I'm often asked, 'what projects and companies do you see pushing the industry forward?' This past week I set myself to the challenge of finding works released approximately in the past year which could be considered to have user interface art.

It ended up being somewhat difficult to find interface art with depth given that most designers have abandoned static UI art in favor of ephemeral animation, or eschewed using any art altogether. After all, as they will tell you, 'design isn't art!' That said, here are some exemplary designs from the community.

Only two years ago, we witnessed the LogoGate scandal, when it was noticed how strikingly similar the Squarespace and Mutual Mobile logos were. During LogoGate, the first recommended step to avoid such confusion was to "use real designers." Frankly, the two logos covered during LogoGate were not the half of it.

The iOS Music icon again evolves—or devolves? Originally the iPhone music app was called iPod, but that soon went out of fashion and Apple opted for the title "Music," which remains today. The most impressive shift of course was between iOS 7 and iOS 8 in which Apple designers went to the trouble of reversing the gradient.

The media is abuzz with news of Taylor Swift's adulatory plea to Apple supposedly succeeding in bringing the giant to its knees. The story is best recounted by Nilay Patel of The Verge:

Apple Music pays higher royalties than competitors like Spotify because there's no free option; you have to pay $9.99 a month to use it. But to entice consumers into signing up, Apple's offering a three-month free trial, and artists like Swift weren't going to see any money during those three months…Swift posted an open letter to her Tumblr saying she would withhold her album…17 hours later Apple's Eddy Cue apologized on Twitter and completely backtracked…Applause and retweets all around.

This year was my first being in San Francisco during WWDC week. There is never enough time to do everything on a trip like this, but this week was jam packed with WWDC itself, AltConf, Layers Conference and San Francisco Design Week, among other things. Nonetheless, I had some great conversations with a lot of people in the community—designers, developers, readers of the blog, old friends and more.

Art and design are somewhat incestuous, with practitioners remixing their peers and paying homage to their forefathers and the world around them through pastiche. Some of the time, it is hard to tell what may have influenced an aesthetic decision. Other times it is plainly obvious. Perhaps the designer latched on to a trend, or they may have overtly aped their competitor's aesthetic to try to secure the same brand recognition that had been built up. Often, it can simply be tough to create something that has an air of uniqueness, something seemingly new. In this roundup, I examine some striking similarities in modern design.

Over the past several weeks, more than a few readers have shared with me what might be considered counter-criticism. In the interest of encouraging an open and spirited debate, readers might find it useful to engage with the range of counter-criticism that has been published, specifically around my recently completed multi-part series, Fall of the Designer. This will be similar in nature to my last roundup following the completion of the Critical Sharks Series.

The following is a roundup of critical feedback with relevant excerpts. I leave it to you, the reader, to be the judge.

For the past few years, we have seen a significant portion of our data storage move to the cloud. When it comes to physical hard drives, spinning disk hard drives are rapidly being replaced by flash storage. Some would assert that storage icons have not aged particularly well given the circumstances.

Nevertheless, ever since the original OS X hard drive icons were designed, this category of icons has been a touchstone for icon design practitioners. Whether designing a custom application icon, a commercial disk image or making a custom icon to distinguish one's personal drives, hard drive icons have been a prime area for designers to display their skill in both technical execution and creativity.

Following the publication of the Fall of the Designer series, I was invited to the On the Grid podcast to discuss the origins of flat design in 20th century modernism as well as the practice of visual design today and its role moving forward. We covered a lot in this recording, take a listen.

Over the past few years, the design industry has seen an uptick in agencies getting acquired by product companies. Firms like Adaptive Path, Smart Design, Hotstudio, Sofa and Teehan+Lax are either rapidly being snapped up or involuntarily closing their doors. Peter Merholz, formerly of Adaptive Path and current VP of Global Design for Groupon, explains why agencies are readily taking the buyout offers...