What led you into design?
Visual mediums have always caught my attention. But I didn't ever think of myself as a designer. I grew up making signatures on DeviantArt with a pirated copy of Photoshop 7.0 way back in 2005. My understanding of "design" for a long time was that it is a discipline concerned with how something looks, not fundamentally works. I thought designers made things pretty, engineers made things work.
Accidental exposure to web development in 2016 through my first startup was life changing. At that time I was an economics major. My friends were all self-taught programmers—I had no idea you could just learn an entire profession on your own. For several months I reverse engineered other people's code and built up the audacity to interview at several junior level positions from many of which I was respectfully rejected. Ultimately, a design studio hired me as a full-stack engineer on the basis that my test assignment "generally looked good and was by design".
I barely considered myself an engineer, let alone a designer. Naturally, I was always hanging out with designers and enjoyed the thrill of pushing the software medium with crazy ideas. I found myself being able to speak the language of two disciplines. I was like... okay, both groups want to make a cool thing, but one works with the contraints of a platform while the other in possibility land. In essence, we are all just makers, there is no difference between the two. I unpurposefully became the connective tissue between design and engineering.
What does a typical day look like?
You would probably find me riding my road bike at some point in the day. Cycling usually solves a lot of problems for me. Stuck on a problem? Go ride, it will probably get solved as a background task. Low on dopamine? Probably just need to do some intervals.
Sometimes my day would make for a very boring "day in the life" video. If I'm obsessed with a project you might even see me wake up, brush my teeth, get some water and immediately lock in. In this state I could work for several hours without distractions.
I never plan my day, write comprehensive notes, or have great time management. I would usually find myself lost in polishing that one silly edge case that no one might ever notice. That being said, without inspiration my day is riddled with creative doubt and procrastination. I'm still learning how to deal with this. I want to believe that lows are just a part of life to appreciate when you're firing on all cylinders a lot more.
What's your workstation setup?
Where do you go to get inspired?
When I look for inspiration I time travel backwards in the industry, or even away from it. Some recent favorites of mine are Bill Atkinson showing Polaroids of the Lisa GUI, a 2-year old using a Macintosh, Polestar rekindling my hope for tasteful swag, and PAN Bakery. I look for feelings of inspiration that do not directly help with my particular craft but inject a renewed sense of curiosity and awe. You could call this "motivation porn".
My non-exhaustive bookmark list includes Why Danny Boyle used iPhones on 28 Years Later, Oral History of Bas Ording, Config 2025: The web hasn't happened yet, Aspect Ratios with Sinners Director Ryan Coogler, and Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad.
On side projects I feed on inspiration. If I don't have any, I won't work on them. I didn't work on a side project for 2 months because I felt it wasn't good enough but I didn't know how to make it better. I think my strongest source of inspiration is hearing what people whose creative output I resonate with are excited about. It's how I got out of my 2 month side project burnout—thank you Andy Allen.
For "work work" I can't always rely on inspiration. I've made a commitment to my colleagues that I will try my best, and anything less than would be unfair to their contributions. Often it's about figuring out what small thing can I do on my worst day that will make life for someone else less worse. Sometimes this means scanning around Slack to give thoughtful design feedback, or clicking around our products to find papercuts that I can resolve.
What product have you recently seen that made you think this is great design?
Special Projects is a studio I always am impressed by. They produce some of the most original design thinking in the field. Their recent project Aperture is the epitome of what design is. A solution to a problem, with less:
“Aperture emerged from playful experimentation with a phone and case. By reversing the phone so that only a small section of the screen is visible, you create a mini “window” into your phone's interface.”
Now, why is this good design? You could argue that this is not a net new idea. But they have worked around selling a dedicated case for this solution. Suddenly, I go from "I might buy it" to "I want to try this now".
The ingenuity lies in solving a problem with what's available, not introducing more, and playing to the strengths and limitations of existing materials:
“However, flipping the phone in and out of the case is surprisingly difficult due to friction, which oddly becomes its strength—it discourages constant access and encourages more mindful technology use.”
You could frame this as "post-hoc rationalization". But friction is a real psychological concept that either works for us or against us. Aperture has been designed to work for us although it may feel the opposite.
What pieces of work are you most proud of?
Branding, interaction, and product design for Devouring Details.
Seldomly do I feel satisfied with something I've put a lot of effort into but there is a lot that I am proud of here. I've yet to grow tired of the Swiss minimalism aesthetic flourished with motion design. I think there's just not a lot to grow tired of, it's just so bare.
What design challenges do you face at your company?
I can speak from a detail-obsessed point of view. I think we struggle a lot with consistent quality, as do most companies of our size. Quality is not a result of scale or resources. Quality is a function of patience and focus.
Small teams with autonomous high-performers usually produce the highest quality output because it is more likely you'll find 5 people aligned on taste and skill than 500. Companies experiencing growth tend to trade off on quality for velocity and breadth because they usually take more on, and it is hard to do a lot of concurrent things exceptionally.
What music do you listen to while designing?
Any advice for ambitious designers?
No course, mentor, or piece of advice can build your skills for you.
Work with the material. If you aspire to be really good at making websites, the materials you need to master are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, not design or vibe coding tools. Have a newfound love for great writing? Expose yourself to a lot of great writing. Want to be one of the best in the world? Read the entire English dictionary. Work with the material.
Confused on where to start? Start by copying things that inspire you. Don't forget to say thank you.
Anything you want to promote or plug?
Devouring Details, my upcoming interactive reference manual for interaction-curious designers is launching on July 9th.
With 20 chapters and 20 downloadable React components on an interactive custom platform, it includes everything I know about not just interactions, but design.
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