Appreciate the effort and thoughtfulness of it, don't like the design at all - feels blurred rather than painted, needs texture through the paint and a little more edge definition to dial this back. If the blurring is intentional, I still don't like it.

This is a great Instagram account of film titles:

https://www.instagram.com/movietitles/

The one thing I feel like slack needs is an actionable dismissal of an individual request - which I'm aware is what the likes of Trello and Jira are for and do well, but they lack the simplicity of the kind of requests I'd often get on Slack, questions like 'Hey Dan, what's the hex for our blue again?' - or 'Hey Dan, can you just resend the asset at 3x please?' - obviously you can argue that with a good process that these requests shouldn't come in, but they do, and a way to just tag them as requests and check them off as part of the conversation would be a nice, optional addition.

Usually an 'original' design isn't the best for the brief - I once went to a client with a design heavily inspired by the market leader and they demanded we create something original, so we went back to the drawing board and created something a little bit out there, perhaps using elements and interactions that were a little bit 'too' clever and forward thinking. Long story short the client loved it, but the users hated it - within 6 months a full overhaul was required and the design exists today as an almost exact replica of the market leader. Their decisions were backed up by years of data and feedback, ours were led by the desire to be original.

I now look back at this project as a real turning point in my career from junior to senior, swallowing my pride and admitting this was the wrong thing to do, despite the oft-required stance of being a 'yes man' to clients.

As a separate answer, I'd say I try to stay original by doing research not limited to the industry or medium your brand or product is for - this makes it easier to create an original concept from an amalgamation of inspiring colours/shapes/interactions etc from all walks of life.

This is amazing.

Applause

considering the slating this entire project got, the end result is on point.

Yeah was fully expecting an article about a homeless crowd sourced logo.

Screen Printing

Not necessarily formal reading, but I couldn't recommend this book enough.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/071486935X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=569136327&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0714838128&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=GP3ZVP4V2P1085X6NJQ8

I don't think this is a post deserving of the sneering.

Pantone's colour of the year this year was a combination, for the first time - next year I think we'll see something similar, not so much from Pantone but perhaps much bolder/statement like.

If you look at Tobias van Schneider's recent post on colour, look at the later numbers, 93, 94, 97 and 100 - all very bold, toying a bit with vibration.

This has been an ongoing trend this year (Spotify rebrand namely) but likely to continue into next year.