I’ve been on a similar journey, and I haven’t found any good resources.
Much of the low-density trend can be traced back to Tailwind. I love the library, but I do find it frustrating that pretty much all designers lean towards low-density by default.
The problem is that it only works well for casual/consumer applications. Once you start building for professional, productivity-driven products, you need density.
How did Tailwind contribute to the low-density trend? I use it a lot and don't really find myself forced to create "low-density" sites based on any decision by the library-makers.
I should’ve specified Tailwind UI. The book Refactoring UI explicitly says “use more whitespace than you think you need”, and that bit of advice is evident in all the components that Tailwind UI offers. They do look nice, but it’s become so heavily used that designers lean on it reflexively, rather than considering whether it makes sense in that context.
Much of the low-density trend can be traced back to Tailwind. I love the library, but I do find it frustrating that pretty much all designers lean towards low-density by default.
The problem is that it only works well for casual/consumer applications. Once you start building for professional, productivity-driven products, you need density.
One shining example I can think of is: https://usgraphics.com/