Dive Club (Deep Dives) 🤿

Julius Tarng is the ultimate generalist designer.He started the design tools team at Facebook where he made a massive impact on products like Origami.He then freelanced as a design engineer for companies like Felt, Anthropic, and even prototyped some of the early AI features for the Arc browser.Now he’s in his first-ever engineering role at Linear.So this conversation is a deep dive into what it looks like for designers to approach their work with an engineering mindset. We talk about Julius’s deep background in prototyping, how he collaborates with designers at Linear. And we also get into why the current state of design engineering is a missed opportunity.If you’re looking to grow as a software designer then you’ll love this episode.Julius’s twitterFelt — a better way to work with mapsDaniel Smith (Linear designer that Julius pairs with)Origami (Facebook’s prototyping tool)Brandon Walkin (ex: Facebook, Apple, now at OpenAI) who made the adaptive pointer for iPad.What are GPUs and Shaders? (Julius’s tutorial video)

When it comes to design founder stories, Raphael Schaad’s is one of the best. So this episode is the first-ever telling of how Raphael designed and built Cron (which became Notion Calendar). We talk about:Sketching on paper vs. sketching in codeWhy shipping quality software is like campingHow Raphael identified the MVP of the problemWhat it was like building Cron in YC during COVIDWhy you should design dialogues as first-class citizensWhy Raphael didn’t invest much in the Cron landing pageThe differences between a design toolkit and a design systema lot more lessons from a successful first-time design founderRaphael’s TwitterThe OG Cron websiteScreenshot of the Cron dialogues in Figma

Alex Schleifer was the long-time Chief Design Officer at Airbnb where he grew the team from ~35 to over 600 people. So this conversation is an inside look at what makes design at Airbnb so special. We discuss:How to create a culture of decisivenessWhy great design leaders are like chefsHow to succeed in executive CRITs at AirbnbHow designers should prepare for an AI futureWhat it means to operate with a “first team” mindsetWhat it takes to achieve Airbnb’s level of craft at scaleWhich elements of the Airbnb culture you can instill for your teama lot moreAlex’s Twitter and LinkedinAlex’s “People vs. Algorithms” podcastMentioned Airbnb alumni:Katie Dill (Head of Design at Stripe)Ethan Eismann (SVP Design at Slack)Karri Saarinen (CEO at Linear)

Noam Segal has led research at companies like Meta, Airbnb, Wealthfront, Twitter, and most recently Upwork. He also teaches the #1 user research course on Maven. So this episode is a masterclass in user research. We discuss:How to conduct better interviewsThe keys to an effective research planHow to become a masterful research storytellerHow AI is creating a new wave of research toolsWhen to rely on qualitative vs. quantitative tacticsThe modern user research tools you need to know aboutHow to ensure research is integrated in the product processNoam’s modern research tech stack:SprigGenwayDscoutSteve Portigal’s book: Interviewing users (how to uncover compelling insights)Mr. Beast’s YouTubeLenny’s Podcast with Judd Antin: The UX research reckoning is here

Helen Tran was an early designer at Shopify and is now leading product design at AngelList. But in between those two roles she also ran her own startup for three years. So the goal of this conversation is to figure out how that period of time impacted her design practice so we can all learn how to design with a founder’s mindset. In this episode we discuss: - How Helen is approaching design leadership differently this time around - How Helen constructors hypotheses to influence product strategy - Why Helen made sacrifices to her production skills - The keys to designing in a pre-PMF company - The #1 way to help founders - + a lot more Helen’s website - https://helentran.com/ Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿 🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪

Today we're talking with designer and entrepreneur, Hunter Hammonds, who has grown 5 different agencies to millions in revenue in less than a year. So in this episode we walk through the different stages of building an independent design business—starting from positioning yourself as a solopreneur all the way to scaling operations to 7 figures. We get into the weeds about: - Hunter’s framework for selling yourself on a landing page - The tactics OffMenu uses to convert more leads to customers - Why Hunter thinks MRR is a misguided metric - What operational fat you can trim to increase margins - How you can improve your sales calls - + a lot more - Petr Knoll - https://twitter.com/iampetrknoll (design partner OffMenu) - Christian O’Brian - https://www.linkedin.com/in/obrienchristian/ (CEO OffMenu) - Sahil Bloom - https://twitter.com/SahilBloom (partner OffMenu) - Agencies - Instrument - https://www.instrument.com/ - Basic - https://www.basicagency.com/ - Ueno - https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/06/twitter-acquihires-creative-agency-ueno-to-help-design-new-products/ Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿 🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub

Ready for a masterclass in positioning? Nick Pattison has been working for himself for well over 10 years... but recently he's laser-focused on running 1-week brand sprints (and it's working). So this episode is a deep dive into his new freelance playbook: - The automations that allow him to focus on sales and creative direction - Lessons learned from running 25+ brand sprints at $15k each - How Nick focuses on growing his creative muscles - His strategies for presenting work to clients - Why he stopped writing proposals - + a lot more… - Nick’s agency: Primary Studio - https://primary.studio/ - Nick’s talent company: Stellar - https://www.stellar.work/ - Nick’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/thenickpattison Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿 🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub

This episode is the ultimate design founder story. Dennis shares all of the ups and downs along his journey to build Amie—a new productivity tool that captures your emails, calendar, and to-dos in a single beautiful product. Some of the highlights: - Where Dennis draws inspiration - The traits Dennis looked for in early hires - What Dennis looks for in design candidates - The backstory behind Amie’s viral website launch - How Dennis balances his intuition with product feedback - How Dennis thinks about innovating vs. capitalizing on familiarity - Things 3 app - https://culturedcode.com/things/ - Stefan - https://twitter.com/_animify the Amie design engineer - Devin - https://www.cognition-labs.com/introducing-devin—AI coder - Brian Chesky interview - https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach on Lenny’s Podcast - The Amo app - https://amo.co/ - Dennis’s custom Amie pants - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GEoOIsjW0AUYiTj?format=jpg&name=900x900 Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿 🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪

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 people understand the role that design engineers play and to outline a path you can take to develop some of these skills. We talk about: - The strategy behind Vercel’s new website - Why Vercel built a design engineering team - How designers collaborate with design engineers - What Vercel looks for when hiring design engineers - How Vercel is always building with re-usability in mind - + a lot more - Maggie Appleton’s quote on software creation from our group interview - https://anthonyhobday.com/blog/20240122.html - vercel.com/ship - Framer components - https://drams.framer.website/ (inspired by Dieter Rams’ design principles) - Screwball scramble - https://us.tomy.com/screwball-scramble/ - Dead Simple Sites - https://deadsimplesites.com/ Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪

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 they map out user journeys - Tips for driving alignment on complex projects - How they use the “ridiculously early hypothesis” Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿 🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪

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 full website in ~30 min. We then get into the weeds about: - How the web design process will evolve with AI - What this means for the role of designer - His journey as a design founder adapting to AI - Where Relume is headed next as a company 👀 Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿 - Relume’s Figma library - https://www.relume.io/figma-library - Relume’s Webflow library - https://www.relume.io/components - Galileo - https://www.usegalileo.ai/explore (another AI tool we mentioned) 🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪

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 products - Ian Spalter (Old Head of Design at Instagram) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianspalter/ - Rus Yusupov (Cofounder of Vine and HQ Trivia) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rus_Yusupov#:~:text=Rus%20Yusupov%20(born%20May%204,and%20CEO%20of%20HQ%20Trivia. - Lapse (Mobile App) - https://www.lapse.com/)

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 systemHow Brad is using AI to elevate design systemsHow design systems designers can succeed in an AI worldThe highest leverage activities for DS designers to doHow designers can communicate better with engineers

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 conversation gets into the weeds about what it's like to design 0 to 1 experiences. We talk about tactics for speed, storytelling, prototyping and a lot more...Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub

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 wanting to learn 3D - The differences between good and great design - The 4 things needed for design to have cultural impact - How AI will empower us to deliver tailored software at scale - Why the future of design tooling might mirror the game industry Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿 🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪

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 processWhat we can learn from Figjam’s product strategyJenny’s framework for adding delight to a productHow to create visuals that stand out in a sea of confetti animationsStrategies for facilitating live workshops in FigjamWhat Jenny looks for in design candidatesJenny’s vision for the future of Figjam

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 Facebook - When it makes sense to invest in craft (and when it doesn’t) - what Soleio looks for when hiring designers - How startups can attract the top design talent - Why Soleio is so excited about spatial computing - The type of companies Soleio is looking to invest in next Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿 🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪

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 design systems in their latest visual refresh - How designers can handle situations where stakeholders disagree - Ways to improve the way you share your work via Loom - The rituals and processes used by designers at Webflow - How design casts vision with “north stars” Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿 🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪

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 their design system - What Ryo is looking for in your portfolio - How to operate outside the traditional “design” role Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿 🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪

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 you later regret- Molly’s favorite Figma plugins for design systems- How she’s building components differently in V8 of her UI Prep design system- Her journey as an independent creator- + a lot moreDive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿 🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub