More design. More newsletter.

Welcome to November. It was a slow week for design - we can all blame Apple for hogging the news cycle with the adorable Mac Mini and new MacBook Pros. (We’re going to give one away soon)

Things were not slow here at This Week in Design, however. We’ve acquired another beloved design newsletter. We’ll make an official announcement next week — big upgrades are coming. I’m keeping my promise and working to make design news great.

Stay tuned.

-Hunter

Top Stories in Design

Arc is having a $550 million midlife crisis.

The Browser Company has decided every designer’s favorite browser, Arc, is just a little too complex for ordinary folk. They’re setting out to design a “simpler” browser. But they’re not abandoning those of us loyal to Arc. At least not yet…

I love Arc, and they’ll have to pry the “Tidy” feature from my cold, dead hands, but maybe it is too complex. Unless you’re a power user, most of Arc’s features can be a little too cumbersome to take advantage of.

For a product that’s received so much praise for its design, it is difficult to understand where things went awry. If they did at all… Is this a decision driven by design and date, our by investors pushing for a more mass-market product for their $128,000,000 investment?

Regardless of why they’ve chosen to build an entirely new browser (again), it remains a bold choice. Most of us would have opted for a design roadmap that simplifies the beloved browser we’ve already created. I’m excited to see what they do next.

Webflow wants to save you from GA4 — for a price.

I’m convinced that Webflow and Figma are conspiring to milk designers for every dollar possible. They have to be, right?

Webflow Analytics, er, Analyze, looks like a great alternative to GA4 (RIP OG Google Analytics), but it will cost you. Pricing is variable based on your monthly sessions. Sites doing north of 25k sessions per month, for example, will pay an additional $69/mo (👀) for Analyze.

Ask yourself this: how much are you willing to pay to find out how much people are playing with those extra interactions you just had to add?

Pro tip: If you bank with Mercury or incorporate using Stripe Atlas, you can get Mixpanel free for one year.

Inspiration From the Week

Framer wants to give away $100,000

Up-and-Coming Designers

Until next week…

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this edition and would consider forwarding it to a friend.

If you hated it, reply and let us know what we could do differently.

Same time next week ✌️