The
Press.
An anti-design quarterlyIss. 04 / 2026
Cover · Essay
Soft is over.
Hard is what's next.
A decade of rounded corners, milky gradients, and 3D pastel illustrations gave us interfaces with no edges to grab. Everything was polite. Nothing left a fingerprint.
The pendulum has swung. Designers are reaching for thick borders, flat black, and monospace bodies. It looks like the late 90s, but the point isn't nostalgia. The point is information density.
By M. Patel · 8 min read →
↓ Inside: the design grids of the new web. A walkthrough of six interfaces that refuse to be friendly.
Typography
Why everyone is using mono.
Geist Mono, JetBrains, IBM Plex Mono — once the territory of code editors, now the body font of marketing pages. We asked four type designers what changed.
L. Müller · read →
Tools
The new asset pipeline.
Figma plugins are out. CLI-first design systems, code-driven tokens, and Tailwind v4 are how the fastest teams actually ship. A field report.
D. Ortega · read →
Critique
Anti-design, post-irony.
Is brutalism a real design language, or just a way for tired designers to look fresh? Three interfaces and one verdict per piece.
T. Wexler · read →
Index · 2026 trends ranked
| # | Movement | Half-life | Verdict |
|---|
| 01 | Bento grids | Healthy | Keep |
| 02 | AI command bars | Hot | Keep |
| 03 | Spatial / glass | Returning | Maybe |
| 04 | Brutalism | Resurgent | Yes |
| 05 | Claymorphism | Niche | Selective |
| 06 | Kinetic typography | Hot | Keep |
| 07 | Glow-in-the-dark CTAs | Overused | Cut |
Last call
Get the next issue in print.
← all demosEnd of issue · pp. 12