Design Resources | David Hoang

My design stack

Tools I use daily to make software.

Paper
Connected canvas for design, agents, and code—HTML/CSS-native handoff without losing intent.
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Excalidraw
Hand-drawn diagrams and whiteboards—fast sketching for flows, maps, and thinking in the open.
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Cursor
The AI-native editor I use for day-to-day shipping: context-aware refactors and fast iteration.
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Claude Code
Agentic coding in the terminal—repo-wide context, edits, and runs with clear permission boundaries.
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Replit
Spin up ideas in the cloud when I need a full environment without local ceremony.
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Ghostly
OpenTelemetry-first observability—maps, context, and signal when systems get real.
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Obsidian
Local markdown graph for notes, writing, and long-running thinking—my second brain.
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Additional resources

Books and typography — go-to references I use and recommend.

Favorite books

The Humane Interface Jef Raskin on designing interactions that fit human cognition and eliminate unnecessary complexity. Thinking in Systems Donella Meadows on understanding complex systems — applicable well beyond design. Creative Selection Ken Kocienda's inside look at Apple's design process and demo culture. Grid Systems in Graphic Design Josef Müller-Brockmann's foundational work on typographic grids.

Typography

Dinamo Typefaces Independent foundry behind ABC Diatype, the typeface used on this site. Google Fonts Free, open-source fonts. Great for prototyping and web projects. Future Fonts Work-in-progress typefaces from independent designers. Support them early. Typewolf Typography inspiration and font recommendations from real sites.