March design inspirations 💌

Published 2 months ago • 1 min read

Hi friend,

This is Design Current, your go-to newsletter about user experience design.

In this issue, you will see designs and reflections that inspired us in the past month.

Studio Update

Designing for civic tech

Andrea, our co-founder and design director at Koi, spoke at Folsom Tech Week about UX in GovTech and CivicTech.

It's something we care deeply about. We wake up every day feeling the weight of what's happening in the world and wanting to do more with the skills we have.

Over the past few years, we've had the chance to work on civic products, and Andrea shared what we've learned about designing civic services that actually work for people.

See key takeaways

Designs we are in awe of

Product design

Your AI Alien best friend →

Tolan is an AI chat app with whimsical and cozy alien characters. AI shouldn't be your best friend, but Tolan is a breath of fresh air.

Product design

Bring back the CDs →

Untitled, an app that lets you save your WIP music ideas, proves that SaaS can be genuine.

Data viz

Infinite balldrop →

Already over 2026? Here's a ball drop countdown for the new year. As I'm writing this, the ball is 59M feet above Times Square.

Data viz

Birth lottery →

An interactive way of exploring Human Development Index across the world.

Visual candy

Heated Rivalry's visual secrets →

The cinematographer talks about lighting, fake skating, and the one-month shoot timeline

Actually useful AI related content

AI Toolkit for design teams →
Created by Koi Studios. Meaningfully and respponsibally incorporate AI in your design process.

When building is free, what's worth building? →
Are we just creating digital wastes with AI coding tools?

When AI has better taste than you →
Julie Zhuo argued why agency is the final human moat.

Thanks for reading!

Anyi & Andrea

Cofounders @ Koi Studios

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