Design Details

This week, we try to figure out the right time to give up on a fight when collaborating with stakeholders who have different opinions and priorities. We also cover a lot of feedback this week, discuss new design resources in The Sidebar, and share our cool things of the week. Golden Ratio Patrons: We're looking for partners to work with. If your team is hiring, launching a new product, or wants us to get the word out about a new initiative, please get in touch! Latest VIP Patrons: Huge shoutouts to our latest Very Important Pixels! Udoka Chima Achal Srinivasan Priyanka Kodikal Sean Kennedy Lucas Morales Sam Bazalo Luciano Infanti Pavel Fomchenkov The Sidebar: The Sidebar is an exclusive weekly segment for our Patreon supporters. You can subscribe for just $1 per month for access to full episodes going forward! https://patreon.com/designdetails. In this week's Sidebar we share a neat CSS library and a pro tip for customizing your personal websites. Follow-up: Some of ya'll finally shared your shameful e

This week, we introduce a new supporter-only show segment, The Sidebar. Each week we'll be sharing a story, pro-tip, shortcut, or design-related cool thing. Supporters on Patreon will hear the first story today! We also discuss the most over and undervalued design skills, including feedback from folks on Twitter. And, of course, we share our cool finds of the week! Golden Ratio Patrons: We're looking for partners to work with. If your team is hiring, launching a new product, or wants us to get the word out about a new initiative, please get in touch! Latest VIP Patrons: Huge shoutouts to our latest Very Important Pixels! Ritu Maghera Jacob Lindström Dave Epstein Dan Omar Hassan Marco Lars Anttila The Sidebar: We've been behind on Bonusland, and it's been a challenge for us to catch up. Additionally, we felt like bonus episodes were too infrequent and not compelling enough as a Patreon reward. This week we're starting a new experiment to make the patron rewards much better. It's a new segment of every epi

This week, we dig into the dregs of our portfolios to critique some of earliest design work. We try to look for indicators of taste and fundamentals, but ultimately have a good laugh about our early mocks. We'd love to see your early work too, so share it with us on Twitter this week! Golden Ratio Patrons: We're looking for partners to work with. If your team is hiring, launching a new product, or wants us to get the word out about a new initiative, please get in touch! Latest VIP Patrons: Huge shoutouts to our latest Very Important Pixels! Gediminas Saulis Joshua Overbye Catherine Gui Andrew Cianci Hao Le Nathan Dorney Luigi Chelli Azmy Hanifa Follow-up: ipadmenu.study is a neat case study about how to add a universal menu to iPad applications. Icons abound! Jacob Lindström recommends Cross-Cultural Design from A Book Apart. Pawel Sysiak said thanks for answering two questions, and to that we say: thank you for asking good questions! Tweets: Michael Knepprath wants to see our files. Unfortunately we

This week, we talk about counterintuitive user experiences that designers regularly design for in our day to day work. Let us know what we missed! As always, we catch up on feedback, tweets, and share our cool things of the week: a blog post explaining how to polish an interface, and a YouTube series about first-time reactions. Golden Ratio Patrons: We're looking for partners to work with. If your team is hiring, launching a new product, or wants us to get the word out about a new initiative, please get in touch! Latest VIP Patrons: Huge shoutouts to our latest Very Important Pixels! Rodrigo Antonio DeLima Arkadiusz Bartnik Hello Hill Steffie Elvin Hu Daniel Mark McEwan Follow-up: Samuel Bernhardt shared some more Figma file organization tips – thank you! Tweets: Thijs Bremeesch thinks our podcast is GOLD. We like gooooold. Elvin says we're contributing to ongoing sanity – glad we can help a tiny bit! Ben Dunn is a new fan from New Zealand - welcome to the pod! Katarina Blind says last week's episode

