I think we're entering a world where the market for fractional design is about to explode…

So this week's episode is with one of my favorite people in the industry, Gabe Valdivia.

We're going to explore his independent journey → how he made the jump, how he's evolved the practice in year two, and all of the lessons he's learned along the way.

Some highlights:

• Gabe’s three-phase client model
• How to sell a client on fractional design
• Gabe’s rules of thumb for pricing himself
• How Gabe’s new apprenticeship program works
• How Gabe vibe-coded his personal Freelance OS
• How he has redefined success from year 1 to year 2
• Gabe’s journey to figure out how to position himself as an independent
• a lot more

• Charlie Sutton who he worked with on VR team at Facebook
• Team Human book by Douglas Rushkoff

Too much of designing a startup happens behind closed doors

So I want to work with the garage door open while building Inflight (https://www.inflight.co/) as much as possible.

You already saw a bunch of the nitty gritty UI details (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D39Dv9MSlhs)…

But when you’re going 0 to 1 on something, the storytelling piece is often the hardest part.

So this episode is a sneak peek of a recent presentation we gave in SF (and some behind-the-scenes commentary to go along with it).

What does it look like to advance your career in the age of AI?

That’s what this week’s episode with Dan Winer (Director of Product Design at Kit) is all about.

He shares insights from his top-rated Maven course "Strategy and Influence for Product Designers" (https://join.dive.club/dan-winer-course)

So if you want to learn how to go from pixel pusher to strategic partner then this is the episode for you 💪

Some highlights:

- Dan’s strategies for effective storytelling

- How to shine a light on the value of your work

- Tactics for building alignment across key stakeholders

- The 8 skills that Dan is evaluating in the hiring process

- Why design systems are becoming more important than ever

- Harsh truths designers don’t want to hear about their portfolio

- What to do if you don’t have data to prove the impact of your work

- + a lot more

This week's episode is with Andy Zhang who was the lead design engineer at Windsurf. So we're going to shine a light on all of the ways you can make an impact as a design engineer including:

• Owning more of the frontend polish
• Thinking through design patterns and packaging features
• Bridging the gap between technical features and intuitive UX
• Saying “no” to features to preserve the simplicity of the system

He also shares some great stories and advice including:

• What it was like working as an intern at Figma with <10 people
• How designers can start to get more comfortable with code
• How he taps into his experience as a PM at Uber while selecting the right design process
• a lot more

• Rasmus Andersson (https://x.com/rsms) - Designer/engineer at Figma, mentor to Andy
• Kevin Hou (https://x.com/kevinhou22?lang=en) - Lead product engineering at Windsurf, Andy’s basketball teammate who helped him get the job

I’d bet real money that you have been on Smashing Magazine at some point in the last 18 years…

Good news is, this week I got to interview the founder, Vitaly Friedman, who is also one of the leading thinkers in UX right now.

In this episode we go deep into how AI is changing the way we interact with digital products and how our patterns and processes are evolving as a result.

Some highlights:

• The use case for dynamic interfaces with AI
• How to design a less painful refinement journey
• The best AI design patterns to use for inspiration
• When to use quiet AI vs. visible AI in your interfaces
• Why more products should be “AI-second” not “AI-first”
• Why we need to slow users down when designing AI products
• How designers can establish trust when users interact with AI
• a lot more

• Consensus
• Elicit
• aiuxpatterns.com
• Episode with the Gamma Head of Design
• exa.ai
• Perplexity
• ChatGPT
• Gemini
• Norman Nielsen Group

If I told you someone had a background as a senior designer at companies like Uber, Dropbox, Apple, and Patreon then you'd be pretty impressed, right?

Same.

But Adam Noffsinger walked away from all of that to start Alma (which you might remember from the Smith+Diction episode).

So this episode is a deep dive into what it really looks like to go 0→1 as a design founder.

Adam even walks us through his Figma file for Alma so if you’re interesting in startups or designing something from nothing, then I think you’ll really enjoy this conversation 👇

This week’s episode is with Pietro Schirano who is the founder of the new design tool MagicPath and one of the true forward thinkers on AI. We go deep into the future of prototyping, design workflows, and what it takes to catalyze your career with AI.

Some highlights:

• How design workflows will evolve
• Using AI as a collaborator not just a tool
• How Pietro was able to build influence at Anthropic
• Why interactive prototypes are becoming table stakes
• What designers need to understand to master the models
• Why design architects will be the highest paid role in the future
• a lot more

• DesignerGPT (5 million users)
• TweakCN
• Origami (Facebook’s prototyping tool)
• Figma.ai domain purchase

This week I got an inside look at Figma Make while talking to Holly and Nikolas all about the future of prototyping…

We get into real world use cases for different kinds of prototypes and how our workflow is evolving as designers.

One thing is abundantly clear, things aren’t so linear anymore.

Some highlights:

• How Figma Make fits into your workflow
• Rethinking what “high fidelity” means for a prototype
• How code is the glue and what it means for collaboration
• What are the less obvious use cases for prototyping with AI
• Meta prototyping with interactive playgrounds and inspect panels
• a lot more

• Figma Make - AI-powered prototyping tool within Figma
• Variables in Figma
• Advanced Prototyping in Figma

Last month we did the ultimate Raycast Deep Dive, but there's a lot in there… so this week I want to highlight just the segment from the product design team.

We go deep into how they collaborate, why they’ve started shipping more code, and what it takes to build a culture obsessed with craft.

Don’t forget to use code DIVE20YT to get 20% off your first purchase of any Lovable plan ❤️ Valid until August 21, 2025. Go to dive.club/lovable to start creating

Full Raycast episode - The Raycast Deep Dive

This week, Gunnar Gray (Product Design Lead at Perplexity) dives into the art of designing AI-native experiences.

He shares lessons from shaping Voice Mode and how prototyping with AI is changing the design process at Perplexity.

Some highlights:

• Why Perplexity is racing to get ideas into code
• What it’s like designing at a hyper growth startup
• What it’s like designing dynamic voice experiences
• Gunnar’s journey learning metal shaders with Cursor
• How Gunnar strategically invests in his design skillset
• a lot more

• Perplexity - AI-powered search and discovery platform
• Cursor - AI-powered code editor
• Particle News app