📰 Dezeen — How design designs itself
A magazine that became a mirror and a mold
🧠UX Interpretation: Curation as product
Dezeen does not just report design. It sets a stage where images, headlines, and tags decide what counts as “now.” The feed is a product with its own mechanics: what rises, what repeats, what becomes a style because it appears together. Readers learn a taste grammar without noticing. Studios learn what to submit.
That is meta-design. The interface edits the field. A layout, a crop, and a caption tilt the story before a word is read.
🎯 Theme: Gateways
Every gateway teaches a rule. On Dezeen the rule is pace, clarity, and an image that works at thumbnail size. Projects succeed when they can be read in one glance, then survive the second look. The gateway rewards certain formats, so the field shifts toward them.
Any product with an editorial surface has this power. Decide the rules on purpose, not by accident.
đź’ˇ UX Takeaways
- Design your “front page” like a product: what do you reward, and why.
- Make selection criteria public: format, minimum detail, and crediting.
- Favour second-look depth: one image to hook, one diagram to explain.
- Break the algorithm on schedule: feature outliers weekly to avoid monoculture.
- Add a builder’s note to each post: materials, costs, and constraints in 50 words.
đź“Ž Footnote
Online design media turned curation into an engine for taste. Dezeen’s cadence, newsletter flow, and awards pipeline show how a publication becomes infrastructure: a place where studios pitch, readers learn, and trends congeal. If the interface is the editor, then the editor’s job is to make the interface honest.