Design Details

This week, we talk about enhancing the performance of design teams, a more efficient developer handoff process, and how to develop strong opinions. In the Sidebar, we talk about the tradeoffs of career progression and overall life happiness. At what point are you willing to pause or downgrade your career ambitions for a better life outside of work?Sponsor:BestPracticer helps you find the right design coach to support you to grow faster. You’ll be matched with an experienced coach from a leading tech company, who is a few levels ahead and familiar with your challenges. All of BestPracticer’s design coaches are design veterans who blend their years of expertise with coaching and leadership methodologies to help you grow faster and achieve your goals. You’ll meet on a regular cadence with your design coach as a thought partner on your work and career goals. If you’re interested in finding a design coach or learning more, you can visit designdetails.fm/bestpracticer.Golden Ratio Supporters:Vagaro is hiring designers to build the booking, payments, and marketing solutions for growing businesses in the beauty, wellness and fitness industries around the world. if you want to have an immediate, direct and high impact through design, learn more about designing at Vagaro.The Sidebar:The Sidebar is an exclusive weekly segment for our Patreon supporters. You can subscribe starting at $1 per month for access to bonus content going forward! Sign up at patreon.com/designdetails.Latest VIP Patrons:Dakshi KhatriHeyStefan DotComhugohilXande MacedoJim CarolanDaniel SimsAndreas BockischCharlie Gedeonsilka sietsmaDelilah MokriTom FejérKalv SandhuOri E.Niclas van EykPepijnJulie HoxieBrett BennerMark MarkovDestiny JoelleMeghan MartinHamza LabrinssiAlexa JarvisClarkeOmotayo Paul AJMain Topic:This week, we talk about enhancing the performance of design teams, a more efficient developer handoff process, and how to develop strong opinions.Alan Mills asks about ways to enhance the performance of a design team through tools and processes on GitHub.Mark Markov asks on Twitter: what's the handoff/delivery process? Is it similar to this or are engeneers educated on how to get what they need from the files?AutomatorJordan SingerCarlos asks on GitHub:Hey there, Im new to the design field, three months into my UX role and I have a fear that I dont have strong enough opinions or knowledge to come up with a solution and push it forward all the way through.I think, my problem is that I am overly empathetic and always end up seeing the best in other peoples idea and going along with it but Im concerned I wont be getting far ahead if I cant stick by guts every now and then, or may get advantage of because Im a “yes man”.How do you build your “no” muscle without damaging relationships?Cool Things:Brian shared Hereditary: A grieving family is haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences.MidsommarMarshall shared Atrioc, one of his favorite YouTubers. Start with this video.LudwigDesign Details on the Web:📻 We are @designdetailsfm🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock 🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes.Byeee!

This week, we make the case for designing product icons and discuss what to do if your team doesn’t want to invest in great iconography. In the Sidebar, we talk about how to incorporate default typefaces into your design system.The Sidebar:The Sidebar is an exclusive weekly segment for our Patreon supporters. You can subscribe starting at $1 per month for access to bonus content going forward! Sign up at patreon.com/designdetails.Latest VIP Patrons:Christian RotzollZack MeredithJSZach GeistKates Hartmanmike kennyWilsonAndre DinizMattias KronbergFollow up:Uhl Albert pointed out that “ruinous empathy” comes from the Radical Candor Framework.Main Topic:This week, we make the case for designing product icons and discuss what to do if your team doesn’t want to invest in great iconography.Priscilla Then asks on GitHub:The Lead Developer at my work requested to remove some of the icons, because they slow down development time when having to wait for one to be created, grappling with SVGs, etc. Unfortunately, he is right as they are time-consuming to make (especially good ones) and since I'm the only UX/UI designer in the company, it slows me down and I become the bottleneck.That said, I feel that icons give character, polish and professionalism to an otherwise extremely utilitarian UI. Icons can also be functional in that they help make certain elements stand out from an otherwise huge sea of text, but they are still seen as "fluff". I've asked for another designer to be hired, or request our graphic designer to create icons when he has time, but these suggestions didn't get any support. How would you make a case for icons when they are seen as mere decoration?Feather IconsIconic IconsBootstrap IconsAnt IconsMaterial Design IconsIcons ToolboxIcon SizesCool Things:Brian shared the Opal C1, a professional webcam that claims DSLR-quality images in a $300 chassis. So far: it’s definitely a beta product, but depending on your needs it might be a worthwhile upgrade!Marshall shared the ohsnap! Snapmount 2.0, an accessory that helps you mount your phone to a wall (with MagSafe!), making it ideal for turning your phone into a mounted shower speaker.Design Details on the Web:📻 We are @designdetailsfm🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock 🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes.Byeee!