This week, we share our tips and tricks for staying organized in Figma, simplifying the engineering handoff, and not getting bogged down in pages hell. This, plus some follow up, cool things, and a little social distancing check-in. Sponsor: Fathom Analytics – we love it, we use it, we can't recommend it enough. Fathom is a privacy-first analytics tool that provides all the right information about traffic to your websites. Some of our favorite features: Fathom doesn't use cookies, which means you can skip the GDPR notice The data it collects is simple and straightforward, meaning that it can load your analytics dashboard incredibly quickly and gets you straight to the most important information Fathom is a small two-person team that charges money for the service. Your data is not sold or leveraged in another way. Simple, straightforward pricing makes the world go 'round. And so much more. Learn more at designdetails.fm/fathom and if you sign up using that URL you will save $20 off your first invoice! Golde

This week, we dissect the newest iPad Pro and its new adaptive cursor, speculating on the future of cursor-touch hybrid interactions. Marshall also shares early feedback on a new prototyping tool and we find escapism in our cool things. Sponsor: Fathom Analytics – we love it, we use it, we can't recommend it enough. Fathom is a privacy-first analytics tool that provides all the right information about traffic to your websites. Some of our favorite features: Fathom doesn't use cookies, which means you can skip the GDPR notice The data it collects is simple and straightforward, meaning that it can load your analytics dashboard incredibly quickly and gets you straight to the most important information Fathom is a small two-person team that charges money for the service. Your data is not sold or leveraged in another way. Simple, straightforward pricing makes the world go 'round. And so much more. Learn more at designdetails.fm/fathom and if you sign up using that URL you will save $20 off your first invoice! G

This week, we catch up with Meg Lewis, a designer, coach, writer, speaker, business-owner, podcaster, and all-around fun human being. We talk about building passive income streams, how to give advice, having strong opinions, and facing public criticism – among many other things. And as always, we share our cool things of the week included a very timely hygiene product, new mobile apps, and a YouTube playlist. Sponsor: Fathom Analytics – we love it, we use it, we can't recommend it enough. Fathom is a privacy-first analytics tool that provides all the right information about traffic to your websites. Some of our favorite features: Fathom doesn't use cookies, which means you can skip the GDPR notice The data it collects is simple and straightforward, meaning that it can load your analytics dashboard incredibly quickly and gets you straight to the most important information Fathom is a small two-person team that charges money for the service. Your data is not sold or leveraged in another way. Simple, straightf

This week, we discuss the metagame of product design, thinking out loud about the skills we do in between the craft work that help us to be more effective, have more impact, and grow faster in our careers. As always, we dig into followup, talk about some fleeting news, and share our cool things of the week! Sponsor: Fathom Analytics – we love it, we use it, we can't recommend it enough. Fathom is a privacy-first analytics tool that provides all the right information about traffic to your websites. Some of our favorite features: Fathom doesn't use cookies, which means you can skip the GDPR notice The data it collects is simple and straightforward, meaning that it can load your analytics dashboard incredibly quickly and gets you straight to the most important information Fathom is a small two-person team that charges money for the service. Your data is not sold or leveraged in another way. Simple, straightforward pricing makes the world go 'round. And so much more. Learn more at designdetails.fm/fathom and i

This week, we discuss practical tips to level up your visual interface design skills, including tracing and focusing on a "learning by doing" mindset. And as always, we share our cool finds of the week including a new notes application and a creative TV show. Golden Ratio Patrons: We're looking for partners to work with. If your team is hiring, launching a new product, or wants us to get the word out about a new initiative, please get in touch! Latest VIP Patrons: Huge shoutouts to our latest Very Important Pixels! zeneosjun Neesha Chris Northcutt Follow-up: Last week Marshall shared a macOS tip to hide your menu bar. Brian tried it for 2 days but failed to keep it hidden. New Layer just wrapped up a great two-part episode about giving feedback on a design team. Manny says about giving upwards feedback: "Agree with talking to them after the meeting in a more private environment setting, it worked for me multiple times, also they are the people who will assign you work and decide your perf

