April 03, 2019

290: Transitioning to Product Design

43 minutes

This week, we answer listener questions, including how to transition from engineering to product design, how to wrap up before moving to a new company, and what we think of apps that allow you to change the launch icon. In Follow-up, we read some listener feedback about last episode, and Marshall fills in a couple details on his file organization tips. In News, we lament the untimely death of AirPower (rip rip). And as always, we share a couple cool things like a sci-fi movie and a sci-fi book trilogy.

Sponsor:

>> Want to become a sponsor of Design Details yourself? Email [email protected] or [email protected] to get started :)

This week's episode is brought to you by Abstract

Abstract is design workflow management for modern design teams. With Abstract, you can bring your design workflow into a single, unified place for designers, developers, and stakeholders to collaborate and keep work moving forward. Sign your team up for a free, 30-day trial today by heading over to abstract.com. And if you tweet at @goabstract and @designdetailsfm, with the phrase “improve my design workflow” you’ll be entered for a chance to win a $500 credit to their Business plan.

Follow-up:

We had some good feedback from our last episode about design file hygiene:

Cal Rowston noticed a few gems among all the babbling

Tim Bendt could listen to layer organization tips forever (which is a totally normal thing btw)

Katherine's heart was warmed by Marshall's obsessive compulsions

Ryan Hayen wants to start a layer organization OCD support group

Anthony Collurafici pointed us to a Medium article by Andy Detskas that explains how to organize your artboards with serialization

Marshall adds a couple details to his file organization tips:

Layer Tools has a couple especially useful renaming actions: "Find and Replace..." and "Prepend/Append to Selected Layer Names..."

In addition to "thinking in divs," try to order the layers and groups in your Layer List just as they appear in the mock, from top-left to bottom-right

Keyboard Maestro is a super-powered macro utility for Mac

ICYMI, here's the Sketch file for Marshall's unsolicited NYT Crossword app redesign that he shared last episode as an example of maniacal file organizational

News:

AirPower has been cancelled:

Video: Phil Schiller announces the AirPower charging mat

Article: Apple cancels AirPower wireless charger

Article: "Apple's Phil Schiller explains why the white iPhone 4 took so long"

AirPower is pictured on the new AirPods packaging

Video: "The Death of Airpower: Explained!"

Listener Questions:

>> If you'd like to ask us a question, we're @designdetailsfm on Twitter, or email us: [email protected] or [email protected]

Sofia F asks what we think about apps like Streaks that offer different launch icons

We love it! Here are some other apps we use that do this:

Bear is "a beautiful, flexible writing app for crafting notes and prose"

Tweetbot is "a Twitter client with personality"

Pocket Casts is "the world's most powerful podcast platform"

Apollo is "a beautiful Reddit app built for power and speed"

David Lanham is an illustrator with an endearing style

Anonymous asks what we think about transitioning from Engineering to Product Design

Do some side projects or case studies to beef up your portfolio and gain some experience

Sit with your fellow product designers and offer to help wherever needed

Anonymous asks about transitioning to a new company

Leave your active projects in good shape, either finishing them yourself or handing them off to an informed successor

If you've already gotten an offer, they're probably gonna be cool with you wrapping up your active projects before transitioning

One Cool Thing:

Brian shared Prospect, a sci-fi movie about "a teenage girl and her father who travel to a remote alien moon, aiming to strike it rich"

Pedro Pascal

Sophie Thatcher

Andre Royo

The Wire is a show about the Baltimore drug scene, seen through the eyes of drug dealers and law enforcement

Marshall shared We Are Legion (We Are Bob), the first book in a sci-fi trilogy about a software engineer who unwittingly becomes an AI and humanity's last hope for survival

Ready Player One has a similar tone but tries a little too hard

Design Details on the Web:

We are @designdetailsfm

Brian is @brian_lovin

Marshall is @marshallbock

@Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are

Join the conversation on Spectrum or leave us a review on iTunes

BYEEEEE!

...more

View all episodes

By Brian Lovin, Marshall Bock

4.7

360360 ratings