The rest of the UX outside of the locking itself comes into play, such as how do you unlock the account once locked

This is exactly my thought. I've also been confronted with systems that lock but don't tell you when. There should always be a warning that the account is about to lock which could probably be coupled with a prompt to reset your password.

Nice to see a little more personality in the Duolingo logo

I think social buttons should be thought about similarly to how people think about email signups. People get much more direct with CTAs and visually creative with those than they do with social and yet the two serve very similar purposes.

Brand design aside, this site is terrible. So much content, so little hierarchy.

I feel like this could probably be remedied by reordering the photos and putting a food image in a more prominent place. I mean, the place has a gorgeous exterior that deserves highlighting, but given the sparseness I think the user needs some more direct context.

cheeky ;)

Yeah, when I saw this I was thinking album cover or poster art.

These figures are pretty close to mine. I'm thinking about dropping the freelance work though, because I feel pretty burned out right now.

I just think there is sooo much more to design than just the product scene and I would like to see more diversity in the news posted to DN.

Agreed. Until that happens, do you have any sources you'd recommend for good design writing?

The title had me worried, but this is a solid breakdown. Does a nice job of detailing some of the stuff that drives me crazy about setting type digitally, especially the differing character heights at the same point size and alignment issues.