This week, we discuss strategies for giving better upward feedback to senior designers. We also share our thoughts on how to name your spacing components, list our favorite design podcasts, and as always, share this week's cool things for your eyes and computer. Golden Ratio Patrons: Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao) Pathrise is an online mentorship program that you land a great UX job. Previous fellows have been placed at Google, IBM, Atlassian and other exciting companies. You can learn more at pathrise.com/details Latest VIP Patrons: Huge shoutouts to our latest Very Important Pixels! Guarang Alat Dennis Cortes Grovkillen & TD-er Connelly Rader Follow-up: Elias Julian floated a very compelling idea for new merch... Erik Bro brought up a great question about how to name spacing constants in a design system. Tweets: We we

This week, we discuss key lines, design tokens, and how to make your designs look consistent across all devices. We also discuss a compelling new design tool, add some listener follow-up to last week's discussion on self reviews, and discuss the pros and cons of using Sign in with Apple. As always, we share our cool things of the week, this time featuring a retroactive cooking show and a delightful way to enjoy movies a second time through. Golden Ratio Patrons: Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao) Pathrise is an online mentorship program that you land a great UX job. Previous fellows have been placed at Google, IBM, Atlassian and other exciting companies. You can learn more at pathrise.com/details Latest VIP Patrons: Huge shoutouts to our latest Very Important Pixels! Elias Peter Reaper-Reynolds Will Vaughan Sean Kushi Robert Weisbeck

This week, we discuss the ins-and-outs of writing an effective self review: What should you talk about? How important is it? What does a bad self review look like? As always, we share our cool things of the week, this time including a new provider for Marshall's favorite esport, and a movie that is "cool" or...something. Golden Ratio Patrons: Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao) Pathrise is an online mentorship program that you land a great UX job. Previous fellows have been placed at Google, IBM, Atlassian and other exciting companies. You can learn more at pathrise.com/details Latest VIP Patrons: Huge shoutouts to our latest Very Important Pixels! Loukas Papantoniou Wan Jung Hung Ryan Koble Billy Purdy Michael Fitzgerald Follow-up: We don't hate XD, we just don't know how to use it! Cal Rowston shared a very bad side eff

This week, we get deep into the weeds on creating layouts with Sketch's Smart Layout and Figma's Auto Layout, and compare the experience with implementing layouts in CSS and SwiftUI. This is a detailed exploration at the pros and cons of each toolset, and we try to find takeaways that can help us reconcile the wildly different mental models for each. As always, we share our cool things of this week including a content-blocking Safari extension and a novel about a cyberpunk future in which a trailer park girl and her cat decide the fate of humankind. Golden Ratio Patrons: Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao) Pathrise is an online mentorship program that you land a great UX job. Previous fellows have been placed at Google, IBM, Atlassian and other exciting companies.You can learn more at pathrise.com/details Latest VIP Patrons: Huge shout

This week, we answer two listener questions about designer-developer handoff. We dig into questions like: What does a good developer handoff look like? What information should it contain? What are systems to make the handoff more efficient for everyone involved? As always, we share our cool finds of the week, this time including a return of the 6-second video format and a useful language learning app. Golden Ratio Patrons: Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao) Flywheel is a delightfully designed managed WordPress hosting platform, thoughtfully built for busy creatives. Streamline your workflow with their slick platform and sweet set of workflow tools perfectly made for designers! Get started at getflywheel.com/designdetails Pathrise is an online mentorship program that you land a great UX job. Previous fellows have been placed at Google,

This week, we talk about how to be meaningfully involved with the design community on Twitter. We share tips for finding people to follow, what to tweet about, and we dig into the value of building online connections with other designers. As always, we share our cool things for the week, including some futuristic-yet-spooky technology emerging in China, and a top-notch film production company.Golden Ratio Patrons:Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao)Flywheel is a delightfully designed managed WordPress hosting platform, thoughtfully built for busy creatives. Streamline your workflow with their slick platform and sweet set of workflow tools perfectly made for designers! Get started at getflywheel.com/designdetailsPathrise is an online mentorship program that you land a great UX job. Previous fellows have been placed at Google, IBM, Atlassian

