Dive Club 🤿

Tom Johnson, a staff designer at Vercel, explores how his portfolio transformed into a playable 3D world. He shares the journey behind White Knuckle, a camper-route simulator, and Gretel, a tool that preserves AI prompts as design breadcrumbs. They also discuss AI-assisted workflows, creative identity, custom tools, and what designers contribute when machines can build almost anything.

Derek Briggs, a principal designer at Shopify blending product design, front-end development, animation, and systems thinking, explores how exceptional craft scales. He discusses the details behind Shopify’s shop.com carousel, custom easing systems, and collaboration-driven influence. They also examine design engineering, AI-powered research and tracking, preserving judgment through agent profiles, and hiring for AI-amplified creativity.

James McDonald, a visual designer known for distinctive digital experiences and brand systems, takes us behind his first design-and-build contract. He explores when to use Figma versus Claude, creating custom mini design tools, turning visual motifs into brand systems, and animating interfaces with AI. He also shares the evolution of Onlook’s visual language and how Claude helped him build a Mac app from scratch.

Kyle Barber, designer and startup co-founder with experience at Tinder, Facebook, and Airchat, takes us behind InFlight’s evolution. He and Rid unpack the leap from design-feedback marketplace to focused AI-era product, rapid iteration, timing bold ideas, and balancing craft with company survival. They also explore fundraising, founder strain, trust, faith, and building for a fast-changing future.

Myles Palmer, Design Director at Metalab, is a designer-builder blending code, systems, and AI. He reveals Oodles, Metalab’s internal platform for turning prompts into reusable 2D, 3D, physics, and interactive tools. They explore procedural typography, routing skills, Figma versus code, automated variations, collaborative infrastructure, and how curiosity fuels new creative possibilities.

Rhiannon Bell, Google Search’s VP of UX, shares her journey from self-taught designer to shaping products at global scale. She explores the design decisions behind AI Mode, making complex systems feel familiar, and balancing AI’s creative freedom with reliable guardrails. They also discuss prototyping in code, technical fluency, evolving design skills, and how systems create room for playful Search experiences.

Danny Martinez, CEO of Decimals, explores the rapidly changing design job market. They unpack what companies seek in design engineers, the green flags that matter now, and portfolios that beat pedigree. They also discuss standout interaction design, why brand roles are tough to fill, attracting sought-after talent, replacing interview theater with paid trials, and building a better candidate experience.

Geoff Teehan, co-founder of Teehan+Lax, former Facebook design leader, and Chief Design Officer at Lightspark, traces his journey from print design to payments infrastructure. He discusses finding meaning in enterprise work, building software with a tiny team, and creating the viral Dialed game. They explore AI-native makers, instant copying, collaborative critique, and software’s coming “parking spot” phase.

Nev Flynn, Head of Design at ElevenLabs, explores how artful expression can thrive in enterprise design. He discusses specialist talent, visualizing 40 million AI voices with shader orbs, and building agent-native design systems. They also delve into internal brand tools, emerging brand systems engineers, portfolio evaluation, and designing interfaces for entirely new AI capabilities.

Ed Bayes, a design lead at OpenAI working on Codex and ChatGPT Work, explores how teams prototype AI products six months ahead. He discusses turning Codex into an agent-first command center, making coding agents accessible, and designing dynamic interfaces shaped by future models. He also shares how persona-led teams, evaluation loops, live prototypes, and strong research partnerships influence product direction.