When comes to brand design, Mike and Cara from Smith & Diction are pretty much top of the game (you might recognize them as the ones who did the brand identity for Perplexity). During our interview, it didn't take me long to realize that these two have more hacks and mental models for creativity than just about anyone Iāve met. So here are a few of my favorites. Watch the full episode with Smith & Diction here: https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/smith-diction...
Feb 25, 2025ā¢7 min
If you asked me āwho has the best taste in design right now?ā one of the first people Iād mention is Thiago Costa. His product Fey is in the S-tier of design and Iāve studied his visual techniques for many years. Finally, after over a 12 months of pestering he agreed to share his secrets in a interview š We go deep into: Mastering the finer details of craft Putting AI at the heart of the new Fey 2.0 Where Thiago draws inspiration outside of UI What it looks like to have a āheightened awarenessā...
Feb 21, 2025ā¢58 minā¢Ep. 95
Today we get to hear from Ammaar Reshi who is the Head of Design at ElevenLabs āthe AI audio platform that has come up multiple times in past episodes. So a big focus of this conversation is learning what it's like designing an AI-native product. We go deep into topics like: The backstory of Ammaarās viral AI experiments Predictions for the future of voice as an interface What itās like collaborating with an research team How heās designing novel interaction patterns for AI What Ammaar looks for...
Feb 14, 2025ā¢54 minā¢Ep. 94
How do designers from todayās top teams collaborate with engineers? After many interviews I'm starting to notice a trendā¦ The highest functioning product teams throw away a lot of code and itās a good model for what the new āhandoffā process will look like. So this video highlights how it works at teams like Figma, Vercel, Perplexity, Airbnb, and more. Jenny Wen (OG designer of Figjam now at Anthropic) Teo Connor (VP of Design at Airbnb) John Pham (former design engineer at Vercel) Vincent van d...
Feb 11, 2025ā¢11 min
This week's episode is with Chris Abad who has led design teams at companies like Google, Square and Dropbox so needless to say he's given a lot of design presentations over his 20+ year career. So this conversation is a deep dive into storytelling and everything you can do as a designer to effectively share your vision and persuade stakeholders. He shares every step of his process including a ton of practical tactics like: Strategies for designing a great deck How to set up Q&A for success ...
Feb 07, 2025ā¢50 minā¢Ep. 93
Systems thinking is often mentioned as the #1 trait teams are looking for in designers. But what does it look like to be great at it? This episode answers that question by highlighting stories from Notion, Anthropic, and more š
Feb 04, 2025ā¢10 min
This week's episode is with Anthony Menecola who is a longtime staff product designer at Shopify so weāre going to do a deep dive into ways you can make a bigger impact at your company as an IC. One of the big themes of this episode is Anthonyās journey becoming more technical and contributing to the Shopify code base so if youāre interested in building your ideas I think youāll get a lot out of this one. We also talk about: The archetypes of staff designers at Shopify What it takes to create an...
Jan 31, 2025ā¢44 minā¢Ep. 92
When I say high stakes design project, what comes to mind? How about Ryan Scott redesigning the Airbnb checkout flow right before a $3.5 billion IPO? Now THAT is a big time projectā¦ So this episode is all about tactics you can use to make big ideas happen at your company (even as an IC). And if you want to go even deeper you can use these links to get $100 off Ryan Scottās top rated Maven courses š 1ļøā£ Describing the ROI of Design ( https://join.dive.club/ryan-scott-roi-course ) 2ļøā£ PM Mastercl...
Jan 28, 2025ā¢11 min
What does it take to create a product worthy of winning Mac app of the year? I interviewed the founder of Craft Docs, Balint Orosz, to find outā¦ So this episode is a deep dive into how they work and what it takes to achieve this level of design excellence, including: What Balint looks for in systems thinkers Craftās plan to differentiate with personalization What it looks like for designers to take ownership How designers experiment with LLMs and shaders Behind-the-scenes of their viral āquick a...
Jan 24, 2025ā¢53 minā¢Ep. 91
Iāve interviewed a lot of staff designers to figure out what it takes to have real influence at companies like Shopify, Github, Airbnb, etc. One thing is clearā¦ if you want to make strategic impact as a designer then you have to get to a place of altitude that allows you to see the bigger picture. This episode is designed to help you do just that. Catt Small (Staff Product Designer at Dropbox) Mia Blume (Early design leader at Square, Pinterest + more) Soren Iverson (Founder of Iverson) Kathy Zh...
Jan 21, 2025ā¢10 min
How do the best staff designers influence and lead as individual contributors? I interviewed Catt Small to answer that question and it turned into one of the most practical episodes yet. She pulls from her 14+ years of experience designing products like Etsy, Asana, and Soundcloud to share techniques you can use to level up your influence and scale your impact as an IC. Some highlights: Ways to get out of the execution trap The key to having āexecutive presenceā Cattās advice for better time man...
Jan 17, 2025ā¢52 minā¢Ep. 90
What are the best teams looking for in design candidates? Thatās become one of my favorite questions to ask so this episode shines a light on some of those traits and what you can do to stand out. It includes insights from: Diego Zaks (VP of Design at Ramp) Soleio (2nd designer at Facebook) Pranathi Peri (designing v0 at Vercel) Maheen Sohail (Gen AI at Meta) Mariana Castilho (Designer at Poolside)...
Jan 14, 2025ā¢12 min
This weekās episode is with Tyler Angert who was the first design hire at Replit . So we get a behind-the-scenes look at what itās like designing for a hyper growth startup. However in early 2024, Tyler left to pursue a startup of his own, so a good chunk of this discussion focuses on his vision for Patina and the future of āspontaneous softwareā. Some highlights: Why the camera roll is pivotal for AI Tylerās advice to his 23 year old self Tactics for learning to code with Claude What it takes t...
Jan 08, 2025ā¢49 minā¢Ep. 89
Iām designing a new product and a few months ago I wouldāve confidently said itās not an AI product. But I was wrong. This new technology creates endless opportunitiesā¦ we just have to be able to see what AI makes possible. And thatās what this episode is all about. Maggie Appleton (former design lead at Elicit) Joel Lewenstein (head of product design at Anthropic) George Kedenburg III (designer at Humane) Michael Wandelmaier (designer at Dropbox)...
Jan 06, 2025ā¢9 min
Iāve followed Mike Smith ever since he designed the Perplexity brand identity and quickly realized heās one of the most creative designers Iāve 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 weekās episode is a deep dive into brand strategy and what it takes to stand out in 2025 and beyond. We get into: What it takes to stand out in an AI world Their hacks for cracking a brand...
Jan 03, 2025ā¢57 minā¢Ep. 87
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 (prev engineering at Linear) Meng To (Founder of Design+Code)...
Dec 30, 2024ā¢11 min
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 Pranās personal experiments using 3D and physics Why Pran wants to bring āonboarding rouletteā to v0 How Pran showed potential without having extensive experience What itās like collaborating with engineers like ShadC...
Dec 27, 2024ā¢53 minā¢Ep. 86
Craft is so much more than a shimmering landing page or micro animationā¦ Itās sweating all of the tiny details and having a thorough understanding of the edge cases in your product. But thereās one detail most designers missā¦ š 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). Itās a fantastic example of what it looks like to obsess over the craft of your product You can find his full episode...
Dec 23, 2024ā¢6 min
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 heās redefined his career path over the past ~10 months. We go deep into: Samās go-to source of design inspiration The power of setting the right constraints What Sam has learned about building with v0 How to think crea...
Dec 18, 2024ā¢49 minā¢Ep. 85
Designers have become servants of āthe processā 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 mobile app): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/gavin-nelson Nikolas Klein (Designing Prototyping at F...
Dec 16, 2024ā¢11 min
Did you know that the very first interface designer at Adobe was also the first designer to work on Figma? š¤Æ His name is Andrei Herasimchuk and he knows a lot about design toolingā¦ So this weekās 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 thatā¦ Andrei gives us a behind-the-scenes of his new design tooling startup and shares his vision for whe...
Dec 11, 2024ā¢50 minā¢Ep. 84
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.club/deep-dives/adrien-griveau Soleio (2nd designer at Facebook): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/sole...
Dec 09, 2024ā¢10 min
Imagine joining an early stage startup as the first senior designer and within a few years, it becomes the fastest growing company ever . Wellā¦ that's the story of Diego Zaks who is now the VP of design at Ramp . This weekās 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 ātruth seeking podsā How Diego creates a culture of collaboration What it takes to be a great founding design...
Dec 04, 2024ā¢51 minā¢Ep. 83
Imagine youāre asked to lead the design of a new project. Itās complex, open-ended, and full of interconnected problemsā¦ 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 design at Metalab): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/michael-wandelmaier Alex Cornell (Director of Desig...
Dec 02, 2024ā¢11 min
2024 was the year the Perplexity brand took over the design community. And a big reason why is because of Phi Hoang . So this weekās episode is a deep dive into brand experience design and creativity with AI tools. We get an inside look at: Phiās creative process with Midjourney Why Perplexity thinks of the brand in āseasonsā Phiās tool stack for creating marketing videos with AI Behind-the-scenes of how Phi stumped the founder of Midjourney Why Perplexity cares about creative consistency > v...
Nov 27, 2024ā¢48 minā¢Ep. 82
It doesnāt 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-nelson Ian Wharton (storytelling coach): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/ian-wharton Kathy Zheng (head...
Nov 25, 2024ā¢13 min
A little over a year ago, Joey Banks and I were DMāing each other in Slack about leaving our W-2 jobs and going independent. So this weekās episode is a reflection on his journey working for himself and itās as human and relatable as any conversation Iāve ever had on this show. We go deep into: Managing your pipeline of clients Creating a personal knowledge system in Notion Finding companionship as an independent designer Structuring your schedule and maintaining momentum Communicating your serv...
Nov 20, 2024ā¢52 minā¢Ep. 81
The pendulum has swung too far with design systems. Somehow theyāve become synonymous with scale. But I believe theyāre 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 of Cron / Notion Calendar): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/raphael-schaad Brad Frost (author of Ato...
Nov 18, 2024ā¢9 min
After writing a viral article called ā The Missing Tool ā 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 designers can now contribute directly to production. Over the last few months weāve had regular jam sess...
Nov 13, 2024ā¢49 minā¢Ep. 80
Over the last few months, Iāve interviewed the people designing cutting edge AI products like Perplexity, Claude, Dot, Humane, Visual Electric, and moreā¦ During that time Iāve created a running list of all the metaphors and mental models theyāve used to explain what itās like. So this episode breaks down 7 mental models for designing AI products. Maggie Appleton (Design engineer at Normally): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/maggie-appleton Henry Modisett (Head of Design at Perplexity): https://...
Nov 11, 2024ā¢13 min