This week, we spent more time exploring the traits of a good designer manager. In the Sidebar, we talk about the design details of Apple’s Studio Display and Mac Studio.The Sidebar:The Sidebar is an exclusive weekly segment for our Patreon supporters. You can subscribe starting at $1 per month for access to bonus content going forward! Sign up at patreon.com/designdetails.Latest VIP Patrons:SteveJelte BijkerkOliver StahlKevin HwangYan WuParker HendersonSam XiaJames MorganHoyinBradley SedorZachary JohnsonDamien ShanPrerna PradeepJuneAmie ChenHolden TuffieldCaseyEmily ChenFollow up:Bulk-detach follow-up — the Seek and Destroy plugin detaches all nested styles, too!Thanks Damon Ahola for the follow-up on transitioning from industrial to digital product design.Main Topic:This week, we spent more time exploring the traits of a good designer manager.What makes a good manager?We tweeted: ‌What's the most memorable thing a manager has done for/to you? It could be positive or negative, but just generally something that left an impression or changed your trajectory.Read the responses.Cool Things:Brian shared Any Distance, a beautiful app designed to help you share your workout stories.Marshall shared Brandon Sanderson’s Kickstarter, now the largest fundraise in Kickstarter history! $29m and counting...Design Details on the Web:📻 We are @designdetailsfm🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock 🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes.Byeee!

This week, we talk about transitioning industries and how to bridge the quality gap in a new field. In the Sidebar, we talk about storytelling and the surprising insights that can be found in engagement data.The Sidebar:The Sidebar is an exclusive weekly segment for our Patreon supporters. You can subscribe starting at $1 per month for access to bonus content going forward! Sign up at patreon.com/designdetails.Latest VIP Patrons:Chris CallettaAnna BartaJan FrüchtlMichael LeAlbin Groenkyle baldingerHenri RaadiSara SanguinoFollow up:@smallmedium pointed out that bulk-detach exists in Figma — thanks for the tip!Main Topic:This week, we talk about transitioning industries and how to bridge the quality gap in a new field.The Gap by Ira GlassCool Things:Brian shared Alfread, a small utility app that actually helps you stay on top of your read-it-later backlog.Marshall shared Horizon Forbidden West, the sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn, a beautiful open world game with robot dinosaurs. Need we say more?Design Details on the Web:📻 We are @designdetailsfm🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock 🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes.Byeee!

This week, we talk about design file sources of truth, Snapchat's evolution, and the qualities of great managers. In the Sidebar, we talk about building a YouTube channel from scratch, the opportunity for designers on YouTube, and ways to de-risk a new creative exploration.Golden Ratio Supporters:Zeplin lets designers spend more time on design, and less time prepping design files for the team. Effortlessly build user journeys with native connectors, flow groups, and text labels — no more maintaining extra layers in your design tool. Zeplin is so much more than just specs — get started for free to see why.The Sidebar:The Sidebar is an exclusive weekly segment for our Patreon supporters. You can subscribe starting at $1 per month for access to bonus content going forward! Sign up at patreon.com/designdetails.Latest VIP Patrons:Andrew AmbrosinoChris RoyConor MackPeter CarletonshanbergPatrick MarxGabriel ValdiviaAlessaDorian ZlatanAslam MarzookMain Topic:This week, we talk about design file sources of truth, Snapchat's evolution, and the qualities of great managers.Emily asks on GitHub: Hi! I'm curious how other teams maintain their "latest design" mockups for designs that have been shipped.Zach asks on GitHub: I've always wondered how Snapchat was able to get away with a design that broke so many conventions, particularly in the way you navigate the app. Overtime, they seem to have been returning to a normal nav pattern, especially now with the new tab bar design. What do you think of the app's design and evolution, and do you know of any other apps that break the rules and still find success?Mannnny asks on GitHub: Speaking of being a team lead or manager, what do you think are the core skills a manager should have? Also when do you know you’re ready to be a team lead or manager? Do you have to be a great IC to be a manager? I personally don’t think so, they’re very different roles and requires different skills.Cool Things:Brian shared Must, a prettier Letterboxd. If you are willing to trade visuals for social features, Must is nice!Marshall shared Clear Spaces, an iOS app to create transparent widgets to clean up your Home Screen.Design Details on the Web:📻 We are @designdetailsfm🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock 🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes.Byeee!

