Monthly Journal:#
Reflections on AI as a Designer
Recently, I have been learning about AI, whether through classes or browsing shares from others on Xiaohongshu. In the beginning, I was extremely excited, and after learning, I found that AI can accomplish many tasks that I previously couldn't do. Some design problems can be addressed using these methods. After producing some works, I felt quite accomplished.
However, this month, I slowly began to realize something. While learning a certain workflow, I was awakened by a statement from the author: at this stage, learning AI skills is actually the least difficult and lowest cost thing. Moreover, this field truly has no end to learning. Simply learning AI skills yields diminishing returns because AI can solve any technical problem; it’s just a matter of workflow, drawing cards, or increasingly advanced AI models...
Thinking calmly, I learned AI just to tackle challenges at work and to enhance my portfolio with certain skills. If what I have learned so far is sufficient, I should let myself off the hook. Keeping up with the rapidly changing iterations of AI every day is exhausting. Perhaps after some time, new workflows will be more convenient and simpler, and I can just use them directly. Still, as I said, in the AI era, learning skills is the least difficult thing.
Monthly Record#
1. Efficiency Tools#
Experience Sharing: Discovering Learning Advice from Senior Students in Various Majors
🔗: https://www.kkdaxue.com
Personal experiences and valuable insights from seniors from over 1,000 schools or majors in China.
Company Recommendation: Fancy Teams
🔗: https://fancyteams.cn
A collection of small but beautiful companies; I admire such teams.
Third-party Software: IntentChat
🔗: https://intentchat.app
A third-party client for Telegram, notable for its automatic translation and AI Q&A features, making it easier to understand foreign languages.
Online Clock: Hex Clock
🔗: https://www.jacopocolo.com/hexclock/#
A clock that expresses the current time using color values, ranging from #000000 to #235959, covering 24 hours. It's quite clever; it would be even better if there were similar wallpaper applications. For example, the color value in the image below represents the time 19:26:37.
Mac Application: Ice
🔗: https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice
A free open-source tool that hides the menu bar. I tried it out, and it's quite useful with many settings available.
Image Processing: Riiso
🔗: https://riso.lfesp.me/
Processes images to simulate the texture and color blending of Risograph printing.
Galaxy Science: If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel
🔗: https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html
What would the solar system look like if the moon were reduced to one pixel? The webpage allows you to scroll through the sizes of all planets in the galaxy, with distances scaled accordingly. The scrolling process is quite relaxing; the universe is indeed vast.
Historical Tech Tree is similar, documenting the linear flowchart of human technological development from the Stone Age, which is quite spectacular.
2. Text Insights#
Just Because You Are Useful Doesn’t Mean You Are Valued
“Being useful means you are good at completing tasks in a specific area so that your superiors can fully delegate to you. You are trustworthy, efficient, and even indispensable in the short term. But you are mainly seen as filling a gap... On the other hand, being valued means you are involved in more conversations, not just to execute but also to help determine direction.”
Mind Management, Not Time Management
“As a human, your advantage is not in quickly completing a task. No matter how fast you act, computers are faster than you. Your advantage lies in thinking about the ideas behind the actions. As entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant says, ‘Make money with your mind, not with your time.’”
Exit Interviews Are Unnecessary
“In short, the best exit is to not annoy anyone, leave quietly, and give your all to the path ahead.”
3. Design Related#
UI Inspiration: Spotted in Prod
Showcases excellent applications in a screen recording format, focusing on efficiency.
The Thiings Collection
Icons in a physical style similar to Airbnb, distinct from Apple's emojis, which can also be used as materials later.
Free SVG Icons
Another free icon library in SVG format.
Effect.app — Real-time Image & Video Effects
A Figma plugin that transforms images and videos into various effect types, including RGB shift, CRT screen, LED screen, halftone, vignette, stripes, noise, etc.
Morflax Studio - 3D Design & Motion Platform
An online platform for adjusting mockup angles and exporting, as well as converting SVG to 3D format, providing corresponding animation templates, which is quite convenient.
Open Design Systems from the Figma Community Officially curated design systems from various well-known companies globally, including Byte's Arco, Tencent's TD, Alibaba's Ant, Google, Microsoft, etc.
Words of Type Typography Encyclopedia Detailed explanations of relevant terms in typography design, with interesting and fitting illustrations.
4. Other Interesting Finds#
- 1000+ Gradients and AI-Generated Backgrounds High-definition gradient wallpapers, but paid; I will look for ways to use AI to enhance the clarity.
- The Most Powerful Ways to "Hack" Our New Dia Browser - YouTube A tutorial on tips that first-time users of the Dia browser might overlook.
- Amazon - Koto Studio Koto Studio's brand upgrade for Amazon, quite extensive.
- SVGLOGO A collection of vector logos from various brands or schools in China.
- One Minute Park Explore parks around the world, with each video lasting one minute, all filmed by humans.
- Install a System A one-stop guide for reinstalling computer systems, including Windows/Mac installations.
- Image Inspiration: Envato InspoGen A Pinterest-like image inspiration website, but with smooth scrolling to view inspirations, and you can click to find similar images, with right-click tracing links. I tried it out and it’s great, but the material volume isn’t very large.
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WeChat: guonlin
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