Dive Club 🤿

Rafa Conde (https://x.com/rafahari) is a design engineer at Retro and one of the most creative designers I know. I still remember where I was when I first saw the video on his personal site (https://rafa.design/) 😂
In this episode we unpack what it means to design experiences that bring delight :)
Some highlights:
- Finding ways to introduce delight
- How to make users feel something
- The power of humor in your design
- How to lean into video as a superpower
- Balancing accessibility and delightful UX
- Behind the scenes of Rafa's side projects
- + a lot more

- Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation 1) — directed by Hideo Kojima, referenced for its fourth-wall-breaking design moments (Meryl’s codec frequency hidden on the game box; Psycho Mantis boss fight requiring the controller to be switched from port 1 to port 2)
- Sunlit app — gyroscope-based app for tracking sun position and light direction, referenced as a recent example of surprising UI: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.lonepalm.coloringworld&pli=1
- Retro app — private social network for friends and family (what Instagram used to be); Rafa’s current employer: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/retro-photos-with-friends/id6443709020
- Splat app — Retro’s generative AI app for iPad/iPhone that turns photos of kids into coloring book pages: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/splat-magic-coloring-book/id6749165093
- Hand Mirror app — Rafa’s most popular side project, a menu bar camera app: [https://handmirror.app](https://handmirror.app/)
- Gabe Valdivia’s episode — early Dive Club episode (~ep. 30) where Gabe talked about designers needing to be like “little TikTok creators” inside their orgs: https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/gabe-valdivia
- Final Cut Pro — Rafa’s video editing tool of choice: https://creatorstudio.apple.com/info/try?itscg=20201&itsct=acs-sem-187498456050-794866723417&pt=2003&ct=css-187498456050-794866723417

Imagine going from IC to leading the Wealthsimple design team in a few short years…
That was Polly D’arcy’s (https://www.linkedin.com/in/pollydarcy/) journey and today’s episode covers everything she’s learned along the way. We go deep into design leadership, craft, hiring, and a lot more.
Some highlights:
- Why Polly hires specialists over generalists
- Tactics to nail your next portfolio presentation
- What it looks like to lean into the moment with AI
- How Polly defines design quality at WealthSimple
- Polly’s go-to interview question to evaluate designers
- How AI is changing team composition and design roles

Capital, early Cash App, and most recently, X, all have one designer in common — [Brandon Jacoby](https://x.com/JacobyBrandon).
In this episode Brandon is talking about how he’s combining his years of experience designing with fresh, high-functioning teams and is now launching an all-new independent practice to help founders push past good enough.
He shares some really interesting thoughts on taste, being creative with AI, and how to thrive in a 0->1 environment.
Some highlights:
- The types of designer who get most amplified by AI
- What it takes to thrive while designing a 0→1 experience
- How Brandon is positioning himself as a new independent
- The difference between "seeing taste" and "creating taste"
- What Nikita (X Head of Product) taught Brandon about onboarding
- + a lot more

- John Lasseter (Pixar director) quote - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFbOOjAC_Fg
- Tolan app (mentioned as example of creative onboarding) - https://www.tolans.com/
- Owen Jennings at Block (Brandon’s mentor for 4 years) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/owenbrittonjennings/
- Nikita (former Head of Product at X) - https://x.com/nikitabier

When it comes to tools and workflows, Brian Lovin (https://x.com/brian_lovin) is someone I pay very close attention to.
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 ([https://agentation.com](https://agentation.com/), https://joshpuckett.me/dialkit)
- Cursor and Conductor for coding ([https://conductor.build](https://conductor.build/))
- Brian’s side project Shiori ([https://shiori.sh](https://shiori.sh/))
- Max Schoening nerd snipes Brian (https://x.com/mschoening)
- Karri’s issue tracking is dead article (https://linear.app/next)

If you're like me you gotta be curious... what's it like designing at OpenAI?
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) https://mikematas.com/ , https://medium.com/designatmeta/introducing-origami-live-and-origami-2-0-a68116294e65
- Cursor and Codex (AI coding tools) https://cursor.com/ ,(https://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)