Anthony Hobday

Interface obsessed. Email me or find me on X.

Pay me to do things

  1. Hire me (I need a new job)
  2. Expert design feedback
  3. Simple but cheap website design

15 side projects

  1. Visual design rules you can safely follow
  2. Complementary, an interface design podcast I co-host
  3. Quick start guides to interface design topics
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  1. A YouTube channel where I review website designs
  2. A collection of visual design techniques
  3. A list of every visual design concept
  4. A list of every interaction design concept
  5. Interviews about visual design
  6. Anonymous interviews with designers
  7. Background/container colour combinations you can use
  8. A comparison of open source typefaces designed for interfaces
  9. Quotes about design
  10. Notes on design books
  11. Breakdowns of well-designed interfaces
  12. Sample copy you can practice visual design with

73 blog posts

  1. Non-essential interface design skills
  2. How I think about visual design trends
  3. Interesting software companies
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  1. Practical in-house career paths
  2. Design folk wisdom
  3. Things that have changed in software’s history
  4. Practical design resources
  5. Companies with dedicated quality efforts
  6. Beliefs about quality I want to disprove
  7. Defensible visual design
  8. Universal creative techniques
  9. Bold visual styles are hard to use
  10. A designer group interview
  11. What I’d put in an interface design museum
  12. A practical career approach for generalist designers
  13. Cynical advice for designers
  14. What defines a visual style
  15. Style choices that make visual design harder
  16. How to choose between design options
  17. When it’s safe to copy something
  18. Factors of good animation
  19. Interface quality of life improvements
  20. How I think about novelty
  21. Levels of complexity in website design
  22. How I think about quality
  23. Non-interface factors that affect interface design
  24. Uncommon but useful design terms
  25. A critique of the Linear website
  26. Short design books I recommend
  27. A list of every interaction design book
  28. How I define “interface design”
  29. How interfaces change with frequency of use
  30. Why designers don’t talk about interface design
  31. The website design hall of fame
  32. Evidence that designers don’t talk about visual design
  33. Others’ classification of software design
  34. Ways that software design is different
  35. My definitions of “beauty” and “taste”
  36. The four universal signals of quality
  37. Classical and expressive aesthetics
  38. Foundations of the visual design skillset
  39. Types of elements in visual design
  40. Visual design exercises
  41. The six layers of interaction design
  42. The five purposes of elements in visual design
  43. The ways software competes
  44. Things I learned about visual design
  45. Levels of visual design inspiration
  46. Quality is impossible at scale
  47. The twelve interaction design spectrums
  48. Where novel visual styles come from
  49. The benefits of software quality
  50. Tensions in interface design
  51. A critique of the Stripe website
  52. Factors of a good interface designer
  53. How to look impressive without impressive projects or jobs
  54. The seventeen spectrums that define software “type”
  55. The best WWDC videos about interface design
  56. Common problems with design career advice
  57. Signs that an organisation values interface design
  58. Types of pattern in design
  59. The building blocks of visual design
  60. The twelve types of contrast in visual design
  61. The six signals of quality in software
  62. A list of every visual design book
  63. The five purposes of visual design
  64. The thirteen visual design spectrums
  65. The eight purposes of colour in visual design
  66. All possible parts of the design interview process
  67. The five minute design curriculum
  68. My design principles
  69. What outsiders look for in a good designer
  70. The six layers of visual design

6 books

  1. How to improve your visual design
  2. What is good interaction and visual design?
  3. What is simple web design?
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  1. What is good craftspersonship?
  2. Come up with design ideas alone
  3. Design interesting one-column websites

3 case studies

  1. I designed ~everything in Superthread (2024)
  2. Here are some examples of my visual design practice
  3. I designed a collaboration feature for Beauhurst (2022)

9 appearances

  1. I was interviewed by Dive Club
  2. I reached the #1 spot on Hacker News
  3. I taught a class on interface design for Hyper Island
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  1. I wrote a guest post for the Learn UI Design blog
  2. I was featured in the UX Design Weekly newsletter
  3. I was featured in the HeyDesigner newsletter
  4. I was featured in the Design By Numbers newsletter
  5. I was interviewed on Design Discipline
  6. I did a Q&A with UX Talks

2 other interests

  1. I run Before I Play, a video game tip wiki
  2. I design solo tabletop games