Dive Club 🤿

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...

In this episode, Brian Lovin talks about his journey as a second-time founder and gives a behind-the-scenes of building his new startup, Campsite . He also shares key insights from hundreds of interviews he’s conducted to learn more about what makes a great design process. We talk about: - Strategies for sharing your work and getting feedback - Why Brian thinks we’ve gone too far with landing page...

In this Deep Dive, David Hoang gives us a peek into where he thinks the industry is headed and how product designers can prepare for the future. We talk about: What AI in Figma might look like How to create a more accessible web The rise of the design founder How dynamic interfaces impact design systems Why the title “software designer” is trending up 📈

In this episode, we analyze four different websites (Lemonade, Formcarry, Stella Domo + Runway) to help you confidently write and design landing pages that sell 💪 Listen to learn how to: Design a top-notch hero section Use layout techniques that make your design stand out Avoid the biggest animation and copywriting mistakes Showcase testimonials effectively + a lot more If you want to go even dee...

In this episode we get to go backstage with the design team at Loom! They teach us all about their design process and share takeaways from their recent AI launch including stories about: - Prototyping and researching early concepts - Collaborating with engineers and other cross-functional teams - Using Figjam to gather feedback live - Developing a visual language for AI - Documenting edge cases an...

This week's Deep Dive features early-career designer, Perry Wang. Previously at Google and now working at Discord. This Deep Dive is a masterclass for junior designers looking to jumpstart their career. We cover a lot👇

This episode of Deep Dives highlights the 5 things I learned from interviewing designers like Dan Mall, Grace Walker, Adrien Griveau, Yuan Wang, and Luis Ouriach. You'll learn: 1) How to organize variables in Figma and think strategically about primitives vs. semantic tokens 2) How to price yourself as a first-year freelance designer 3) How the best design systems teams operate 4) How to level up...

It’s impossible to overstate the impact that Linear has had on the design world. So you can imagine how excited I was to have the opportunity to learn from their founding designer, Adrien Griveau 🙌 This Deep Dive is an all-access pass to design at Linear including Adrien’s approach to collaborating with the engineering team, the traits that Linear looks for in design candidates and a behind-the-s...

🗣 This interview was special because I got to reconnect with former team member at Maven — Yuan ✌️ Yuan led design at Twitter, Airbnb and Maven and actively coaches creative leaders in the industry ✨ In this interview we talk energy through your career, how we organize our portfolio websites and strategies for presenting work to stakeholders.

Making the jump and diving into that first year of freelancing can be pretty daunting… 🥲 I wish I could’ve had this chat with Grace about 5 years ago because she was very transparent about the lessons she learned in that first year. In this Deep Dive, she breaks down her strategies for pricing, balancing project work, her tool stack, and a lot more...

If you’re familiar at all with design systems then I definitely don’t need to introduce you to Dan Mall. He’s as OG as it gets. In this Deep Dive, Dan shares his take on Figma variables, where design systems are headed in the coming years, and a lot more…

Anthony Hobday, a self-taught interface designer, became an expert by obsessively studying the works of top designers around the world. 🌎 Now he is dedicated to bridging the knowledge gap for fellow self-taught designers by sharing every step of his design process. In this episode, Anthony highlights simple yet effective techniques everyday designers can make to elevate their visual design skills...

This episode is all about engineer turned designer Grace Ling, who scored her dream job as product designer at EA and is also now the founder of the biggest design community online, Design Buddies. Grace jumpstarted her career by putting herself out there as a content creator and using some unique tactics when applying for roles. In this interview we talk about how Grace fast-tracked her learning...

If you're looking to level up how you use variables in Figma then this episode is for you ✌️ Luis goes deep into strategies based on team size, provides naming guidance, and even breaks down how he thinks about structuring libraries with variables in Figma. Lastly, Luis shares a behind-the-scenes of his journey as a designer advocate and even gives a unique prediction for how AI will take shape in...

Steph Golik was an early design leader at the self-driving car startup Cruise 🚗 But 2 years ago she left to launch her own company Huddle. In this episode we're talking all about how designers can take the leap to start that next project or even raise venture funding like Steph. If you're interested in entrepreneurship or even just want to get better at selling your ideas... you're going to love...

Fons was the one who originally designed the Dive brand 🤿 so this episode is a branding masterclass. We walk through a mock project and Fons goes deep into each phase of his branding process. We also discuss spatial computing, how to make you designs stand out, and strategies for leveling up your visuals 😎