Dive Club 🤿
MagicPath’s New Feature Changes Everything
updated
He’s actually the one who first got me hooked on Conductor (https://www.conductor.build/) .
But times are changing (again 😅)…
So today’s episode is a deep dive into his design process and all of the ways he’s iterating on his approach to both *using* AI tools as well as *building* AI tools at Notion.
If you like getting into the weeds of how the best designers are wrangling AI then you’re going to love this episode.
Some highlights:
- Why his first Notion design offsite was so impactful
- How Brian built Notion’s prototyping playground
- Why Brian has started using Cursor again
- Practical tips for prompting AI more effectively
- Behind-the-scenes of Brian’s new side project
- How to stay relevant as a designer in an AI world
- + a *lot* more
- Agentation and Dialkit for frontend (agentation.com) , joshpuckett.me/dialkit)
- Cursor and Conductor for coding (https://conductor.build/)
- Brian’s side project Shiori (https://shiori.sh/))
- Max Schoening nerd snipes Brian (https://x.com/mschoening)
- Karri’s issue tracking is dead article (https://linear.app/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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:41 Joining Notion's design team
6:42 Designing with AI as a material
12:59 Brian's Notion prototyping playground
18:12 How design workflows have evolved
23:33 How Brian's tool stack has evolved
28:37 Strategies for coding with AI
34:06 Brian's bookmarking tool Shiori
43:18 AI is not magic
49:42 How Brian thinks about career strategy for designers
So I’m excited to share today’s episode with you :)
It’s a deep dive with OpenAI’s Head of Product Design, Ian Silber (https://x.com/iansilber) .
Some highlights:
- The traits of the best systems thinkers at OpenAI
- What makes the design culture at OpenAI unique
- The vision for OpenAI's dynamic interface library
- What it's like designing around chat as a primitive
- What makes designing with AI as a material so unique
- How tools like Codex are changing the practice of design
- + a lot more
- Mike Matas and Brandon Walkin (creators of Origami) mikematas.com , medium.com/designatmeta/introducing-origami-live-and-origami-2-0-a68116294e65
- Cursor and Codex (AI coding tools) cursor.com , (chatgpt.com/codex/?c_id=23226110534&c_agid=188421385415&c_crid=800871103650&c_kwid=kwd-111182835&c_ims=&c_pms=9017288&c_nw=g&c_dvc=c&gad_campaignid=23226110534&gbraid=0AAAAA-I0E5dO-SVXduV4xJjtnqTNMNrAP)
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:51 Ian's journey to OpenAI
6:41 What made designing at OpenAI unique
9:57 Designing outside of the pixels
14:51 Traits of the best systems thinkers at OpenAI
16:32 How to get your ideas shipped at OpenAI
18:35 How AI tools shift the practice of design
28:08 Design rituals at OpenAI
33:25 OpenAI's dynamic interface library
36:06 Understanding the capability gap
41:13 The culture of design at OpenAI
43:12 What Ian looks for in design candidates
Well in this episode I got to sit down with [Marvin Schwaibold](https://x.com/MSchwaibold) from Molly studio who Shopify recently acquired to bring that vision to life.
We go deep into creativity, Marvin's journey with Molly, how he's building his ideas with AI, and a lot more.
Some highlights:
- How to become a well of creative ideas
- How AI unlocks how designers work at Shopify
- What design differentiation looks like at Shopify
- What Marvin has learned diving into Claude Code
- How designers at Shopify create and leverage internal tools
- Behind-the-scenes of redesigning the famous Collins website
- + a lot more
- Jaytel - Marvin’s design partner from Molly studio https://x.com/Jaytel
- Brian Collins - legendary designer who worked on the Collins website redesign wearecollins.com
- Carl Rivera - Shopify’s Chief Design Officer (referenced previous Dive Club episode) https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/carl-rivera
- Design Fluid Interfaces video from Apple’s Human Interface team (2019) [developer.apple.com/br/videos/play/wwdc2018/803/?time=1551](developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/808)
- Claude Code - AI coding tool by Anthropic claude.ai/login
- Artifact - internal Shopify tool for showcasing design work linkedin.com/posts/jaytel_this-was-meant-to-stay-inside-shopify-but-activity-7422739773561384960-oqiU
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:06 Marvin's design journey
7:31 Starting Molly Studio
9:27 Collaborating with Collins
14:41 How the Product Design Studio works at Shopify
17:54 How the Studio and product teams collaborate
22:03 The importance of motion and animation
23:48 Launching the new Shopify.design
29:32 The impact of working alongside Toby and Carl at Shopify
32:40 How AI unlocks designers at Shopify
37:39 Marvin's journey learning coding tools
46:24 Becoming a well of ideas
51:33 Design differentiation at Shopify
She's currently the founding design engineer at Paradigm. But before that Guillermo (Vercel CEO) personally DM'd her to join the Vercel team.
So we're going deep into career growth, design engineering, what it's like being a founding designer at an AI-native startup.
- What it’s like being a founding design engineer at Paradigm
- The challenges of designing AI-first products that work at scale
- Flora’s experiments with new design tools like Paper and Variant
- What Flora learned working alongside top design engineers at Vercel
- How Flora evolved her workflow with Claude Code over the past year
- Mental models for using AI as a learning tool rather than just a task executor
- + a lot more
- Tokyo Design Forum (February 2026) - tokyodesignforum.com
- UI Engineering 101 by Mariana Castillo and Derek Briggs - maven.com/pixeljanitor/uiengineering-101-for-designers
- We talked about Rauno Freiberg's portfolio (Vercel design engineer) - rauno.me
- New tools: Paper - https://join.dive.club/paper-ad-email
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
7:04 The impact of sharing online
12:01 How Flora landed an internship at Vercel
17:57 Flora's Twitter experiments
20:55 Starting to tinker with v0
23:04 Flora's approach to learning
26:30 How Flora improves the way she works with Claude
28:52 Mental models for collaborating with AI
31:43 How Flora works at Paradigm
35:41 What it's like designing an AI native product
38:53 How Flora stays up to date with how tech is changing
👉 Apple Pod - https://join.dive.club/Apple
👉 Full ep. on Youtube - https://join.dive.club/Youtube
His journey is the perfect example of what it looks like to lean into this moment in time with AI.
Some highlights:
- Behind the scenes of Kris’s Epilogue app
- How to create custom skills with Claude Code
- How to start building personal systems with AI
- How Kris taught Claude to be a metal shader expert
- Building internal tools and workflows with AI at Stripe
- + a lot more
And if you want to go even deeper check out Kris's new course on learning to build your ideas with AI: heyneuma.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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:30 Kris's journey building Epilogue
9:58 Using AI to build metal shaders
14:27 Building workflow tools with AI
19:02 How to start building systems with AI
24:52 Creating skills with AI
30:04 Using AI to level up your personal life
33:26 Kris's explorations with OpenClaw
39:18 Positioning yourself with AI in today's job market
49:03 Behind the scenes of Kris's new website
Josh Puckett (https://x.com/joshpuckett?lang=en) has has spent nearly two decades designing products like Wealthfront, Dropbox and helping dozens of startups.
But recently he released Interface Craft (https://www.interfacecraft.dev/) which is a library of everything he's learned about through the years about designing with “uncommon care” 👇
⭐ Use this code for 20% off Interface Craft: DIVE20
Some highlights:
- Josh’s principles for great design
- Morphing strategies for micro-interactions
- How the value proposition of design is shifting
- He builds a custom pattern generator on the fly
- How Josh makes storyboards to collaborate with AI
- Walks us through how he designed the onboarding flow
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:31 Designing the onboarding for Interface Craft
9:02 How to build a custom design tool
14:12 Continuing to pull on the library metaphor
19:49 Solving the 3 slider problem
27:47 Sweating the micro interaction details
35:48 Building the v0 and Claude gift experiences
41:27 How the value proposition of design is shifting
So we're going to do a deep dive into the trends he's noticing and what it all means for designers.
