Trends

For the designers and interested clients out there, below are some recent articles on trends in the web design industry.

Smashing Animations Part 5: Building Adaptive SVGs With ``, ``, And CSS Media Queries

SVGs, they scale, yes, but how else can you make them adapt even better to several screen sizes? Web design pioneer Andy Clarke explains how he builds what he calls “adaptive SVGs” using ``, ``, and CSS Media Queries.

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The Grayscale Problem

From A/B tests to AI slop, the modern web is bleeding out its colour. Standardized, templated, and overoptimized, it’s starting to feel like a digital Levittown. But it doesn’t have to be.

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How To Make Your UX Research Hard To Ignore

Research isn’t everything. Facts alone don’t win arguments, but powerful stories do. Here’s how to turn your research into narratives that inspire trust and influence decisions.

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AI In UX: Achieve More With Less

A simple but powerful mental model for working with AI: treat it like an enthusiastic intern with no real-world experience. Paul Boag shares lessons learned from real client projects across user research, design, development, and content creation.

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Ambient Animations In Web Design: Practical Applications (Part 2)

Motion can be tricky: too much distracts, too little feels flat. Ambient animations sit in the middle. They’re subtle, slow-moving details that add atmosphere without stealing the show. In part two of his series, web design pioneer Andy Clarke shows how ambient animations can add personality to any website design.

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JavaScript For Everyone: Iterators

Here is a lesson on Iterators. Iterables implement the iterable iteration interface, and iterators implement the iterator iteration interface. Sounds confusing? Mat breaks it all down in the article.

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Fading Light And Falling Leaves (November 2025 Wallpapers Edition)

The new month is just around the corner, and that means: It’s time for some new desktop wallpapers! All of them are designed by the community for the community and can be downloaded for free. Enjoy!

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www.smashingmagazine.com

How To Leverage Component Variants In Penpot

With component variants, design systems become more flexible, letting you reuse the same component while adapting its look or state with ease. In this article, Daniel Schwarz demonstrates how design tokens can be leveraged to manage components and their variations using Penpot, the open-source tool built for scalable, consistent design.

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Six Key Components of UX Strategy

Let’s dive into the building blocks of UX strategy and see how it speaks the language of product and business strategy to create user value while achieving company goals. Part of the Measure UX & Design Impact(use the code 🎟IMPACTto save 20% off today).

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Smashing Animations Part 6: Magnificent SVGs With `` And CSS Custom Properties

SVG is one of those web technologies that’s both elegant and, at times, infuriating. In this article, pioneering author and web designer Andy Clarke explains his technique for animating SVG elements that are hidden in the Shadow DOM.

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www.smashingmagazine.com