Greetings,

What a year! As we bid farewell to 2019 (and the decade, for that matter) we’re awash in memories and milestones. A big one for us is always SPAN: This October, we held our annual design conference in Brooklyn. This year’s event was a homecoming of sorts for our New York-based team, but as always our speakers—native New Yorkers and visitors alike—were what made the day. We’re still chewing on the ideas shared: utopian manifestos for the internet, the subversion of cuteness, networks of accessibility, and what it means to grow up online.

Of course, the rest of the year deserves some reflection as well. We’ve done plenty of that with our third-annual “Best of Google Design.” Take some time to poke around, get inspired, and then keep scrolling for news from our friends at Material Design and Google Hardware, plus some UX and social media updates of our own.

See you next year,
—The Editors

The best and brightest

‘Tis the season for best-of lists, and we always look forward to making our own. For Google Design’s Best of 2019, we took a look around to see what our colleagues worked on this year. Who built a delightful, useful new app? Who spearheaded a smart redesign? Turns out, lots of teams at Google spent the year finding ways to make our lives better, in ways both big and small. We combed through sweeping new guidance for making the internet a healthier place, played with new communication apps, and marveled at how technology makes great art accessible, almost anywhere.

“At YouTube, we use visioning to explore uncharted terrain.” Learn how to think big with a case study by Design Manager Kevin Dame.

We’re on Instagram! Find new fonts, inventive illustrations, behind-the-scenes work, and more @googledesign 📷✨

5 things to love right now

Before you go