Dennis Cortes
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Dennis Cortes
  • Work
  • Music
  • Photos
  • Writing
  • Shop
  • Recs
  • About
hi@cortes.us
GitHubXDribbbleYouTubeBuy Me A Coffee

Recs

Things I think are cool or useful, and want to share with other people.

AppsBlogs & ArticlesBooksMusicPodcastsResourcesVideos
AppsBlogs & ArticlesBooksMusicPodcastsResourcesVideos

/ Apps

  • apple.co
    GamePal app icon with a controller, a journal page, and a gradient peeking through under the journal page

    GamePal

    iOS

    Shameless self plug, but I think it's the best app to track your game collection and how you play your games. My friend Jeremy Swinnen and I made this app together!

  • macbartender.com
    Bartender

    Bartender

    Mac

    Bartender takes those 10+ icons that show in your top bar and hides them in a secondary bar you can toggle on/off easily

  • raycast.com
    Raycast

    Raycast

    All Platforms

    It's like Apple Spotlight, but so much more powerful

/ Blogs & Articles

  • asana.design

    Asana Design Blog

    by Asana

  • qualtrics.com

    User Experience (UX) Design Glossary

    by Barry Kehoe

  • brianlovin.com

    How to Give a Great Design Portfolio Presentation

    by Brian Lovin

  • brianlovin.com

    Becoming a Better Interviewer

    by Brian Lovin

/ Books

  • amzn.to
    The Artist's Way

    The Artist's Way

    A life-changing book about rediscovering your creativity for all ages and all creative levels. It says "spiritual", but it really isn't the point of the book at all.

  • amzn.to
    Nonviolent Communication

    Nonviolent Communication

    A book that helped me learn how to have difficult conversations and coming to healthy solutions

  • amzn.to
    Essentialism

    Essentialism

    A book about getting the right things done, rather than focused on getting things done quicker

  • Leadership and Self-Deception

    Covers a key to leadership of bringing your full self to work and genuinely caring about others

  • The Making of a Manager

    An incredible introduction to the world of management and how to approach the hard parts

  • Show Your Work

    Shows and inspires you to share work better and more consistently, no matter your level.

  • Powerful

    Netflix's Chief Talent Officer and her approach to building a culture of freedom and responsibility

  • The Lean Startup

    Great resource for learning methods for operating as a small startup and using resources wisely

  • The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design

    Covers the design process of IDEO, including their philosophy with a ton of real-world examples

  • The User Experience Team of One

    Provides tactics to help teams do more research with less. Great for smaller teams and first designers.

  • Steal Like an Artist

    Eye-opening book around how creative work is all recycled in one way or another

/ Music

  • Chaos Cubed by fingerspit

    Chaos Cubed by fingerspit

    Incredible music to focus with, from a Minecraft update of all things

  • Teebs Boiler Room Set

    Teebs Boiler Room Set

    Probably my favorite Boiler Room set ever, with one of my biggest inspirations for music (Teebs inspired me to start making the style of music I focus on today)

/ Podcasts

  • Ologies

    Interesting science podcast with harrowing, bizarre stories about what fuels professional -ologists' obsessions

  • Waveform

    A tech podcast for the gadget lovers and tech heads among us from the mind of YouTuber MKBHD

  • Layout

    A weekly podcast about design, technology, programming and everything else

  • Magical Overthinkers

    A great podcast if you're a constant overthinker like me. The episodes are evergreen, so you can pick and choose which episodes are most relevant to you.

  • Design Details

    My favorite design podcast, it's since ended but still useful and helped me a lot in my early career

  • MinnMax

    My absolute favorite gaming podcast, with some of my favorite people in gaming journalism

/ Resources

  • Universal Principles of Design

    Explains 125 foundational concepts of design that come together to make great design happen

  • Material Design

    Google's reference guide for designing applications for Material as well as how they approach design systems

  • Apple Human Interface Guidelines

    One of the foundational references for product designers in my opinion, contains Apple's guide to designing for their platforms

  • Articulating Design Decisions

    Helps designers communicate with stakeholders while balancing business and design priorities

  • Httpster

    A website I reference often when I am looking to see what cool new websites are out there for inspiration

  • A List Apart

    One of the leading blogs for learning about detailed topics relevant to tech practices and skillsets

  • Wallpaper

    Write-ups and blog posts about design, interiors, architecture, fashion, and art

  • Typewolf

    A typography reference, showcasing what is trending in type and how to use type well

  • Design Systems

    by Adam Morse

  • Mobbin

    A tool for referencing and making collections of current design patterns from the most successful products

  • Awwwards

    A website showcasing what's trending and creative in the web design world

/ Videos

  • Practical Typography Tips to Improve in Design

    In this video I go over some basic tips to improve typography in design. These tips are helpful for foundational typography usage in design from product design, web, graphic design, and more.

  • A Guide to Figma View Mode to Send to Clients, Developers, and Non Designers

    An overview of how to use View Mode within Figma. This is a great feature to be able to share with clients, product managers, developers, and more who need to see a file and not be able to edit.

  • How and Why to Use an 8pt Grid

    Using an 8pt grid in product design is probably the best tip I can give someone new to design or that doesn't use them yet

  • How to Export Assets, Images, and User Interfaces for Product Design in Figma

    In this Figma tutorial, I go over the basics of exporting your assets as PNG, SVG, and JPEG formats for icons, images, and user interface screens

  • Design's Impact and Creating for 2 Billion People

    Luke Woods discusses leading a team that designs for nearly 2 billion users, how he got to his position, and what role he thinks design plays in such a contentious political climate.

  • How to Mask Images, Shapes, and UI in Figma

    In this video I go over 3 examples of how to mask in Figma and some of their use cases in product design, graphic design, and more

  • The Leadership Skills Everyone Needs Now

    Some modern leadership advice from Julie Zhuo around management and AI

Links here may contain affiliate links, which support me as a creator through the projects and teaching mediums I work on. However, no one has paid me to put any of these on this list and I genuinely recommend all of these.

If you find this site useful, consider supporting me directly instead.

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Dennis Cortés

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