Weekly Links — 2nd September 2026

🕰️ Ten Minute Focus

• Rethinking Data Visualisation: A UX Approach To Dashboards That Actually Drives Decisions — Ditch sterile charts; UX-driven dashboards should actually make us do something.
• Why Your Website Should Never Stop Changing — Your website isn’t dead, it’s just boring. Autonomous agents are the cure.

Branding

• Bob Neville on Berghaus, Manchester culture and the British brand everyone thinks is German — Berghaus proves heritage retail isn’t dead, it just needs a Manchester swagger.
• How Chanida Areewatanasombat draws the feelings she can’t say out loud — Illustrator Chanida Areewatanasombat turns unspeakable feelings into art.
• Why are so many brands ditching celebrities for ordinary people? — Brands are ditching celebs for relatable faces—is anyone surprised?
• OneMay’s surreal visual identity for Sam Kerr’s WAWA sparkling water — Sparkling water isn’t just hydration; it’s a deliberate lifestyle choice, says OneMay.
• Maynard declutters Canterbury with heritage-inspired wayfinding — Canterbury’s heritage gets a sleek, modern wayfinding refresh.

Design

• Plotter — Occasional fiction that’s anything but occasional.
• Susan Kare: Designing icons & graphics for the original Mac — Susan Kare spills the secrets behind Mac’s iconic design.
• The function — the role of software in society — Software: It’s more than code; it’s the engine of society.
• Step inside Teddy Blanks’ film title design process — Barbie, Succession, and more: Teddy Blanks demystifies film title design.
• Stop using OKLCH lightness for your color scale — OKLCH is great for colors, but terrible for contrast. Use a better number.
• — Design bookmarks: The web is booming, and Claude’s got the tools.

Motion

• OFF! Scratch | Believe.tv — This entry is empty.
• Tournaments Retire Their Mascots. Great Brands Raise Theirs for Life — Brands should keep mascots forever; tournaments can ditch theirs.

AI

• AI has a hospitality problem money can’t fix — AI can automate hotels, but it can’t fake genuine hospitality.
• Researcher-in-the-loop — AI can assist UXR, but it can’t replace the human researcher.
• The asteroid hitting frontend development — Frontend dev just got hit by an asteroid. Buckle up.
• AI Can’t Replace Real Research in Empathy Mapping — AI can organize your research, but it can’t find your users’ empathy.

Misc

• Mounts Krn and Batognica — The mountains are calling, and this photographer is answering.
• Cybernetics and Ghosts — Calvino foresaw AI writers: Are we replacing poets with machines?
• A Calendar View For My Blog — 14 years of blogging, visualized: A calendar view that’s anything but boring.
• Tiny Awards, 2026 Edition — Tiny Awards are back! Help judge the best of the web.
• Paddy On The Hardwood by Rus Bradburd — From a chance encounter to a must-read book: The power of Paddy.
• Mandolino — Long distance friendships require transatlantic book club meetings.

Nerd Alert

• Creating Web Widgets Using the Document Picture-in-Picture API — Widgets are getting a Picture-in-Picture upgrade.
• Vibe coding and quality — Vibe coding: Once a toy, now the key to quality.
• WordPress PHP-Only Block Registration — Build WordPress blocks without React? PHP-only registration makes it happen.
• Building a Mouse-Following Square Lens Effect with Three.js and GLSL — Distort reality with this Three.js lens effect tutorial.
• Balsa UI — Balsa UI: Component systems get an agent-native upgrade.