This week, we dig into a three-part listener question about the difference between web and product design, collaborating with print designers, and what it takes to become a unicorn in 2020. As always, we share our cool things of the week, like a subreddit that will make you cry and a website that lets you edit its design. Golden Ratio Patrons: Flywheel is a delightfully designed managed WordPress hosting platform, thoughtfully built for busy creatives. Streamline your workflow with their slick platform and sweet set of workflow tools perfectly made for designers! Get started at getflywheel.com/designdetails Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao) Pathrise is an online mentorship program that you land a great UX job. Previous fellows have been placed at Google, IBM, Atlassian and other exciting companies.You can learn more at pathrise.com/de

In this first episode of the new decade, we look ahead to 2020 and enumerate some personal and professional goals for the year to come. And as always, we share some cool things (this week, with the help of a listener!), including an IRL magazine, a couple grumpy websites, and the final season of a show. Golden Ratio Patrons: Flywheel is a delightfully designed managed WordPress hosting platform, thoughtfully built for busy creatives. Streamline your workflow with their slick platform and sweet set of workflow tools perfectly made for designers! Get started at getflywheel.com/designdetails Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao) Pathrise is an online mentorship program that you land a great UX job. Previous fellows have been placed at Google, IBM, Atlassian and other exciting companies.You can learn more at pathrise.com/details Latest VIP P

In this week's episode, we follow up on a bunch of your tweets, and then we get super semantic about naming conventions and component organization. And as always, we share a couple cool things like a vehicle upgrade and a feed reader. Golden Ratio Patrons: Flywheel is a delightfully designed managed WordPress hosting platform, thoughtfully built for busy creatives. Streamline your workflow with their slick platform and sweet set of workflow tools perfectly made for designers! Get started at getflywheel.com/designdetails Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao) Latest VIP Patrons: Huge shoutouts to our latest members! Aaron Heine Chris Martin Greg Wilkinson Lauren Chilcote Lauren Mosenthal Tt_55 Follow-up: Mukul Agarwal sent in a fantastic recommendation for a podcast episode: Rock the Voter from Your Undivided Attention. Danny Haagen ask

In this week's episode, we discuss the state of our industry's current design tools—especially in comparison to the tools available to other disciplines—and we speculate about what those tools could look like in the years to come. In News, we compare notes on Figma's newly released Auto Layout feature. And as always, we share a couple cool things like a flashcard app and a peek behind the park. Golden Ratio Patrons: Flywheel is a delightfully designed managed WordPress hosting platform, thoughtfully built for busy creatives. Streamline your workflow with their slick platform and sweet set of workflow tools perfectly made for designers! Get started at getflywheel.com/designdetails Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao) Latest VIP Patrons: Huge shoutouts to our latest members! Filipa Amado George Tsolpakis Luke Seeley Paweł Sysiak Cal Rowst

In this week's episode, we go to our patrons for a couple listener questions: one about adapting to shifting roles as a company rapidly grows, and one about the balance between creativity and meeting business needs. And as always, we share a couple cool things like a Star Wars series and privacy-based analytics. Golden Ratio Patrons: Sisu is looking for a thoughtful and data-savvy designer to help build the next generation of analytics software. You can find out more at sisu.ai. (You might recognize Sisu from our interview with Michie Cao) Flywheel is a delightfully designed managed WordPress hosting platform, thoughtfully built for busy creatives. Streamline your workflow with their slick platform and sweet set of workflow tools perfectly made for designers! Get started at getflywheel.com/designdetails Latest VIP Patrons: Huge shoutouts to our latest members! Amy Geddes Amy G (?) Tt_55 Breno Baldrati Follow-up: Last episode, we talked about skeuomorphism Haptics have been a thing in video games for de