Dive Club 🤿

Over the last few months, design engineering has by far been the #1 most requested topic. So I wanted to get the inside scoop from the team at Vercel to learn more. In this episode we get to hear from: 1. Glenn Hitchcock - https://twitter.com/glennui (Director of design engineering) 2. John Pham - https://twitter.com/JohnPhamous (Lead design engineer) The goal of this conversation is to help peopl...

Since the beginning of my design career, I’ve looked up to Metalab. So this interview is a special one because we get to learn from their Head of Design, Michael Wandelmeier. We go deep into how design works at Metalab and talk about specific strategies around: - Mike’s go-to storytelling tactics - The importance of opinionated design - When they ignore constraints on a project - The unique way th...

One of the tools I'm most interested in right now is Relume. 200k+ people are using it to design and build websites faster with AI. They have a massive set of Figma/Webflow components which allows them to take a unique approach that “respects the process” of web design. In this bonus episode, their co-founder Adam gives us an end-to-end demo where he sitemaps, wireframes, designs, and builds a ful...

Rich Arnold was the Head of Design at Vine, a design lead on the early Instagram Stories team, and now he works as a design manager at Coinbase. So this episode goes deep into: - How Rich grew as a storyteller at IG - Why we cant let data be the designer - The importance of “zooming out” in your work - How to grow your creative problem solving muscles - What it takes to design successful consumer...

If you’ve dabbled in design systems then you’re no doubt familiar with Brad Frost and atomic design. He’s laid the foundation for design systems teams around the world. So in this discussion we talk about the types of challenges he faces at Big Medium and how he’s envisioning the future of design systems: Why we should build a universal design system How Brad is using AI to elevate design systems...

One of the most requested guests has been Gabe Valdivia. He was an early designer at Facebook, a designer manager at Google, and has led design for different startups over the years most recently as the head of design for Patreon. But in the last year he's made the jump to start his own practice and position himself as a fractional design partner for early stage teams. So a lot of this conversatio...

As soon as I read No More Boring Apps I was hooked. Andy Allen immediately became one of my design heroes and now I use his Not Boring apps daily. So this conversation is a behind-the-scenes of his journey, an analysis of the state of software design, and a glimpse of where we’re headed next as an industry. Some highlights: - The design tools Andy is most excited about - Andy’s advice for people w...

In this episode we get to hear from Jenny Wen who is the person who originally designed and brought Figjam to market. This conversation is full of inslights like: How Jenny attacks ambiguity early in the design process What we can learn from Figjam’s product strategy Jenny’s framework for adding delight to a product How to create visuals that stand out in a sea of confetti animations Strategies fo...

This episode expands on 8 key insights that I took away from interviewing designers like Soleio, Kevin Twohy, Molly Hellmuth, Soren Iverson, etc. 1. A unique way to stand out as a design candidate 2. How to grow as a vision caster 3. The question every freelancer should ask clients 4. The curse of knowledge in web design 5. When systems thinking is most important 6. Strategies for Figma variables...

Soleio made a name for himself as the 2nd design hire at Facebook and eventually went on to lead design at Dropbox. Now he invests in extraordinary software startups like Figma, Framer, Vercel, Perplexity, Replit, Universe, tldraw, and dozens more worldwide. So in this discussion we go deep into: - The fascinating story behind project Motion - How Soleio’s skillset evolved during his time at Faceb...

Galileo recently broke design twitter with the launch of their new generative AI tool for builders. So in this episode we talk with their co-founder and lead designer, Helen Zhou about: - Her journey as a design founder - Why user research for AI tooling is unique - How AI will change the day-to-day role of a designer - Her response to concerns about LLMs and creativity - The potential breakthroug...

Webflow has had as big an impact on design as any company over the last decade. So this episode is an inside look at their design culture, rituals, and key insights from their Head of Design, Kevin Wong. Here’s a preview of some of the ideas we cover: - How Webflow executed a massive rebrand leading up to their conference - The different types of prototypes for driving alignment - The role of desi...

