The art of design: Nando Costa, Microsoft

Design leaders in tech don’t come much more visionary than this week’s Changemakers guest, Nando Costa.

Nando is a Brazilian-American designer with an extensive background in visual design, branding, digital products and animation production.

After spending the first part of his career in the agency world, Nando joined Microsoft in 2013, spending the next nine years working on projects such as the creative development of the HoloLens, various Mixed Reality projects and cross-platform versions of Office apps.

After a stint at Google Design in 2022, he returned to Microsoft, where he currently works on immersive experiences for Microsoft Mesh and explores the potential applications of generative AI.

This may well be news to you, but to our Dave it isn’t. He’s followed Nando’s career for a long time, fascinated by his incredible Microsoft and Google animation pieces and ongoing experiments with Midjourney’s AI design tool.

So, to have the chance to discuss all that with the man himself… let’s just say fanboy Dave was pretty excited.

Their wide-ranging chat covers: Nando’s early influences growing up in Rio de Janeiro, how he wound up joining Microsoft, and staying at the firm for so long, why maintaining a consistent pace of learning and progression is so important to him, how to “find your tribe” in a company of 200,000 people, why impactful design at huge global brands relies on “thoughtful rule-breaking” the future of AI-powered design.

This is one that any fan of truly world-class design and branding will really enjoy.

Find out more about Nando at nandocosta.com.

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