Some highlights:
- How design systems are changing with AI
- Luis’s ideas around agentic design systems
- Pitfalls to avoid when adopting AI with your team
- What trends we can ignore vs. what is really important
- Luis’s journey as a builder and his career plan moving forward
- What Figma's new integration with Claude and Codex unlocks
Luis’s agentic design systems article: medium.com/@disco_lu/building-agentic-design-systems-the-future-of-ai-enhanced-design-6ad0470cf1e3
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:11 What's happening in design systems
6:59 What Luis is seeing in today's landscape
14:05 Why we shouldn't say "design system"
23:58 The gap between enterprise and startups
27:21 What the Figma MCP unlocks
37:27 Luis's journey with AI
44:22 How Luis thinks about his career moving forward
👉 Apple Pod - https://join.dive.club/Apple
👉 Full ep. on Youtube - https://join.dive.club/Youtube
👉 Apple Pod - https://join.dive.club/Apple
👉 Full ep. on Youtube - https://join.dive.club/Youtube
We go deep into:
- The new archetypes of designers
- Cam's vision for bespoke software
- The #1 trait that Cam looks for in design hires
- How more than 90% of designers at Cash are shipping PRs
- What to do if you don't want to become an IC builder
- How to create an emotional attachment to your product
- How Cash has replaced the old engineering/product/design triad
Julien Martin's episode - https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/julien-martin
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:54 How the industry is changing
5:48 Evolving the practice of design at Cash App
13:16 How Friday demos work
15:58 How designers are transitioning into builders
22:41 The future archetypes of designers
30:19 Thoughts on hiring
33:38 Becoming a builder (or not?)
40:33 Bringing together the UX of Cash App and Square
45:18 The tension between systems and creativity
Because there's clearly a moment in time right now where if you get comfortable with these tools you can really stand out in the market.
So Jamey gives us a behind-the-scenes of her process and it totally changed the way I think about the importance of prompting.
Some highlights:
- Why consistency is the #1 marker of AI tool mastery
- Why direction is more important than prompting
- What it takes to build a "daily taste practice"
- Sneak peek of her work for the new MagicPath brand
- How she thinks about positioning herself in today's market
- + a lot more
Get 10% off Jamey's AI Creative Director course: (http://www.dive.club/jamey)
- Midjourney (AI image generation tool)
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 💪
0:00 Intro
1:31 Direction over Prompting
5:04 Jamey's creative process
9:40 How Jamey thinks about tools
14:11 Refining output with Nano Banana
24:05 How to grow the skill of consistency
27:48 Positioning yourself as an AI designer
30:59 Jamey's AI Creative Director course
36:13 Taste through reps
48:57 Why Jamey isn't going the agency route
👉 Apple Pod - https://join.dive.club/Apple
👉 Full ep. on Youtube - https://join.dive.club/Youtube
👉 Apple Pod - https://join.dive.club/Apple
👉 Full ep. on Youtube - https://join.dive.club/Youtube
So I asked their Head of Design, Katie Dill (linkedin.com/in/katie-dill-79168b3) , to walk us through some of the tiny design decisions that make it so special.
But we also did a deep dive into how the *practice* of design is evolving at Stripe and everything they’re doing to push past the status quo.
Some highlights:
- How the “call for a new aesthetic” is influencing design culture at Stripe
- How their internal tool Protodash is changing the way designers prototype
- The most important signals that Katie looks for when hiring designers
- What the concentration of craft looks like in an AI era
- + a *lot* more
Call for a new aesthetic - Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen’s grant program (https://newaesthetics.art/)
- Cultural Tutor YouTube video: youtube.com/watch?v=tWYxrowovts
- “Beauty is the New Business Tool” - 1927 Atlantic article (theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1927/08/beauty-the-new-business-tool/376227)
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:16 The design decisions on the new stripe dot come
15:37 Beauty as the new business tool
22:14 How AI is changing the way design at Stripe works
30:41 What it takes to push past the status quo
37:24 Feedback and collaboration at Stripe
41:49 Hiring designers at Stripe
46:10 The traits of the best designers at STripe
49:04 How Katie is evolving her approach to leadership
👉 Apple Pod - https://join.dive.club/Apple
👉 Full ep. on Youtube - https://join.dive.club/Youtube
👉 Apple Pod - https://join.dive.club/Apple
👉 Full ep. on Youtube - https://join.dive.club/Youtube
Today's episode with Julien Martin (https://x.com/julienmartin_?lang=en) is an attempt to answer that question.
He was the Head of Design at Zenly, Snapchat, and Amo which is some of the most uniquely impressive consumer design I've ever seen.
Some highlights:
- Behind the scenes of early Amo explorations
- How the composition of design orgs is changing
- The unlock that led to Amo's unique visual language
- Julien’s advice for how to succeed in today’s job market
- The untold story of how Julien joined in the early days of Behance
- Why side projects are now the strongest signal when hiring designers
- Andy Allen (https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/andy-allen) (referenced multiple times for his “not boring” article and Camera app)
- Off Market (offmarketjobs.substack.com) (Julien’s talent agency for designers)
- Retro app (https://retro.app/) and Duolingo (duolingo.com) (mentioned as inspiration)
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:33 How Julien wound up at Behance
10:42 What Julien learned from Matias and Scott
13:53 The Zenly story
18:17 Act 2: The Amo story
21:50 Amo creative direction
32:07 Finding the right level of novelty
36:03 Reverse-engineering the culture of Amo
42:08 What Julien looked for in hiring
44:38 The rising importance of side projects
48:37 What's changing in today's job market
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 💪
So we're doing a deep dive into what makes his portfolio so effective:
- Making his side project a first-class citizen
- Positioning himself as a new design engineer
- Adding personality by experimenting with Rive
- Highlighting what matters most in his case studies
- Flexing his craft muscles and nailed the finer details
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:01 Tommy's portfolio strategy
3:20 Experimenting with Rive
6:46 Making side projects a first-class citizen
12:12 Growing as a design engineer
22:02 Other details in Tommy's portfolio
25:55 Advice for aspiring design engineers
29:22 Tommy's Case Study Strategy
33:59 The role of Figma in Tommy's process
He gives us a behind-the-scenes look at his creative process, the tools in his stack, and how he approaches effective storytelling in design.
The episode features some seriously cool interaction demos, so if you’re into spatial design, this one is for you 👇
Some highlights:
- How Ryan sparks creativity
- The power of putting your work on Twitter
- How Ryan thinks about investing in his career
- Ryan’s mental model for fidelity and prototyping
- The lessons Ryan’s learned about effective storytelling
- The tools and techniques Ryan uses to make ideas feel real
- + a lot more
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
8:14 Ryan's ideation process
12:55 Making software jigs
19:08 The value of sharing your work on Twitter
22:47 Tactics for sparking creativity
27:43 Ryan's motivation
31:19 How Ryan is investing in his career moving forward
Some highlights:
- Hannah’s #1 trait for great designers
- The most underrated storytelling tactic
- Doing more with less while not burning out
- Examples of how AI is changing the design process
- How design orgs should think about adopting AI tools
- How much coding is happening on the Vercel design team
- Preserving craft and design thinking with collapsed timelines
- + a *lot* more
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:03 Hannah's interview process at Vercel
5:06 The new era of design leadership
8:25 Making sense of shrinking design teams
10:06 Implementing new AI tools in design process
16:01 How AI is changing design process
18:58 The #1 trait of a great designer
24:56 How much Vercel designers are getting in the code
27:41 The new table stakes for portfolios
34:04 What to do if you don't spike in craft
35:35 The new career paths for designers
37:33 Example of effective storytelling
40:46 Design systems careers
43:41 Why more designers are returning to IC work
47:47 How Hannah's experience at Webflow shaped her leadership approach
Today’s episode is with Karl Koch (https://x.com/_kejk?lang=en) and it’s filled with practical tips for new design engineers looking to push past what AI gives you out of the box.
We go deep into:
- Adopting the design engineering mindset
- What the job market looks like for design engineers
- The difference between frontend and design engineers
- Specific language to create better interaction design
- The details Karl is sweating in his role at Duck Duck Go
- + a *lot* more
Get 10% off Karl's Become a Design Engineer course: https://join.dive.club/karl (https://join.dive.club/karl)
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:32 AI pitfall to avoid
14:24 Relying on Inspect to solve visual problems
18:04 How to grow your technical muscle as a designer
25:33 Karl's design engineer role at Duck Duck Go
31:56 The design engineering mindset
33:58 The job market for design engineers
37:56 Finer details on Karl's personal site
42:34 The trap you can fall into
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 👀
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:51 Rive in Spotify and Duolingo
4:51 Why Rive is so much more than motion
5:38 The Rive journey
14:08 The new "Creative" builder
18:47 How Rive built vector feathering
24:13 Scripting with AI in Rive
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 workflows
2. How that model guides which tools I actually reach for day to day
3. The new AI coding product I’m completely hooked on right now
- Tools listed:
- Lovable (https://lovable.dev/)
- Figma Make (figma.com/make)
- Dessn (dessn.ai)
- Conductor (https://www.conductor.build/)
- Warp (https://www.warp.dev/)
- Inflight (inflight.co)
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 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 (https://amie.so/)
- Desktop.fm (https://desktop.fm/)
- Three.tools (https://three.tools/)
- Shopify Winter 2026 shopify.com/editions/winter2026
- Wiggle bones https://wiggle.three.tools/docs/manual/getting-started
- Blender (3D modeling software)
- Three.js (JavaScript 3D library)
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:08 Backstory of the Amie website
11:24 Minimal websites vs. Immersive websites
17:33 Prototyping more of the Amie website
22:25 How to start experimenting with 3D effects
24:34 Blender crash course
31:02 Moving into Cursor
33:06 Understanding WebGL and ThreeJS
39:47 Adding interactivity to your 3D scene
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 work
- What made Matt's micro copy so effective
- How Matt built his micro animations in Framer
- The finer details of Matt’s portfolio and micro-interactions
- How Matt changed his portfolio strategy and why it worked
- What it takes to make your portfolio an experience rather than a catalog
- + a *lot* more
Nad Chishtie’s episode (https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/nad-chishtie-lovable)
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
🌐 dive.club
🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:25 How Matt changed his portfolio strategy
7:34 Sweating microcopy details
12:51 Designing an experience instead of a catalogue
16:09 The finer details of Matt's portfolio
18:12 How Matt built his micro interactions in Framer
25:54 How important is mobile design really?
28:59 Key takeaways and final advice
Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪
Well, Stephen Haney (founder of the new design tool Paper) spent the last few months talking with teams like Shopify, Notion, etc. to find out.
He turned it into a bit of an AI Design Field Report and there are a lot of interesting nuggets in there.
So in today’s episode he walks us through some of his key findings and how that's shaping his product strategy for Paper.
Some highlights:
- How AI adoption looks at startups vs. big companies
- Which AI tools are the most popular in today’s top teams
- Which Twitter trends you can safely ignore as a designer
- What Stephen thinks about the great Ryo vs. Karri debate
- The localhost sharing problem and how teams are solving it
- Where Stephen thinks the future of design tools is headed next
+ a lot more
SHOW NOTES:
Basecamp’s “Shape Up” project management philosophy (basecamp.com/shapeup)
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:02 The new version of "should designers code?"
3:36 Stephen's continuum for building products
11:56 What Stephen has learned researching today's top design teams
15:10 Claude Code/Cursor vs. AI prototyping tools
18:05 An example of designers shipping at startups
19:51 The new Localhost problem
24:26 Is AI prototyping actually faster?
27:30 The network effects of AI
30:53 How Paper's product strategy has evolved
37:53 The changing role of design tools as the source of truth
39:25 Paper's Tailwind partnership
41:54 Stephen's advice to designers
So I asked them to hook it up to the Inflight (inflight.co) repo and give me a little demo to see what’s possible.
I’m pretty sold 👀
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 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:45 Creating an animation playground in Dessn
5:10 The power of designing in production
6:07 Prototyping Inflight using Dessn
9:05 The aura of inevitability designing in code
14:24 How Dessn works under the hood
16:29 Scaling explorations and leaning into curation
19:05 Prompting vs. pixel pushing
25:09 Previewing Dessn's canvas UX
27:31 What tomorrow's design tools mean for the role of designer
28:55 Figuring out what to ship
30:54 The importance of design in an AI world
32:49 Dessn's upcoming milestones
And my answer was easy... Perplexity
So 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
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:13 What's changed for Henry and Perplexity
6:44 The current state of Perplexity's design team
8:49 Henry's strategies for building design teams
12:31 What signals Henry is looking for in designers
14:37 Why Henry just hired a new design intern
18:39 How to lay the right foundation for your design team
26:22 Where Henry drew inspiration as a leader
31:11 Letting the problems dictate the process
34:17 Building a culture of decisiveness
38:35 How Perplexity thinks about design collaboration
41:55 How feedback happens at Perplexity
43:15 Navigating the challenges of scale
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
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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: zantos.co (zantos.co)
- Leva control panel: threejsresources.com/tool/leva
- Compound Engineering plugin: github.com/EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin
- Jhey Tompkins: https://x.com/jh3yy
- Derek Briggs: https://x.com/PixelJanitor
- Will King: https://x.com/willking
- Emil Kowalski: https://x.com/emilkowalski
- Jakub Krehel: https://jakub.kr/
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
Chapters
0:00 intro
1:26 Tinkering with Cursor's new updates
10:35 Building an audio animation tool
14:04 Using external inspiration inside of Claude
19:08 Creating a design engineering skill in Claude
29:01 Using Leva control panels
34:53 The strategy for your global Claude guideline file
41:19 How to think about your tool stack
45:01 Kyle's personal system for learning
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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 (linkedin.com/in/lewis-healey-b2457826) and Kylor Hall (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 (figma.com/make/?gad_campaignid=23356954992&gbraid=0AAAABCTX0ItGAe7RZBBeUOUindISLe0Un) (AI prototyping tool)
- AI Builders Week (Atlassian internal program) (atlassian.com/blog/inside-atlassian/ai-product-builders-week)
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:20 Atlassian's goals with AI prototyping
6:51 Why templates are Atlassian's secret sauce
11:09 Adding "recipes" to templates
13:17 Their process to integrating the design system
16:28 Writing effective instructions for AI
22:42 Closing hallucination gaps
27:19 How to drive adoption at your org
32:47 Strategies for maintaining the system
41:48 How the role of design system designer is changing
45:57 Where prototyping with AI is headed next
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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 (https://x.com/EnriTarta) —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 (momtestbook.com) for user research and the episode with the Supercut Founders (https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/supercut) .
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
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Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪
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
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
- Spotify’s cross-functional squad model (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/)
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:24 What Nad is seeing in the market
5:39 What Nad looks for in designers
6:58 Designers own things end to end
10:56 Where Lovable sources designers
12:37 Portfolio mistakes
17:47 An example of a portfolio that got hired at Lovable
27:26 How to succeed if you're not craft focused
32:23 The power of side projects
40:33 How the interview process works at Lovable
44:02 How to succeed in a portfolio review
45:57 How Nad things about the role of metrics in portfolios
48:10 How to succeed in paid work trials
50:26 How much Nad cares about candidates using AI
54:47 Traits of successful designers at Lovable
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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 - pixelwrld.co
Chapters
0:00 Intro
2:13 Initial visual concepts
6:33 Designing the conversational agents page
9:45 Roman's process for interactions and animations
12:45 Building a pattern generator
14:40 Exploring technical illustrations
17:34 Designing the Music page
22:21 Being intentional about imagery and UI comps
24:31 Redesigning the Text to Speech page
30:26 Transitioning gradients
32:24 The system for imagery and graphics
33:33 Roman's journey to get to Eleven Labs
35:41 Creating App Stacks
38:54 The story behind Roman's personal website
42:28 Roman's latest side project
44:30 Roman's advice for designers who want to build
48:01 How much Roman designs in Figma first
51:13 Roman's advice for people about social media
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
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🐦 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 💪
👉 Apple Pod - https://join.dive.club/Apple
👉 Full ep. on Youtube - https://join.dive.club/Youtube
👉 Apple Pod - https://join.dive.club/Apple
👉 Full ep. on Youtube - https://join.dive.club/Youtube
Now I’m hooked.
So I decided to make an episode that shows my process step by step along with some of the key things I’ve learned about prototyping with AI.
Be warned… once you try it you’re not going to want to go back 😅
- Here’s my tweet (https://x.com/ridd_design/status/1996617560582951128?s=20) showing a glimpse of the prototype
- Here’s Jakub’s Twitter (https://x.com/jakubkrehel) that I showcased
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
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Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪
👉 Apple Pod - https://join.dive.club/Apple
👉 Full ep. on Youtube - https://join.dive.club/Youtube
So I wanted to go deep into the creative process behind the all-new Shift Nudge website (shiftnudge.com) 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.
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:08 Initial creative process
11:15 A more simplified concept
13:13 I've been pronouncing Neue wrong this whole time
14:47 Starting to build custom vibe-coded tools
21:44 Starting to play with Mosaic images
30:30 Landing the plane once he had the core motif
44:35 MDS's final advice
52:53 MDS's process in Figma
54:39 Getting weird with the 404 page
57:18 Diagraming context for Claude
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
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Canvas-based UX will play a pivotal role in how we interface with AI.
It’s a big reason why Figma just bought Weavy (figma.com/blog/welcome-weavy-to-figma) 👀
So I interviewed Steve Ruiz (https://x.com/steveruizok) who is the founder of tldraw (https://tldraw.dev/) 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 fairies
- Steve’s principles for good tool design
- How he was able to learn to code so quickly
- What Steve’s learned through his AI experiments
- How he’s thinking about the future of agentic design
- + a *lot* more
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:14 Steve's design origin story
8:30 Steve's learning journey
13:06 Obsessing over arrows
18:54 Steve's tellestration journey
24:46 Principles of great tool design
31:51 The canvas as a foundational paradigm
37:36 Steve's AI experiments with agents
42:52 Designing more agentic workflows
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
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Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪
In that episode he frequently referenced Shape of AI (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](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 (shapeof.ai) (her database of patterns)
- Poke app (https://x.com/interaction/status/1965093198482866317/video/1) from Interaction
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:31 Emily's model for designing AI products
10:13 Emily's catalogue of AI patterns
12:07 Walking through AI pattern inspirations
18:42 AI pattern deep dive
24:27 Baking trust into an AI UX
28:30 Ethical questions with designing for AI
31:18 Designing for AI at HackerRank
33:14 Importance of getting into code more quickly
36:49 How AI changes are impacting the way Emily thinks about hiring
38:53 Why HackerRank is leaning into brand designers
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
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Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪
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
⭐️ You can use the code DIVECLUB to get 20% off your first month of Lovable Pro 1!