This week, we talk about the messy nature of remote onboarding and share our tips to make it suck just a little less. In the Sidebar, we talk about the visual design for the heads up display used in televised sports.Golden Ratio Supporters:Zeplin lets designers spend more time on design, and less time prepping design files for the team. Effortlessly build user journeys with native connectors, flow groups, and text labels — no more maintaining extra layers in your design tool. Zeplin is so much more than just specs — get started for free to see why.The Sidebar:The Sidebar is an exclusive weekly segment for our Patreon supporters. You can subscribe starting at $1 per month for access to bonus content going forward! Sign up at patreon.com/designdetails.Latest VIP Patrons:Kevin BennettChris CarboEricPaula OjansuuTom PhillipsThatSidMaxAnthony DiSpezioXJ LuFollow up:Regarding micromanaging, Stevie Roger tweeted: We have a weekly team show-and-tell/idea sharing and collectively doesn’t feel like I’m being micromanaged. I’ve learnt more from others guidance and it never feels like micromanaging. This has been endlessly useful as I move into more senior roles.Regarding senior designer expectations, Brandon Schmittling tweeted: Senior designers talk to other designers and creatives in their field. They have dialogues with their peers at other organizations and across industries. A stretch signal might be: Senior designers share their conversations and “bring the outside in” to their team or organization. Just something I’ve been thinking lately. Great episode and thanks!Main Topic:This week, we talk about the messy nature of remote onboarding and share our tips to make it suck just a little less.Read the community's replies on Brian's tweetCool Things:Brian shared The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson's latest film. It's fun! If you're into this style, you won't be disappointed.Marshall shared Murderville, a murder mystery show with a new celebrity guest every week. And it's new!Design Details on the Web:📻 We are @designdetailsfm🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock 🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes.Byeee!

This week, we talk about teaching versus micromanaging, or how to give feedback as a manager in a productive and growth-oriented way. In the Sidebar, Marshall shares his tips and tricks for organizing icon systems in Figma.Golden Ratio Supporters:Zeplin lets designers spend more time on design, and less time prepping design files for the team. Effortlessly build user journeys with native connectors, flow groups, and text labels — no more maintaining extra layers in your design tool. Zeplin is so much more than just specs — get started for free to see why.The Sidebar:The Sidebar is an exclusive weekly segment for our Patreon supporters. You can subscribe starting at $1 per month for access to bonus content going forward! Sign up at patreon.com/designdetails.Latest VIP Patrons:John CaseyFrancis Wumayra pulidousrnk1Michael OlsonDStacey PetersonJustin HaldaneDian ChenDeclan Reilly-GordonAlex BlancoPhoebe HogelandTLJustin BuckamunthSudhanshu GautamMartin BanuelosAdam StanfordTara KirklandMain Topic:This week, we talk about teaching versus micromanaging, or how to give feedback as a manager in a productive and growth-oriented way.Anonymous asks:I’ve been promoted to a lead, and I’m managing a few entry-level designers working on small features. When discussing UX flows and sketches, they seem fine. But I randomly popped into their Figma files and noticed that their files are not as organized, and their UI work has some issues with padding, margins, decimal values, etc.I feel like this is something easily trainable, since it’s UI related. I could jump on a call with them to educate them and show some examples of how to do things. But I have a tiny doubt about if I’m micromanaging, since this role is new to me.Am I micromanaging if I jump into their files and do padding checks? If yes, how do I do this right? If not, what’s the difference between managing and micro managing?Cool Things:Brian shared Slopes, a fantastic app for skiers and snowboarders to track their runs and compete with friends. It’s a lot of fun, and has some really interesting design patterns to learn from.Follow @parrots and @elanovacMarshall shared the Ember mug, a game-changing quality of life improvement that keeps your hot drink at the perfect temperature. A bit expensive, but worth it.Design Details on the Web:📻 We are @designdetailsfm🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock 🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes.Byeee!

