Dive Club 🤿

This episode is a deep dive into Rive—the engine powering experiences like Spotify Wrapped, next-gen car dashboards, and so much more.After hearing Luigi and Guido Rosso’s vision for the future of interactive software, I’m convinced it will be a big deal for designers 👀

One of the biggest parts of my design practice is knowing which tool to reach for when coding with AI.There are a lot of options and they’re changing every week 😅So in this episode, I break down:1. The mental model I use to think about different types of AI coding workflows2. How that model guides which tools I actually reach for day to day3. The new AI coding product I’m completely hooked on right now- Tools listed: - Lovable (https://lovable.dev/) - Figma Make (https://www.figma.com/make/) - Dessn (https://www.dessn.ai/) - Conductor (https://www.conductor.build/) - Warp (https://www.warp.dev/) - Inflight (https://www.inflight.co)

Sometimes you open up a website and it's so good that you're left wondering... how the heck did they pull that off?In this episode the designer of the original Amie website, Xavier Jack (https://x.com/KMkota0), is going to give us a little tutorial of what it looks like to bring web experiences to life with 3D.Some highlights:- How he prototyped the viral Amie website- How he made the Amie interactive balloons from scratch- How he uses mental models to understand 3D design tools- Amie.so (http://amie.so/)- Desktop.fm (https://desktop.fm/)- Three.tools (https://three.tools/)- Shopify Winter 2026 https://shopify.com/editions/winter2026- Wiggle bones https://wiggle.three.tools/docs/manual/getting-started- Blender (3D modeling software)- Three.js (JavaScript 3D library)

Last month the head of design at Lovable, Nad Chishtie, walked us through the portfolio of one of their recent design hires, Matt Sellers.So today's episode is a behind-the-scenes of what it actually takes to create a portfolio that gets you hired at one of today's top startups.He shares some really tactical mental models that I think everyone can benefit from.Some highlights:Why Matt removed 80%+ of his workWhat made Matt's micro copy so effectiveHow Matt built his micro animations in FramerThe finer details of Matt’s portfolio and micro-interactionsHow Matt changed his portfolio strategy and why it workedWhat it takes to make your portfolio an experience rather than a cataloga lot moreNad Chishtie’s episode

There's been a heck of a debate around the future of coding and design tools lately... but what's actually happening inside of today's top teams?Where is all this headed and how does the future of our tools shape the role of a designer?Today's episode is with Stephen Haney (https://x.com/sdothaney) who is the founder of the new design tool Paper.And for the last few months he's studied how design teams actually use AI in their everyday roles... everything from tooling to prototyping to process.He walks us through some of his key findings and how that's shaping his product strategy for Paper 👇Some highlights:- The “designer playground” approach- How AI adoption looks at startups vs. big companies- Why designers at big companies aren’t PRing to production- AI usage being mandated in performance reviews for designers- The new localhost sharing problem and how teams are solving it- Why local development is winning over cloud tools for design teams- Why companies use of AI tools doesn’t match what you see on Twitter- + a lot moreBasecamp’s “Shape Up” project management philosophy (https://basecamp.com/shapeup)

Gab and Nim are the co-founders of a startup called Dessn which allows designers to prototype in the context of their production codebase (without any of the setup).So I asked them to hook it up to the Inflight repo and give me a little demo to see what’s possible.I’m pretty sold 👀

Someone asked me recently... if you had to join a design team, who would you want to work for?And my answer was easy... PerplexitySo today's episode with Henry Modisett (https://x.com/henrymodis) (Perplexity's VP of Design) is a deep dive into what makes their design culture so special.Some highlights:- How to create a culture of decisiveness- What signals Henry is looking for in designers- Factors that influence Henry’s leadership style- How to lay the right foundation for your design org- Why Henry is doing feedback differently at Perplexity- Henry’s strategies for building world class design teams- + a lot more

Kyle Zantos is leading the new UX Tools Labs where he's responsible for figuring out what matters for new design tools and workflows.As a result, he's pretty quickly become my go-to source as I transition into more of a builder with AI.So this conversation is a deep dive into very specific tactics you can use on your own design engineering journey.We'll go through recommended tools, workflows, and Kyle's process for building a design engineering "Skill" using Claude Code.Kyle’s portfolio site: https://zantos.coLeva control panel: https://threejsresources.com/tool/levaCompound Engineering plugin: https://github.com/EveryInc/compound-engineering-pluginJhey Tompkins: https://x.com/jh3yyDerek Briggs: https://x.com/PixelJanitorWill King: https://x.com/willkingEmil Kowalski: https://x.com/emilkowalski

We talk a lot about using AI at startups…But what are more established companies doing to scale AI prototyping?What are the best ways to use AI to prototype with your design system?That's what today's episode is all about because we're talking with Lewis Healey (https://x.com/Lewishealey) and Kylor Hall (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylorhall/) about how they scaled AI prototyping at Atlassian.Some highlights 👇- Their vision for a truly AI-native design system- What's worked to scale AI prototyping adoption- Tips for reducing hallucinations when prototyping- ways to help AI make sense of your design system- Their novel approach to prototyping with “templates”- How the role of design system designers is changing with AI- + a lot more- Atlassian Design System (https://atlassian.design/)- Figma Make (https://www.figma.com/make/?gad_campaignid=23356954992&gbraid=0AAAABCTX0ItGAe7RZBBeUOUindISLe0Un) (AI prototyping tool)- AI Builders Week (Atlassian internal program) (https://www.atlassian.com/blog/inside-atlassian/ai-product-builders-week)

Today's episode goes deep into all of the design details in a new video collaboration tool called Flask.But the reason I’m so inspired by this product goes far beyond the UI/UX…Flask is designed and built by one person—Enrico Tartarotti—who was a PM before this so his journey is the perfect example of what it looks like to thrive as a generalist builder.So this episode tells the story of what it took to build a well-crafted product and all of the lessons that he learned along the way.Enrico references the Mom Test for user research and the episode with the Supercut Founders

As one of the fastest growing companies in the world, Lovable is scaling their design team by tapping into the [Dive Talent Network](https://www.dive.club/talent-network).So I interviewed their Head of Design, [Nad Chishtie](https://x.com/nadonomy), to learn everything I can about how to get hired as a designer at Lovable.Some highlights:- A breakdown of a recent design hire’s portfolio- How to avoid getting your portfolio screened out- How to crush the later stages of the hiring process- How you can win Nad over with side projects alone- What to do if you’re not confident in your visual skills- The 2 things Nad cares most about when hiring designers- Spotify’s cross-functional squad model (https://medium.com/found-ation/agile-team-organization-a-deep-dive-on-the-spotify-model-f5b32dfc37dd)- Matt’s portfolio (designer hired through Dive Talent Network) (https://www.lfs.gd/)

What does it look like to own web design for one of the fastest growing AI companies in the world?And how do you get that opportunity if you don’t have companies like Apple or Airbnb on your resumé?That’s what this episode with [Roman Tesliuk](https://x.com/RomaTesla) is all about.He walks us through the Eleven Labs Figma and talks about the tiniest of design decisions all the way to how he’s building a scalable website system.We also go deep into Roman's side projects and all of the ways he's becoming a builder with AI 💪Roman’s App Stacks project - https://appstacks.club/ and portfolio site - https://pixelwrld.co/

I’ve probably learned more about visual design from MDS than anyone in the design community.So I wanted to go deep into the creative process behind the all-new Shift Nudge website to see how he explores visual ideas.He takes us through his Figma file that is full of very good ideas that didn't ship.And he even shows us how he built his own Mosaic tool in v0 which became the core motif of the site.So if you're interested in seeing the windy creative process behind one of the truly great designers today then I think you're going to enjoy this one.

I get shown a lot of tool demos and one thing is clear…Canvas-based UX will play a pivotal role in how we interface with AI.It’s a big reason why Figma just bought Weavy 👀So I interviewed Steve Ruiz who is the founder of tldraw where he's spent over 3 years and $5 million dollars building the perfect canvas (which powers many of the startups that we've studied on this show).Some highlights:Why he’s been obsessing over fairiesSteve’s principles for good tool designHow he was able to learn to code so quicklyWhat Steve’s learned through his AI experimentsHow he’s thinking about the future of agentic designa lot more

In one of the most popular episodes yet, Vitaly Friedman talked about what’s next for AI design patterns (https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/vitaly-friedman).In that episode he frequently referenced Shape of AIl (https://www.shapeof.ai/) which is an incredible database of AI design patterns.So I wanted to get to the source and go deep with the creator Emily Campbell (https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmiecampbell/) to learn how to design great AI experiences. Because she’s studied AI products more than just about anyone I’ve ever seen 👀Some of my favorite highlights:- Ways to build trust in agentic products- Her favorite patterns for enhancing prompts- The traits she looks for when hiring AI designers- + a lot more- Shape of AI (https://www.shapeof.ai/) (her database of patterns)- Poke app (https://x.com/interaction/status/1965093198482866317/video/1) from Interaction

AI is fundamentally shifting the way we think about digital products and the core deliverables that we're bringing to the table as designers.So I asked Geoffrey Litt (https://x.com/geoffreylitt) (Design Engineer at Notion) to share his vision for the future of malleable software and AI system design.Here’s some highlights:- The keys to effective system design- Geoffrey’s workflow for “working like a surgeon”- Why too many products become “nightmare bicycles”- The principles of malleable software vs. disposable software- Why version control is the most important AI interaction problem- Inside Geoffrey’s malleable software experiments at Ink & Switch- + a lot more-[Ink & Switch is the research lab (https://www.inkandswitch.com/)- Changing Minds by Seymour Papert (https://worrydream.com/refs/Papert_1980_-_Mindstorms,_1st_ed.pdf)- Geoffrey’s nightmare bicycle article (https://www.geoffreylitt.com/2025/03/03/the-nightmare-bicycle)- Don Norman’s Living with Complexity (https://www.amazon.com/Living-Complexity-Press-Donald-Norman/dp/0262014866)- Spell Burst by Tyler Angert (https://spellburstllm.github.io/)- A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander (https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199)- Patchwork - Geoffrey’s collaboration environment at Ink & Switch (https://www.inkandswitch.com/patchwork/notebook/)⭐️ You can use the code DIVECLUB to get 20% off your first month of Lovable Pro 1!

Craft gets you hired.But business impact gets you promoted.So this week’s episode with [Ryan Scott](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanscottcreative/) is a deep dive into how designers can think strategically about their career.He shares a ton of lessons from his [PM Masterclass for designers](https://join.dive.club/ryan-scott-pm-masterclass-affiliate):- What it looks like to grow your product muscles- The right (and wrong) ways to get buy-in for your ideas- Strategies for making data a part of your design practice- Ways to spot new strategic opportunities for your company- How to position your work to be compelling to a business leader- What Ryan learned making big ideas happen at Airbnb and Doordash- + a lot more⭐️ Get $100 off Ryan’s course when you us the code DIVECLUB- Andy Budd’s talk in Berlin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eYH6Z3LmhU)- Builder.io (http://builder.io/) mentioned as AI tool for engineers- booking.com (http://booking.com/) vs Airbnb competitive positioning example

Board (https://board.fun/) has taken over social social media (and for good reason).It’s one of the most obvious yet innovative products I’ve ever seen.So as soon as Kevin Twohy (https://x.com/kevintwohy) shared a preview with me I knew we had to do an interview to get the behind-the-scenes (spoiler: I did buy it lol).So this episode is a deep dive into his design process for the first ever tabletop game console:- What he learned about prototyping hardware products- How they figured out the “brand moves” for Board- How Kevin makes the most of AI tools- + a lot moreKevin referenced Mike and Chara Smith’s episode talking about “brand moves” multiple times - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jhxx6yK2J08&t=392s

AI is reshaping how we design and build software, creating huge opportunities for designers who experiment, adapt, and help define what the practice looks like next. This session is your opportunity to learn directly from some of the best in the industry.

Imagine a world where handoff no longer exists and designers are moving fluidly in code…[Drew Wilson](https://x.com/drewwilson) is one of the people pulling that future into the present so this week’s episode is a deep dive into his vision for the new design tool [Opacity](https://opacity.app/).Some highlights:- How team structures are changing- How to stand out when everyone is a builder- What design’s “Github moment” will look like- The fracturing of the market for design talent- How Drew is approaching this startup differently- Where the new technical threshold is for designers- + a lot moreDrew is also building his new IDE called Loop - https://loupe.build/