- Ink & Switch is the research lab (inkandswitch.com)
- Changing Minds by Seymour Papert (worrydream.com/refs/Papert_1980_-_Mindstorms,_1st_ed.pdf)
- Geoffrey’s nightmare bicycle article (geoffreylitt.com/2025/03/03/the-nightmare-bicycle)
- Don Norman’s Living with Complexity (amazon.com/Living-Complexity-Press-Donald-Norman/dp/0262014866)
- Spell Burst by Tyler Angert (spellburstllm.github.io)
- A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander (amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199)
- Patchwork - Geoffrey’s collaboration environment at Ink & Switch (inkandswitch.com/patchwork/notebook)
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:18 Geoffrey's background in design
5:15 His experiments at Ink & Switch
8:00 Geoffrey's role at Notion
13:58 Exposing structure in system design
17:54 Designing AI Chat Interactions
21:47 The potential for canvas-based UIs
23:18 The Version Control Problem
29:57 Malleable software vs. dynamic interfaces
40:22 How the role of designer changes
48:34 Coding like a surgeon
52:50 Advice for designers trying to become more technical
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
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And it’s awesome 💥
A few weeks ago Nick Pattison showed us [how he builds pattern tools in Lovable (youtube.com/watch?v=5ADHIIBtzQw). And today we get to hear from Ryan Miyoshi (https://x.com/ryry__mimi) about how he creates custom tools for his work as the Head of Design at Column (column.com) .
We get a behind-the-scenes of 4 different tools:
- 2 for creating custom image effects
- 1 for generating branded charts
- 1 node-based workflow for creating customer posters
But even more important than the specific tools is Ryan’s mentality. If you have his level of agency and determination then AI gives you superpowers 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
4:51 Ryan's thumbnail tool
9:21 The strategy for your new tool
10:59 How to build your own tool
14:43 How long it took Ryan to build these tools
21:32 Debugging dithering effects
25:58 Ryan's ComfyUI tool
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
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But business impact gets you promoted.
So this week’s episode with Ryan Scott (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 (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
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:23 Understanding the state of the market today
6:06 How designers can respond to today's market
10:02 What to do if you don't have metrics to back up your work
15:57 How to think strategically about your design career
19:42 How to move down the product path
27:27 How designers can find new opportunities for the business
31:43 How to introduce your ideas to decision-makers
35:14 How to grow the skill of prioritization
44:33 How to make data a part of your design practice
49:07 Looking for outliers in the data
54:08 Sneak peek of Ryan's courses on Maven
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
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🐦 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 💪
I much prefer to find the person who is one rung above me on the learning ladder. Often they’re the right person to explain how I can take those next few steps.
This is especially true when it comes to coding with AI and that’s what this episode is all about.
We’re talking with Kyle Zantos (https://x.com/kylezantos) who didn’t touch code at all until the last ~year. But since then he’s went all in on building with AI so today he’s going to walk us step-by-step through his workflow including:
- How he plans his projects
- How he scaffolds in v0
- How to get up and running with Claude Code
- His strategies for prompting and debugging
- + a *lot* more
- Monologue by Every - every.to/on-every/introducing-monologue-effortless-voice-dictation
- Warp.dev (http://Warp.dev) terminal
- Pietro Schirano’s episode about collaborating with AI - youtu.be/M7CU-ObtxRI
Chapters
0:00 Intro
3:29 How to plan projects with Claude
12:47 Creating a prompt to scaffold in v0
16:37 Why Kyle scaffolds in v0
26:08 Debugging when your prompts don't work
29:12 How to treat AI like a collaborator
35:59 How to go from v0 to Claude Code
43:05 How to use MCPs with Claude Code
45:55 How to get your environment up and running
48:38 How to think about Github Desktop
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
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👉 Apple Pod - https://join.dive.club/Apple
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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* more
Kevin referenced Mike and Chara Smith’s episode talking about “brand moves” multiple times - youtube.com/watch?v=Jhxx6yK2J08&t=392s
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 💪
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 💪
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* more
Drew is also building his new IDE called Loop - https://loupe.build/
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:11 Why Drew is starting Opacity
9:10 What's the future of "designer"
13:22 The importance of components in an AI world
21:24 Product strategy when the table stakes are high
28:55 Iteration over Prototyping
36:24 The new technical threshold for designers
40:27 How to differentiate yourself as a designer
48:07 The types of designers that Drew wants to hire
52:20 Upcoming milestones for Opacity
53:19 How Drew is doing things differently as a design founder
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
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Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪


