Dive Club 🤿

I’ve followed Mike Smith ever since he designed the Perplexity brand identity and quickly realized he’s one of the most creative designers I’ve ever seen. Turns out his wife Chara is a positioning mastermind too so it makes sense why Smith & Diction is one of the hottest agencies in the game today. So this week’s episode is a deep dive into brand strategy and what it takes to stand out in 2025...

Being able to think like an engineer helps you collaborate with developers more effectively, design UIs that make sense, and empowers you to build your ideas with AI tools like v0, Claude, etc. So this video is going to break down a few traits of designers who I believe are already doing this at a high level. It includes insights from: Mariana Castilho (designer at Vercel/Pierre) Julius Tarng (pre...

We've heard a lot on this show about designers becoming builders using tools like v0 and today we get to do a deep dive with Pranathi Peri who is leading the design of v0 at Vercel. We discuss: Growing your taste and intuition quickly How Pran thinks about the design language of v0 Pran’s personal experiments using 3D and physics Why Pran wants to bring “onboarding roulette” to v0 How Pran showed...

Craft is so much more than a shimmering landing page or micro animation… It’s sweating all of the tiny details and having a thorough understanding of the edge cases in your product. But there’s one detail most designers miss… 👀 So this episode highlights one of my favorite ideas ever shared on the show from Raphael Schaad (founder of Cron and now the Head of Calendar at Notion). It’s a fantastic...

This week's episode is with Sam Peitz who quickly became one of my favorite designers to follow in 2024. He regularly shares experiments like TextOS , his scribble running app , and assorted letter prototypes . So this conversation is a deep dive into his creative process and how he’s redefined his career path over the past ~10 months. We go deep into: Sam’s go-to source of design inspiration The...

Designers have become servants of “the process” so this episode features stories of people who are breaking the mold in the way they explore and prototype ideas. It includes insights from: Gabe Valdivia (Fractional design leader): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/gabe-valdivia Dennis Muller (Designer + founder of Amie): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/dennis-muller Gavin Nelson (Designing Linear...

Did you know that the very first interface designer at Adobe was also the first designer to work on Figma? 🤯 His name is Andrei Herasimchuk and he knows a lot about design tooling… So this week’s episode is jam-packed with stories about designing the earliest interfaces for Illustrator and Photoshop, as well as what it was like seeing the original seed of an idea that became Figma. Not only that…...

Many of my favorite episodes are when we get to hear from the earliest designers at companies like Linear, Perplexity, Ramp, Facebook, etc. So this episode pulls out the key insights so you can learn what it takes to thrive as a startup designer: Nate Parrott (Founding designer of Arc): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/nate-parrott Adrien Griveau (Founding designer of Linear): https://www.dive.clu...

Imagine joining an early stage startup as the first senior designer and within a few years, it becomes the fastest growing company ever . Well… that's the story of Diego Zaks who is now the VP of design at Ramp . This week’s episode is all about how they were able to win with design and what makes their culture so special. We go deep into: Why velocity is the key to quality The impact of “truth se...

Imagine you’re asked to lead the design of a new project. It’s complex, open-ended, and full of interconnected problems… How do you attack that ambiguity and get momentum quickly? This episode is an attempt to answer that question by unpacking tactics used by designers like: Jenny Wen (Original designer of Figjam): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/jenny-wen Michael Wandelmaier (Former head of desi...

2024 was the year the Perplexity brand took over the design community. And a big reason why is because of Phi Hoang . So this week’s episode is a deep dive into brand experience design and creativity with AI tools. We get an inside look at: Phi’s creative process with Midjourney Why Perplexity thinks of the brand in “seasons” Phi’s tool stack for creating marketing videos with AI Behind-the-scenes...

It doesn’t matter how good your designs are if they never get built. So this episode breaks down specific tactics you can use to become a better storyteller and get people excited to build your ideas. Michael Wandelmaier (former Head of Design at Metalab): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/michael-wandelmaier Gavin Nelson (designing the Linear mobile app): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/gavin-nel...

A little over a year ago, Joey Banks and I were DM’ing each other in Slack about leaving our W-2 jobs and going independent. So this week’s episode is a reflection on his journey working for himself and it’s as human and relatable as any conversation I’ve ever had on this show. We go deep into: Managing your pipeline of clients Creating a personal knowledge system in Notion Finding companionship a...

The pendulum has swung too far with design systems. Somehow they’ve become synonymous with scale. But I believe they’re the perfect first step for startups. So this episode looks at stories from Perplexity and Cron to reframe design systems as the key to speed in the early days. Henry Modisett (Head of Design at Perplexity): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/henry-modisett Raphael Schaad (founder o...

After writing a viral article called “ The Missing Tool ” I was fortunate to meet Gab and Nim who are the co-founders of a startup called Dessn . Dessn is a new way to ship design changes without having to write code. Their extension overlays a Figma-like interface on your live web app so designers can easily make changes. Their AI then writes the code and pushes it to your Github. That means desi...

Over the last few months, I’ve interviewed the people designing cutting edge AI products like Perplexity, Claude, Dot, Humane, Visual Electric, and more… During that time I’ve created a running list of all the metaphors and mental models they’ve used to explain what it’s like. So this episode breaks down 7 mental models for designing AI products. Maggie Appleton (Design engineer at Normally): http...

One of the most impressive things I’ve seen a designer make all year is Meng To’s Dreamcut . It’s the perfect example of what it looks like to transition from traditional designer to builder 💪 So if you’re interested in becoming a designer who ships then this is the episode for you. Meng gives a highly practical breakdown of what it looks like to go from 0 to 50,000+ lines of code as a designer....

Airbnb is making 3 big design investments to bring soul back to the app. So this episode pulls from interviews with their VP of Design, Teo Connor, and prototyping specialist Janum Trivedi. Learn why Airbnb is investing in 3D, motion design, and leaders who still have their hands in the clay. Teo Connor (VP of Design at Airbnb): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/air-bnb Alex Schleifer (former Chief...

As soon as I finished our original interview , I knew I had to have Soleio on as the first repeat guest. He led early design efforts at Facebook and Dropbox. Now he invests in design-driven startups like Figma, Framer, Vercel, etc. So this week’s episode is all about how designers and startups can succeed in a world where everything is changing. We go deep into: Ideal traits for a founding designe...

This week’s episode is with Joel Lewenstein who is the Head of Product Design at Anthropic where he works on cutting edge AI products like Claude . After 80+ episodes, I can honestly say this one’s “juice per minute” score is off the charts. Some of my favorite highlights: How the team prototyped Claude Artifacts New mental models for designing AI products The way designers shape strategy at Anthr...

Airbnb is one of the truly iconic design-driven companies. They set the bar for design innovation in so many ways. So this week’s episode is a deep dive with their VP of Design, Teo Connor. She gives us a behind-the-scenes look at how design operates at Airbnb including: How Airbnb is bringing vitality to the visual language How Airbnb is empowering designers to be designers How to succeed in a de...

Imagine your first traditional “product design” job is designing the Snapchat messaging UX for millions of people across the globe… Well that’s what Dan Moreno ’s journey looked like as an engineer turned designer. So this week’s episode is a deep dive into his 5+ years designing Snapchat as well as his new role at a rocket ship startup called Captions . Some highlights: Dan’s formula for presenti...

I remember the exact moment where I first explored MercuryOS . It was clear Jason Yuan was one of the most skilled design thinkers I'd ever encountered. No wonder he landed a role designing AI products at Apple shortly after. But the main reason I wanted to interview him was to learn more about his new product called Dot . It's by far my favorite personal AI and a beautifully designed experience....

Mariana Castilho has one of the most impressive career trajectories of any designer I’ve ever met. I first saw her while mentoring through Shift Nudge and within a few years she’s landed roles at Universe, Vercel, and most recently as the first designer at Pierre . One of the keys to her growth has been investing in her skills as an engineer. So a big part of this interview is learning what it tak...

This week’s episode is with Janum Trivedi who makes some of the most stunning prototypes in all of design. So the main goal of this conversation is to answer the question “what makes a piece of software feel great?” Some of the key talking points: The 3 levels of animation Shipping a major refresh of the Netflix iOS app Why shaders are a big deal (and how they work) How Janum built the download an...