it is capable of, also be sure to check out Ryan’s blog post.

7. Lessons Of Design

After almost 20 years in design, Fabricio Teixeira decided to pause for a moment to write down what he finds compelling about his craft. Why does he do what he does? What lessons has he learned? And why does he choose to continue doing it? Lessons of Design is a treasure chest of design wisdom for both aspiring and experienced designers.

8. Design Career Milestones

Whether it’s working with challenging clients, developing a unique style, or balancing client work and passion projects, there are certain milestones that most designers reach during their professional lives. Readymag collected personal stories from experienced design leaders to reflect on common challenges and ways to master them.

9. Meet Design System Culture, Our Upcoming Smashing Book 📚

We have exciting news! We’re so happy to announce that “Maturing Design Systems,” a Smashing book by Ben Callahan, will soon be joining the Smashing Library! Ben’s insights and advice are so powerful, and we can’t wait to share this book with you! Pre-orders will be available soon.

Maturing Design Systems written by Ben Callahanh — Enter “Maturing Design Systems,” a very welcome addition to our Smashing Library of books. Ben Callahan pulls from years of experience building and consulting on design systems to create a framework for growth and stability.

You can read an excerpt of Maturing Design Systems, in which he explores the anatomy of a design system, explains how culture shapes outcomes, and shares practical guidance for the challenges at each stage — from building v1 and growing healthy adoption to navigating “the teenage years” and ultimately running a stable, influential system.

Stay signed up to our Smashing newsletter and be one of the first to know when Maturing Design Systems is available for preorder. We can’t wait to share this book with you!

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).

December 9, 2025 Smashing Newsletter: Issue #537

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