In this episode we get to hear from Ryo Lu who was one of the very first designers at Notion. This conversation is an inside look at the Notion design process, how they think about product, and a lot more: - How Notion approached the user research process for AI - Strategies for improving your systems thinking - How design at Notion sources feedback on meaty problems - How Notion thinks about thei...

In this episode we’re talking with Molly Hellmuth who is the creator of UI Prep where she has an incredible newsletter, design system, and course where she’s taught hundreds of designers all over the world. This discussion gets into the nerdier side of Figma 🤓 We talk all about: - When it does and doesn’t make sense to adopt variables - How to make sure you don’t invest in a Figma strategy that y...

There’s a new design super team emerging at Clerk and in this episode we get a behind-the-scenes from the leader, Derek Briggs. We get into the weeds about: - How Derek assembled an A-list team from scratch - Why Derek pushed for a dedicated UI engineering team - How Clerk is approaching their massive redesign - Why Derek doesn’t believe in design deadlines - The business case for prioritizing qua...

In this episode we get to learn from Tommy Geoco who has launched countless projects, sold a startup, and built an audience of almost a million designers online. This conversation has everything—here’s a little taste of what you can expect: - The wild story behind Tommy selling his first company - Why design tools matter more than ever - How to become better at selling yourself - Tons of strategie...

This episode looks at Kevin Twohy’s 10+ year journey going from solo freelancer to independent design studio. We cover a LOT including: - Strategies for cold outreach and pricing - Tips for getting aligned quickly with clients - How Kevin gets plugged into a new team - Why Kevin has started positioning himself as a studio - A better way to take equity in client projects - Why you should be wary of...

Lauren LoPrete shares lessons from her experience leading design systems at Dropbox and now at Cash App. We talk about: - What design systems actually look like at scale - Why she’s approaching documentation differently at Cash - Her experience in the Figma variables beta - Why Lauren is so excited about string variables - Traits of successful DS designers that we don’t talk about enough - + a lot...

Kate Syuma was the 3rd designer at Miro and went on to become the Head of Growth Design during her 6+ years at the company. This episode is a masterclass in designing for business impact. We discuss: - Her process for identifying the aha moment in your product - How Kate overcame imposter syndrome in her first year - Ways designers can ask better data questions - Insights from researching onboardi...

If you’ve opened Twitter in the last year then you’re definitely familiar with Soren Iverson’s satirical designs like Uber Hotbox and the iMessage typing indicator . So in this episode we get an inside look at his process and lessons he’s learned throughout his career: How he overcomes creative blocks Strategies for being consistent What it was like collaborating with Duolingo How to jumpstart you...

In this episode, Kathryn Gonzalez walks us through how she built the DoorDash design language as the first designer and frontend engineer. We talk about what it's like designing for a 3-sided marketplace, how to figure out the right level of craft for your product, and get an inside look at how DoorDash structures their design system. Kathryn spent almost 7 years at DoorDash and eventually became...

This Deep Dive is a special one because we get to hear from Niko Klein and Garrett Miller from the prototyping team at Figma. We get a behind-the-scenes look at everything that led up to the advanced prototyping release at Config 2023 as well as: How Niko collaborates with engineering The prototyping feature they didn’t think they would release How they balanced power and simplicity while designin...

In 2022, Marco Cornacchia was coming off of a failed startup and started working on his new portfolio . Little did he know this project would land him a role as the founding designer at Diagram, lay the foundation for design Twitter’s most viral website, and spawn a talk at Webflow’s conference 🤯 In this episode, Marco shares how he (accidentally) created a new trend of animated bento grids. And...

This episode is a panel discussion hosted by Maven where we talk about specific strategies that you can use to become more valuable as an individual contributor on your team. We cover a lot of ground including: Becoming a conduit for ideas Traits of the best ICs Framing your ideas successfully The fastest ways to grow as a designer Receiving feedback more effectively Moving up the value chain of i...

In this deep Dive, James gives us a behind-the-scenes of his creative process and how he is reimagining every pixel of the Clerk brand. We get into the weeds of how he establishes visual languages, his approach to animation, and what he looks for in a motif. We also discuss which design trends are worth jumping on, which ones have peaked, and which ones to avoid. If you're into branding, visual de...