This week, we sat down with Mark McGranaghan and Adam Wiggins to talk about building creative tools, designing across devices and platforms, creating career capital, starting design podcasts, and more.Golden Ratio Supporters:Zeplin lets designers spend more time on design, and less time prepping design files for the team. Effortlessly build user journeys with native connectors, flow groups, and text labels — no more maintaining extra layers in your design tool. Zeplin is so much more than just specs — get started for free to see why.The Sidebar:The Sidebar is an exclusive weekly segment for our Patreon supporters. You can subscribe starting at $1 per month for access to bonus content going forward! Sign up at patreon.com/designdetails.Latest VIP Patrons:Meredith GrubbsBrandon SchmittlingPablo González DayZach SheaPedroAlex KayaianJustin FarrugiaAustin SeeleyShrinkrayJeffrey DaneseMain Topic:This week, we sat down with Mark McGranaghan and Adam Wiggins to talk about building creative tools, designing across devices and platforms, creating career capital, starting design podcasts, and more.Mark McGranaghan on Twitter (website)Adam Wiggins on Twitter (website)MuseMetamuse PodcastInk & SwitchThe Twelve-Factor AppGo by ExampleThe future of iPadObsidianRoam ResearchAndy MatuschakCraftCool Things:Brian shared Vampire Survivors, a fun little indie roguelike that is easily worth the price for many hours of chilled-out vampire evasion.Hollow KnightDead CellsWarm SnowMarshall shared Agent to the Stars, a fun and different approach to the alien visitor genre.Design Details on the Web:📻 We are @designdetailsfm🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock 🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes.Byeee!

This week, we share some (hopefully) non-obvious paths to level up at work and exceed the expectations for a senior++ product designer. In the Sidebar, we talk about the importance of giving blunt feedback, and share ways to do it tactfully and with kindness.Golden Ratio Supporters:Play — Play is the first native iOS design tool made for teams creating mobile products. Design, prototype, and collaborate, directly from your phone. With Play you can experience your design as you create it while taking full advantage of native iOS features not found in other design and prototyping tools. Full access invites available for the first 25 people here!The Sidebar:The Sidebar is an exclusive weekly segment for our Patreon supporters. You can subscribe starting at $1 per month for access to bonus content going forward! Sign up at patreon.com/designdetails.Latest VIP Patrons:Derick AniesNatalie HelmerToren JensMorgan QuinnSean KennedyDylan RoseVarun ThotaFernando PegoriniAkshitha VictorMarina BroidoMain Topic:This week, we share some (hopefully) non-obvious paths to level up at work and exceed the expectations for a senior++ product designer.Cool Things:Brian shared The Courage to be DislikedMarshall shared Wordle, a fun and simple daily word game. Pro tip: start with snail and outer.Design Details on the Web:📻 We are @designdetailsfm🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock 🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes.Byeee!

This week, we share tips for crafting component variants to avoid the dreaded variant-explosion problem. In the Sidebar, we talk about Tesla’s latest UI refresh, where we see auto interfaces going in the future, and share some of our favorite car dashboard design details.Golden Ratio Supporters:Play — Play is the first native iOS design tool made for teams creating mobile products. Design, prototype, and collaborate, directly from your phone. With Play you can experience your design as you create it while taking full advantage of native iOS features not found in other design and prototyping tools. Full access invites available for the first 25 people here!The Sidebar:The Sidebar is an exclusive weekly segment for our Patreon supporters. You can subscribe starting at $1 per month for access to bonus content going forward! Sign up at patreon.com/designdetails.Latest VIP Patrons:Aneliya KyurkchiyskaLuciaMatthew AchariamAlan MillsJordanMejji LeTaylor VogelFilip SzafirowskiMain Topic:This week, we share tips for crafting component variants to avoid the dreaded variant-explosion problem.Bryan Maniotakis asks about Figma variants on GitHub: Based on your experience, is this method sustainable? Is forcing the user to hide/show layers a better option to reduce complexity? Should I break out the component into more subcomponents to create fewer variants, but which causes more clicking around?Cool Things:Brian shared the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock as a nice upgrade to your home’s deadbolts. Auto-locking and unlocking are great features, and the ability to share access with a partner or friends is awesome, too.Marshall shared Lian-Li UNI Fans, a modular, daisy-chainable fan module for your custom PC build.Design Details on the Web:📻 We are @designdetailsfm🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock 🙌 Support us on Patreon - your support literally makes this show possible. Thank you ❤️❓ Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)⭐️ Enjoying the show? Leave us a review on iTunes.Byeee!