Becoming an exceptional UI designer takes time, as with any other profession. The best way to accelerate your learning and stay on top of your industry is to follow leaders who are aware of industry changes.
Knowing what’s currently working for others and which people to follow gives you an ace up your sleeve. That’s why we scoured the internet and asked our in-house designer and Art Director, Ondřej Půček, for resources that helped him.
His selection features influencers and designers who share noteworthy UI knowledge. Along the same lines, we’ll discuss YouTube channels posting fresh content for UI designers, and for avid readers, we’ll list some of the books seen as must-reads to build a strong foundation as a designer.
🏆 Top 4 blogs for UI designers to follow 🔗
Hardly anyone has the time to go through densely packed blogs in one sitting. But when you find a pocket of calm, consider picking a few from this selection. Our Lead Designer says they're worth it!
1. Figma blog 🔗
Over 4 million people use Figma. There’s hardly any UI designer who hasn’t used it in their work. The company puts significant efforts into updating its blog with tools, strategies, and design techniques, along with interviews, guest posts from other designers, and case studies.
Their blog has informative articles on design thinking, interviews with its teams, and contributions from design communities. If there’s an update about their tool or a new trend that’s thriving, you’ll likely find a post about it on their blog. You’ll also find in-depth pieces together with 2-minute reads you can gobble up on the go. They also have an academy for paid classes on design.
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2. Smashing Magazine 🔗
Smashing Magazine is a popular blog for web designers and developers. Their UI design section features articles on topics such as design trends, usability, and responsive design. They also publish in-depth tutorials and case studies that can help designers improve their skills.
In addition to its UI design section, Smashing Magazine also publishes articles on topics such as coding, UX design, and front-end development. They also host conferences and workshops that can be useful for designers who want to network and learn from industry experts.
3. Toptal blog 🔗
From beginner-friendly guides on design fundamentals to in-depth analyses of the latest trends, Toptal's UI blog section is a treasure trove of knowledge. It's a one-stop-shop that encompasses the whole field, from design tool reviews and step-by-step tutorials to career advice. And the best part it's that all's written by experts who know their stuff.
4. A List Apart 🔗
A List Apart is a veteran web design and development blog that's been running since 1998. Their design and UX sections feature articles on topics such as accessibility, interaction design, typography, brand identity, and more. Even though they don’t post frequently, the published pieces are worth a good read.
🎥 Top 5 YouTube channels for UI designers 🔗
In case reading isn’t your thing and you learn more easily by watching videos, here are some creators that specialize on multiple aspects of UI and web design. You’ll also find designers who leap into other areas such as animation, virtual reality, and design systems.
5. Ben Marriott 🔗
Ben Marriott is an Australian designer creating content on motion design and animation. His channel is known for its high-quality tutorials, where he features a mix of practical tips, techniques, and insights into his creative process. He covers a wide range of topics, including animation fundamentals, character design, 3D animation, using Adobe After Effects, Illustrator, and more. He started posting on his channel in 2013 and has uploaded over 170 videos so far.
6. Design Talk 🔗
When we said that all these resources are handpicked by our own UI designer, we weren’t kidding. Since Ondřej is a Czech speaker, he couldn’t help but list one design channel in Czech. Ran by Lukáš Veverka, a skillful motion designer and director, Design Talk includes talks with industry experts, design fails, 3D designs, VFX, and more.
If you’re on other platforms like Twitch, you’ll find Lukáš streaming regularly. There he interviews industry personalities about motion design, filmmaking, tricks, directing, and, surely, graphic design.
7. Elliotisacoolguy 🔗
Elliot Ulm is a self-taught designer who runs a popular YouTube channel where he infuses comedy and graphic design together. The channel features a mix of design tutorials, recent trends, throwbacks, compilations, and discussions on the design process. Elliot is known for his thoughtful and engaging approach to design education, often incorporating personal anecdotes and humor into his videos.
One of the standout features of Elliot's channel is his ability to break down complex design topics into digestible, easy-to-understand concepts. As someone who’s passionate about his craft, Elliot takes a bold approach to his work, and you can notice this in the fonts, colors, and layouts he uses. The Australia-based designer shares his knowledge mostly on Instagram, where he gathered his initial audience, but you can enjoy his lengthier content on YouTube.
8. The Futur 🔗
While this channel covers a wide range of design topics, their UI section is particularly strong, with videos about typography, color theory, user experience, design principles, and more. One of the things that sets The Futur apart, though, is their focus on the business side of design. They address pricing strategies, discuss client management, and offer marketing tips that can help designers build successful careers in the industry.
9. Charli Marie TV 🔗
Run since 2013 by this graphic and web designer based in the UK, Charli's channel focuses on topics such as design tools, web development, Figma, portfolio tips, and freelancing. Her videos are well-produced and engaging, and she has a friendly and approachable style that makes her content accessible to designers of all skill levels. One of her strenghts is she shares her own design processes and professional experiences, which makes her channel a great source of inspiration for other designers.
📖 Top 4 books about UI design 🔗
We picked the brains of our senior designer to learn what books have helped him along his journey. Here are four books worth your time.
10. 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People by Susan W. Weinschenk 🔗
Written by a behavioral scientist, this book provides insights and practical tips for designers who want to create effective user interfaces. It tackles a wide range of topics, including how people perceive and process information, how they make decisions, and how they interact with technology.
One key conclusion from the book is the importance of designing interfaces that are simple and intuitive, prioritizing essential information, and following established patterns. Above all, your design should be imbued with empathy, respect certain visual patterns, and be so good it encourages a flow state. Another important consideration is designing for positive emotions, as people's emotional states can have a big impact on their experience with an interface.
11. Better Web Typography For A Better Web by Matej Latin 🔗
This is a comprehensive guide to web typography for designers and developers. The author, a self-taught product designer with experience in the software arena, walks the reader through the basics of typography in a practical way, including the anatomy of type, font choice, and type scale. Latin explains how to combine typefaces and follow a certain rhythm, and also discusses page composition, responsive typography, modular scale, etc.
Throughout the book, he emphasizes the importance of good typography in web design and offers practical tips for achieving it. The book is packed with plenty of real-world examples and case studies to illustrate his points. You’re even provided with lines of code you can run to see the results in practice.
12. Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience by Jeff Gothelf 🔗
If you're looking for a practical guide to incorporate lean principles into the user experience design process, look no further than this. Gothelf, a product manager coach and OKR specialist, expands on the importance of validating assumptions and testing designs early and often in order to be truly user-centered.
In terms of UI design, the book emphasizes the importance of simplicity, usability, and accessibility. It also strongly encourages creating a design system that can be updated and modified as the product evolves.
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13. Refactoring UI by Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger 🔗
Another guide full of actionable tips to improve the look and feel of your interfaces. Wathan and Schoger, the CEO and visual designer at Tailwind Labs, focus on the practical aspects of design and cover a wide range of topics: from typography and color to layout and spacing, supported by real-world examples.
One of the key themes of the book is the importance of simplicity in UI design. The authors argue that many interfaces suffer from clutter and complexity. They offer strategies for simplifying them, like reducing the number of colors, using consistent typography, and creating visual hierarchies that guide the user's attention.
👤 Top 7 designers you should follow as a UI designer 🔗
Any professional journey boils down to a few simple steps. And one of them is to follow field experts who’ve amassed some kind of success. Here’s a list of seven designers we think you should follow to keep up with the industry.
14. Meng To 🔗
Meng To is a designer, author, and entrepreneur who is well-known for his expertise in UI design. He is the founder of Design+Code, a platform that offers courses, tutorials, and resources for designers who want to learn how to create mobile apps, websites, and other digital products. Meng has worked with a range of clients, from startups to large corporations, and his designs have been featured in publications such as Wired, Fast Company, and Forbes.
Meng is known for his clean, minimalist approach that prioritizes usability. In addition to his design work, he's also an author and educator. His courses are a popular resource for designers who want to learn how to create mobile apps.
15. Rogie 🔗
Rogie is a multidisciplinary artist, programmer, and Designer Advocate at Figma who is well-known for his expertise in UI design. He has ample experience with a diverse range of clients and has been recognized for his innovative and user-friendly designs. Rogie is also a prolific speaker and writer who has shared his insights and advice with designers all over the world.
His focus on UX and accessibility has helped elevate the importance of these principles in design, and his creations serve as a great example of how good design can make a positive impact on people's lives.
16. Zander Whitehurst 🔗
Zander Whitehurst is a designer based in the UK who specializes in UI and UX design. With over a decade of experience in the industry, Zander has developed a reputation for creating elegant and intuitive user interfaces that prioritize user experience. He’s also a founding member of Figma’s education advisory board.
On his socials, you’ll find short and practical tutorials and design tips. He is also skilled in a variety of design tools and techniques, including wireframing, prototyping, and user flow mapping. To teach all he’s learned about UI and UX, he’s created Memorisely, a learning website that offers video classes and live bootcamps.
17. Molly Hellmuth 🔗
Molly is a distinguished UI designer, a Figma expert, and the creator of UI Prep, a collection of design resources and a design system with a plethora of features intended to advance your journey as a designer. So far, the UI kit has been downloaded over 100k times, and they keep adding updates to it.
Besides the design system UI kit, which is a paid product, its blog is full of information, guides, and tutorials for any creatives who want to master Figma. Furthermore, if you’re a fan of emails, sign up for her newsletter for more free content from an expert who has mentored designers in companies such as Atlassian, Open Table, and Gusto. Molly also holds a 4-week long Design System Bootcamp on Figma’s workflows and its advanced features, and you can check her kits, layouts and ideas on the platform here.
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18. Mike Monteiro 🔗
Mike Monteiro is a well-known Design Director and author who has been working in the industry for over two decades. He is the co-founder of Mule Design Studio and has worked with brands as Airbnb, Google, and Apple. Mike is very active on Twitter, where he shares his thoughts on design, politics, and current events.
Monteiro also hosts the Let's Make Mistakes podcast and is an accomplished author, having written several books on design, including Ruined by Design: How Designers Destroyed the World, and What We Can Do to Fix It. His writing is known for its sharp wit and biting commentary on the state of the design industry. He is a popular keynote speaker at design conferences around the world, where he shares his insights on design ethics and the role of designers in shaping the world we live in.
19. Debbie Millman 🔗
Debbie Millman is a renowned American graphic designer, author, and educator. With over 30 years of experience in the design industry, she has made a significant impact on the field and has been recognized for her contributions with numerous awards and accolades. Millman is best known for her work as the host of the popular podcast Design Matters, which features interviews with some of the most influential designers and creative thinkers in the world.
In addition to her work as a designer and podcaster, Millman is also a prolific author, with several books to her name, including Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits and Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design. Her writing explores themes at the crossroads of design, branding, and culture, and she is known for her unique insights and thought-provoking ideas.
20. Pablo Stanley 🔗
One popular UI designer who is very active on social media with his educational content is Pablo Stanley. He is a designer, illustrator, and the co-founder of Blush and Lummi. On social media, Pablo is known for his fun and engaging approach to design education, often using humor and pop culture references to make complex topics more accessible to his audience. He has a large following on Twitter and Instagram, where he shares his thoughts on design, creativity, and technology.
Pablo is also known for creating educational resources such as Sketch Together, a series of YouTube videos and live streams that cover a wide range of design topics, from sketching and prototyping to user testing and design systems. Through Sketch Together, Pablo has built a community of designers who share a passion for learning and sharing knowledge.
21.⏹️ Bonus: Mobbin 🔗
Lastly, we want to wrap it up with Mobbin, an amazing tool for UI inspiration. It features a large collection of real-world app designs from popular platforms including Spotify, Notion, and Airbnb, making it easy to explore and learn from the best in the industry. Even with the free version, you can find plenty of design ideas to jump-start your creative process.
What makes Mobbin special is how user-friendly and resourceful it is. You can quickly filter through designs, find patterns, draw inspiration ideas that fit your project, and even copy the Figma flows for the designs you like. Many designers, including our Art Director, favor it as a go-to resource for high-quality UI examples.
➡️ Final thoughts 🔗
UI design is a field that’s always changing, which is why learning and staying curious is so important. The blogs, YouTube channels, and books we’ve shared in this guide are packed with ideas, tips, and inspiration to help you grow as a designer.
However, remember to treat these resources as inspiration rather than absolute rules. ☝️ Don’t blindly follow trends; instead, consider practical factors like your time, budget, and other constraints. Always test your designs and stay open to making changes if the first iteration doesn’t meet your expectations.
The key is to keep learning and experimenting. Don’t be afraid to try new approaches or step outside your comfort zone. A little inspiration can take you a long way when building your products. Once you've produced something people need and use, make it multilingual with Localazy.
