
The Best Articles, Videos, and Newsletters in Visual Design
The most useful articles, videos, and newsletters in Visual Design from around the web, curated by thought leaders and our community.
Refind focuses on timeless pieces and updates the list whenever new, must-read articles or videos are discovered.
Top 5 Visual Design Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in Visual Design by Refind users in 2026 so far.
Videos
Watch a video to get a quick overview.
why Japan's internet is weirdly designed
Use code ANSWER to get 10% off your Hostinger plan today (on top of ongoing offers like their Black Friday/Cyber Monday $1.99 for Premium Shared web hosting ...
An AI artist explains his workflow
How it works — and why it takes a surprisingly long time to make something good.Subscribe and turn on notifications 🔔 so you don't miss any videos: http://...
Japanese web design: weird, but it works. Here's why
Japanese website design looks weird. But, they work just as well as other websites around the world. Why is that? I mean, they're information dense, cluttere...
I Make $1.3M/Year With One Skill
🚀 Head to https://www.starterstory.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=brett<ft=true for your $1 seven-day trial of Starter Story! 📩 Business Ideas News...
AI and Image Generation (Everything is a Remix Part 4)
#ai #aiart #imagegen The Age of AI has arrived and its first flashpoint is art. AI is revolutionizing how we create, view, and experience art, while sparking...
What is ...?
New to Visual Design? These articles make an excellent introduction.
A beginner’s guide to Design Tokens
Learn the basics of what design tokens are, how they’re used, their benefits, and some tools and resources to get you started.
What is a picture?
If we want to understand what a picture is, then we must look at the difference between perception and imagination.
What is information architecture? Structuring content for maximum value
Information architecture ensures content and data is structured, organized, and categorized in an effective and usable way, thereby maximizing the value of your websites and applications.
«Information architecture is a discipline focused on structuring, organizing, and categorizing content and data in an effective and usable way, largely for websites and applications.»
A beginner's guide to scrollytelling
Discover how to tell a compelling and dynamic story using the full power of web design.
How to ...?
How to pick the least wrong colors
An algorithm for creating color palettes for data visualization
How to use huge type on the web
I’ve been advocating more daring and bolder use of typography on the web ever since I started the Better Web Type project. Picking a sans-serif font for titles and a serif one for the content is…
How to pick more beautiful colors
Choosing good colors for your charts is hard. This article tries to make it easier.
«There’s no need to rely on hues from all around the color wheel like ⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤ for your visualizations. It will look more professional – and therefore more trustworthy – when it only uses a few hues and their neighbors.»
Trending
These links are currently making the rounds in Visual Design on Refind.
LukeW | AI Enables As-Needed Software Features
In traditional software development, designers and engineers anticipate what people might need, build those features, and then ship them. When integrated into a...
The New Business Case For Design Systems
What you need to know about how to track and communicate the value of your design system
UX And Product Designer’s Career Paths In 2026 — Smashing Magazine
How to shape your career path for 2026, with decision trees for designers and a UX skills self-assessment matrix. The only limits for tomorrow are the doubts we have today. Brought to you by Smart…
Rethinking “Pixel Perfect” Web Design — Smashing Magazine
Amit Sheen takes a hard look at the “Pixel Perfect” legacy concept, explaining why it’s failing us and redefining what “perfection” actually looks like in a multi-device, fluid world.
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in Visual Design—all under 10 minutes.
Why is quality so rare?
The modern world has made huge advances in knowledge, technology, and skill. We can build faster than ever. We know more than ever. Yet quality still feels so rare. So many things feel unfinished,…
From Beta to Bedrock: Build Products that Stick.
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
«An MVP is a product that provides just enough value to your users to keep them engaged, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming or difficult to maintain»
The creative power of constraints
Constraints act not as limitations but as catalysts for creativity. Examples from architecture, design, and art reveal the paradoxical relationship between boundaries and innovation.
Systems, Stables and Stars
Why mature organizations still rely on rockstars for critical work, and how systems raise the floor while stars raise the ceiling.
«Raising the floor and raising the ceiling are completely different problems that need completely different solutions.»
Why Taste Matters More
Us designers love to talk about tools, processes, and skills. We debate software, trade shortcuts, and show off case studies filled with research frameworks and clever flows. All useful things. But…
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in Visual Design.
New Front-End Features For Designers In 2025 — Smashing Magazine
Searching for the most flexible front-end workflows and toolkits, it’s easy to forget how powerful some of the fundamentals on the web have become these days. This post is a journey through new front…
Designing for the Eye – Optical Corrections in Architecture and Typography
The Nuberodesign Blog
Cognitive load is what matters
There are so many buzzwords and best practices out there, but let's focus on something more fundamental. What matters is the amount of confusion developers feel when going through the code.
Are you designing with the right keyboard?
A guide to iOS and Android keyboards.
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in Visual Design, including:
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. Picking only a handful of links means focusing on what’s relevant and useful.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets the most relevant links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, mark as read, read later, «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Who are the thought leaders in Visual Design?
We follow dozens of thought leaders in Visual Design, including swissmiss, zeldman, Brad Frost, Tobias van Schneider, Julieanne Kost.
Missing a thought leader? Submit them here
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
How can I report a problem?
When you’re logged-in, you can flag any link via the «More» (...) menu. You can also report problems via email to [email protected]
Who uses Refind?
500k+ smart people start their day with Refind. To learn something new. To get inspired. To move forward. Our apps have a 4.9/5 rating.
Is Refind free?
Yes, it’s free!
How can I sign up?
Head over to our homepage and sign up by email or with your Twitter or Google account.
Keep Learning
Learn something new, guided by experts. Deep Dives are carefully hand-curated series of time-tested articles and videos from around the web.
Get the big picture on your favorite topics.















