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?

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.

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 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.

• Dakshi Khatri
• HeyStefan DotCom
• hugohil
• Xande Macedo
• Jim Carolan
• Daniel Sims
• Andreas Bockisch
• Charlie Gedeon
• silka sietsma
• Delilah Mokri
• Tom Fejér
• Kalv Sandhu
• Ori E.
• Niclas van Eyk
• Pepijn
• Julie Hoxie
• Brett Benner
• Mark Markov
• Destiny Joelle
• Meghan Martin
• Hamza Labrinssi
• Alexa Jarvis
• Clarke
• Omotayo Paul AJ

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?
  • Automator
  • Jordan Singer
• Carlos 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?

• Brian shared Hereditary: A grieving family is haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences.
  • Midsommar
• Marshall shared Atrioc, one of his favorite YouTubers. Start with this video.
  • Ludwig

• 📻 We are @designdetailsfm
  • 🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin
  • 🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock
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  • 🙌 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 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.

• Christian Rotzoll
• Zack Meredith
• JS
• Zach Geist
• Kates Hartman
• mike kenny
• Wilson
• Andre Diniz
• Mattias Kronberg

• Uhl Albert pointed out that “ruinous empathy” comes from the Radical Candor Framework.

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 Icons
• Iconic Icons
• Bootstrap Icons
• Ant Icons
• Material Design Icons
• Icons Toolbox
• Icon Sizes

• 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.

• 📻 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 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.

• Steve
• Jelte Bijkerk
• Oliver Stahl
• Kevin Hwang
• Yan Wu
• Parker Henderson
• Sam Xia
• James Morgan
• Hoyin
• Bradley Sedor
• Zachary Johnson
• Damien Shan
• Prerna Pradeep
• June
• Amie Chen
• Holden Tuffield
• Casey
• Emily Chen

• 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.

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.

• 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...

• 📻 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 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.

• Chris Calletta
• Anna Barta
• Jan Früchtl
• Michael Le
• Albin Groen
• kyle baldinger
• Henri Raadi
• Sara Sanguino

@smallmedium pointed out that bulk-detach exists in Figma — thanks for the tip!

This week, we talk about transitioning industries and how to bridge the quality gap in a new field.

• The Gap by Ira Glass

• 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?

• 📻 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.

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 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.

• Andrew Ambrosino
• Chris Roy
• Conor Mack
• Peter Carleton
• shanberg
• Patrick Marx
• Gabriel Valdivia
• Alessa
• Dorian Zlatan
• Aslam Marzook

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.

• 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.

• 📻 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.

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 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.

• Kevin Bennett
• Chris Carbo
• Eric
• Paula Ojansuu
• Tom Phillips
• ThatSid
• Max
• Anthony DiSpezio
• XJ Lu

• 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!

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 tweet

• 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!

• 📻 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.

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 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.

• John Casey
• Francis Wu
• mayra pulido
• usrnk1
• Michael Olson
• D
• Stacey Peterson
• Justin Haldane
• Dian Chen
• Declan Reilly-Gordon
• Alex Blanco
• Phoebe Hogeland
• TL
• Justin Buckamunth
• Sudhanshu Gautam
• Martin Banuelos
• Adam Stanford
• Tara Kirkland

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?

• 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 @elanovac
• Marshall 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.

• 📻 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.

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 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.

• Meredith Grubbs
• Brandon Schmittling
• Pablo González Day
• Zach Shea
• Pedro
• Alex Kayaian
• Justin Farrugia
• Austin Seeley
• Shrinkray
• Jeffrey Danese

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)
• Muse
• Metamuse Podcast
• Ink & Switch
• The Twelve-Factor App
• Go by Example
• The future of iPad
• Obsidian
• Roam Research
• Andy Matuschak
• Craft

• Brian shared Vampire Survivors, a fun little indie roguelike that is easily worth the price for many hours of chilled-out vampire evasion.
  • Hollow Knight
  • Dead Cells
  • Warm Snow
• Marshall shared Agent to the Stars, a fun and different approach to the alien visitor genre.

• 📻 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.

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 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.

• Derick Anies
• Natalie Helmer
• Toren Jens
• Morgan Quinn
• Sean Kennedy
• Dylan Rose
• Varun Thota
• Fernando Pegorini
• Akshitha Victor
• Marina Broido

This week, we share some (hopefully) non-obvious paths to level up at work and exceed the expectations for a senior++ product designer.

• Brian shared The Courage to be Disliked
• Marshall shared Wordle, a fun and simple daily word game. Pro tip: start with snail and outer.

• 📻 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.

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 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.

• Aneliya Kyurkchiyska
• Lucia
• Matthew Achariam
• Alan Mills
• Jordan
• Mejji Le
• Taylor Vogel
• Filip Szafirowski

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?

• 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.

• 📻 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!