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- [00:00]
A
I think if you want to get to a place where you do something special, most of the things we are taught won't give you that result. That's why I started doing these designs beginning of the year, because I wanted to get to ground truth. Like, do the things I feel strongly about actually resonate with other people. Like, what happens if I do something when no one tells me to change it? I'm my own dream client, basically, and I'm going with my gut.
- [00:25]
B
Welcome to Dive Club. My name is Rid, and this is where designers never stop learning. This week's episode is with Sam Peitz, who I think became my new favorite Design follow in 2024, because he's sharing these really creative experiments, and they're obviously resonating because they consistently go viral. So we're going to do a little deep dive into his creative process and what it's like building with all of these new AI tools. So let's start by diving right in to his most recent exploration.
- [00:57]
A
I. I spent all weekend building this little thing. I haven't spoken with anyone, like, in a while. I was, like, doing voice notes this morning. I'm like, damn, where's my voice?
- [01:06]
B
What were you building this weekend?
- [01:08]
A
And that little imessage bubble I posted where you can, like, put in, but it's. I got there, like, as a Friday night. I'm like, this is kind of a neat idea. And I did it, And I got 90 there, and then the last 10, I, like, rebuilt this 20 times. And I'm not kidding, I started doing it. Then there's a big blur. And suddenly was Sunday night. I'm like, what just happened?
- [01:28]
B
How do you go from normal weekend plans to the blur of two days of making?
- [01:34]
A
So I did these imessage bubbles because it's like, the aesthetic, and it looked like an aquarium. And I put in emojis, like, fish emojis. Like, it just looks good. It looks pleasing, this bubble, like, big on a screen. And then I thought, I don't even know what I'm doing this for, but I want to make it interactive so people can add their own message. So I open up v0 and figma. I did the design at figma, uploaded the SVG to v0. I didn't do any coding. I literally just back and forth, like, do this, do that. And then it was, like, done. And I was like, would be cool. Add a little animation when it comes in. So edit the animation. It took way longer, and then it was, like, nearly perfect. And then I was like, I wanted people to not just take a screenshot, but just download it in high res. So I added that, but then it was like rendering the downloaded bubble and text differently from the website, but just like marginal. Like, it wasn't like perfectly centered and then it was never ending. I downloaded at least I would say like 3,000 wallpapers. Just testing how it works, like on mobile, like, ridiculous for basically something that isn't, like, it does nothing. It's just like a bubble of text. So, yeah, started Friday night, and then Sunday was Sunday night. And I know, like in my head I'm like, I think I'm hungry. I'm just doing one more.
- [02:49]
B
There's so much to unpack there. And I think I am going to use this as the entry point for the conversation now because I want to learn a little bit more about you. Because for so many people, we just see these explorations on Twitter, we have no idea what actually goes into spending an entire weekend barely eating, making this imessage style export in V0. How is this weekend and even this obsession with this idea that you're bringing to life a reflection of who you are as a designer? Why are you so motivated to make something like this?
- [03:22]
A
The first spark when I, like, was playing around with the imessage stuff. There was something that I really liked and that got me excited. I want to produce it. I'm not trying to get anything else out of it other than getting that thing in my head out. So that's why I also like Twitter, because it's a good cutoff point that the moment I press upload, I'm like, I'm done with it. There's nothing else that needs to happen. When I do a static image or small little animation, those phases don't last that long. So I have something in my head and mostly I envision it in my head. And then 90% of the thing is done. Like, I've got the idea, I've got the feeling I want to convey, and I've got a design. And then I jump into Figma and I'm done in like 30 minutes, up to an hour. But then that's it. I'm like, okay, but with the code side now that half an hour, just now can go on for too long, I guess. And then suddenly it's like three days.
- [04:15]
B
Real quick message, and then we can jump back into it. There's been a lot of talk on this show about quality and velocity. And the biggest hack that I've seen is having designers who can ship directly to production. And now Desen is making it so that designers everywhere can do just that without having to write any code. Everyone's talking about how LLMs can 10x developers, but Desen is laser focused on how LLMs can 10x designers. It's one of the tools I'm most excited about right now and they're giving away early access to the dive community. So head to Dive Club Desen to learn more. That's D E S sn. All right, I have a secret for you. I'm working on a new company behind the scenes and it's built specifically for designers like you that listen to this show. And honestly, I'm just too excited about it. So I have to give you a sneak peek. Head to Dive Club Startup, to get a little glimpse of what's coming next. Okay, now on to the episode. I want to talk about the code piece, but maybe we can put a pin in that for now and give people just a little bit of context for who you are and your journey because you recently left the agency and kind of branding world. So can you talk to us about that decision and where you're at as a designer?
- [05:32]
A
So I've been in branding the last 10 years. I started in like a small agency. We did everything, print small stuff, add correct versions of After Effects, Photoshop and all of these fun things. Back when I was like 15, I was doing skateboard videos. I was doing counter strike animations and highlight reels, so a lot of motion and photography and video and that transitioned into logos and wallpaper designs for YouTube. And then I studied design because I thought it's probably the next thing to do. And during my studies I got more into digital. And then in the end, like I did my bachelor's doing Covid. So I moved back home, did my bachelor thesis and then I had to decide what to do next. And my first idea was to go into startups because I like products. And then I found this branding studio, coto. They opened a studio in Berlin and the work was really cool because they were working with all these interesting startups and companies I was interested in as well, but on the branding side. So I worked at COTO for the last three years, a bit over three years. And at the end of it, beginning of the year, I just felt I wanted to go deeper into product because in the branding world it's mostly branding and it's less product. So I started doing little product stuff by myself after work and, well, like March, I guess, of this year, where I started posting things on Twitter just after work. And it started with text OS because I was also a bit burned out by colors and gradients and fonts because I was doing it every day. I did hundreds of brands and a lot of these things don't get out there. So you do like four different brands for client and then they kind of decide on one or two and it goes back and forth. So I was doing a lot of work with colors, visually interesting, but after a while it gets. I got a bit burned out. So I was like, I want to do more product and also I want to focus on the product and not on the visual side. So that why text os? I gave myself only the Notes app to design that. So you only have the standard iOS font and like the ASCII kind of art things. Like the first one was the weather app and then I posted and it was received quite well.
- [07:47]
B
I was at a Christmas party this weekend and I was talking to an artist, somebody who does a lot of painting, and he talked about how artists frequently place rather extreme constraints on themselves when they are going into a project. Like, I can only use this type of medium, I can only use this type of technique. And it's interesting to hear you talk about that same idea for text os.
- [08:11]
A
It's like standing in a grocery store and you have a million different brands to pick and only having a couple of tools just it frees you up a bit in your mind because you can focus on very specific functions and tasks and then everything else you can always add. There's beauty in the defaults because it's very honest. There's nothing, there's no like second layer. The same with, I mean the dribble stuff. I did like the sketch. It's like a. The big pen aesthetic. I did this running app that is all handwritten and scribbled. It looks like you like doodling on a piece of paper. And for me that's more of a challenge to do. To take something that is quite ordinary and still make it appealing.
- [08:56]
B
Let's talk about that a little bit. Because that scribble esthetic was how I originally found you. I think it was the running app. And immediately I was like, whoa, this is one of the coolest things that I've seen in a long time.
- [09:08]
A
I saw this album cover that has this big brushstroke on the COVID I just thought this looks interesting, looks like a path, like your hand drawn path. And my first idea was I'm just going to try to recreate this in Figma. But Figma doesn't have brushes, right? Just the pen. So I was like, okay, I'm going to figure out later. I just use the pen tool to do kind of, like recreate and look kind of interesting already. And then I changed it to blue because I thought, this looks like a big pen. And I just thought it's interesting to trace your walk or your run without the map because it's more abstract and it's less pressure. All these running apps that like all these. The whole data stuff, which is also good, I think it has its place. But I wanted something that even if I give it to my grandma and she walks around the village, she would enjoy. Because you're making something like you're making art out of a stroll through the park. I just didn't want to bring any more elements into it because then it kind of bloats the whole thing and gets more app. And I like to go all in with one thing because it's also, I think, pleasing on the eye to, like, go full with one style. Like, go all in. And from idea to posting it, it was like 40 minutes maybe. So there wasn't really a process before, but I saw something and then I think, I guess the trick is to immediately act on the idea and not like, push it back or like, just write it down. So I jumped in and then half of the app came during me playing around in Figma. And then I didn't really like it more or less than other stuff I did. And it just. But people seemed to like it. So it was interesting because the amount of effort was so small in comparison to when I think back to my day job where we spent so much time on a brand to make it really kind of nice. Like, a lot of hours go in, but the results for this small little doodle that I did were, like, way bigger than anything else.
- [11:11]
B
It was everywhere. It was everywhere. I saw it, like, consistently for a week on Twitter to the point where for months I associated you with that aesthetic. I have it on mood boards for a company that I'm working on and even like your website. It's really cool to see how you've taken that same idea and reimagine what a portfolio site could look like now.
- [11:30]
A
To the time you put into something doesn't correlate with the outcome. Yeah, but it was. It came from a place of true interest and joy and just trying something out. And not. I didn't look at other running apps or because I didn't have the time, I just jumped in and start scribbling.
- [11:49]
B
Themes that I'm Noticing in conversations with designers who I view as more creative, artistic at least than myself are one. Drawing inspiration from the physical world. And then also this idea of just acting on inspiration in the moment and not like adding it to a list.
- [12:08]
A
In the past, I often had ideas, and then instead of immediately going for it, I kind of kept ruminating about it. And it's like, oh, if I do this app, this could be like cool merch. And then the website, it could be the second app, and this whole E commerce store, whatever. And it gets so big in your head that it gets overwhelming again. And then you just never stop doing it because you don't know how to attack it. So keeping it very focused on one idea, that really helped me to actually create more. Because now there's one idea I want to convey, and it could be just one screen. It doesn't have to be functional. It could be. It could live between real and kind of fantasy, somewhere in between. As soon as you go back and make, like, a grand plan, it's more difficult to execute because you overwhelm yourself.
- [12:59]
B
Yeah. All of a sudden you have to think about the entry points to the idea rather than jumping on what you already had in your head.
- [13:06]
A
Totally. And also the outcome. When you get inspired, the thing you see in your head immediately in your mind, and it's not the users or likes or kind of ROI on what you're doing, it's so you're not attached to any specific outcome other than your vision, which gets harder and harder the more time passes because your mind jumps into action and tries to rationalize stuff.
- [13:30]
B
Can you talk a little bit more about where you find yourself drawing inspiration from?
- [13:34]
A
Most of the times when I get inspired by something, it's not because I was looking to get inspired. It's you see something and it resonates with you. You see a picture or sticker. That's why I like Arena a lot. Because on arena, there's a lot of ordinary things on there. You know, it's not as stylized as Cosmos or Pinterest. On Cosmos and Pinterest, there's a lot of things that have already been made. It's like an end result. On arena, there's a lot of, like, paper clips and pictures of stamps or PDF, manuals of an old vacuum cleaner, things that aren't artistic looking from the outside. They're very standard and kind of default stuff. Just random, everyday things. And I think those are the most fascinating because you can look at these things and then there's something charming about them. And Then my brain goes straight into how could this be interactive or product or something? So I always try to keep part of my mind open to realize when I see something that is interesting or resonates in any shape or form. And a lot of times I don't know what's it's going to be good for. So I have these folders, just random things so I don't forget them. And sometimes you see something else and then suddenly you connect both of these things in your mind and then you got something. I was like, okay, this is cool. Like I've got this hand drawn thing over here. I've seen this animation in a different place and then suddenly you just combine dots. So it's just this little voice that I try to keep, to hone. Because you can go through life resonating with stuff and you feel good about something. You see a poster and you feel like, oh, this is interesting. And then you just continue with your day. Actually you can practice to stop and then take a picture. And then it gets easier and easier to recognize these little things that you emotionally resonate with.
- [15:27]
B
You talked to me about your desire to put the art back into product design. Can you unpack what you mean by that?
- [15:34]
A
For us, there's a lot of products that are very useful and do. What do you expect them to do? But I think now after, I don't know, 25 years of the Internet and digital products, we are now at a point where we can do more expressive things and bring these kind of graphic design, artistic worlds in the same world of products. Especially with AI now you can just do way more with a, just by yourself or a small team and it's more interesting. I think there's so many great artists out there. I feel like we're missing. You can see it. So there's now more kind of artisan little apps that are fun and as you said, we've kind of solved all the major problems of life. So now we have to, I guess we need to figure out why to live. I don't want to sound too cliche, but there needs to be something more. You know, there's so many products that have like that tagline is that they save you hours in the day, but then what do we do with those hours? I think the unwritten sub headline is like, then we can do more work, but I don't think that's very compelling. So we interact with our phones all the day and I think it should be in a place that isn't just news and noise and work. And productivity. I think we should have things that are more fun and enjoyable and actually give more than they take. If you watch reels and these things, most of the times afterwards you feel drained. I think we can make products that don't make you feel that way. That probably also part of it is to make products that don't want to be used eight hours a day.
- [17:12]
B
Yeah, or by everyone in the world either too. Every product is designed for scale which forces them to be more generic. Where like something like your scribble running app is so incredibly niche. I hope that we're entering into a world where we will see more niche software which allows for more expression because it's designed specifically for a smaller group of people.
- [17:36]
A
No, I agree with the running app. A lot of the people commenting and liking were outside the UX UI bubble, kind of everyday people. There was older people, like young people, which I really enjoyed because that's what I'm trying to do. I could post like high polished buttons and stuff every day, which would probably get some positive feedback in this UX UI bubble. But I want to do some like things I can give to my mom and she enjoys doing. I think that's my approach. It's also my website kind of. I want to do things for humans. And that's not just UX UI product design world, it's everyone.
- [18:13]
B
I think part of the reason why I find your work so inspiring is deep inside, almost everyone listening has this desire to break outside of this clean, minimalistic box, this polished box, and do something way out in left field that's deeply novel or maybe connects with expressions that we enjoyed even as kids or something, you know. And so like it's a hard thing to do though, to take that big of a step back from this playground that I play in every single time that I open up Figma.
- [18:44]
A
It's really hard. If you have a full time job that demands a lot of you and then you get home, it's probably the last thing you want to do is like look at Figma again. I get that. But it's also important if you want to do these things just to make time for it and not lose your interest. And I couldn't tell you what the right way to approach that is other than being aware of your thoughts and your ideas and then acting on them as fast as possible.
- [19:12]
B
How do you think about your own ability to make a career in a way that is fulfilling to you at this level, versus just joining a company, collecting a paycheck and solving problems with.
- [19:24]
A
Design well, after working in branding for so long in the beginning of the year and quitting my job, I was very intentional about that. This year will be for output and doing things I really love without the intention of making money off of it. I was still working, I still had other jobs. But the things I posted on Twitter were purely for me wanting to do things. And I think detaching it from some outcome or some job you want to do is very important because if you connect and you want to please someone else or you want to design in a way that the company you like kind of they approach it, you're again changing what you actually want to do. That's also why you don't really find a lot of the things I did in my branding job because I liked, I'm proud of the work I've done, but it wasn't the stuff I wanted to do in the future. So I basically got rid of all of that and took this year basically and used Twitter as my public portfolio of things I want to work on. And if you're interested and you feel similar, the right people will find you. So in some sort you do have to start with kind of a pure intention of this is the work I want to continue doing. And you have to find an audience because if you share the things you're really passionate about, the right people will find you. And it's not always like a million followers or like 10,000 followers. Maybe sometimes you do stuff that is very niche, but the people that are passionate about these things will find you.
- [20:54]
B
I used to think so much about education and different learning platforms, but I wasn't working in education and I just spent weekends prototyping this dashboard for homeschool parents. And I'm sure like 20 people total saw this prototype. But one of the people that saw the prototype had an education business and reached out and I ended up joining that company. And it like got me on the career track that I wanted to be on because I wanted to work on education. And I owe almost all of it to those random little explorations. I remember I was sitting at my grandparents house in a love seat and I put it on dribble at the time and it changed everything for me.
- [21:33]
A
It's, it's funny you say that because it's exactly my experience all the stuff that got me connected with really interesting people were designs that didn't get a lot of feedback or didn't like get the numbers or things that I posted on like niche websites, wasn't even Twitter. And then sometimes even Months later, after I posted it, suddenly you get an email from someone who was doing something similar.
- [21:59]
B
It makes sense. When you do something that's really niche, it speaks so clearly to, like, a very small set of people where it was the same thing for me, too. Like, it was almost probably four or five months after I hit send on that image and then forgot about it. Someone found it.
- [22:16]
A
And if you keep posting stuff that you're not super passionate about, but you kind of put so much time into it, I don't want to get it, let it get to waste. I feel like that's the wrong way to do it, because you will keep getting requests to do similar things.
- [22:30]
B
Yeah.
- [22:31]
A
So you're stuck in this loop. So at some point, you have to break out and just do a couple of things you really want to be doing and you really feel passionate about. And as you said, if you put it out there, the right people will find you.
- [22:45]
B
That's what stood out to me when you were just talking, is how I'm sure the branding work that you did was very good, but you made an intentional decision to not attach yourself to that, because it's not the type of work that you want to do in the future.
- [22:55]
A
In the beginning, I had my portfolio, and we did a lot of rebrands and branding for crypto, and I kept getting hit up by people that wanted to do these kind of brands. I'm like, I don't really, really want to do it anymore. So I just had the conscious decision, okay, let's scrap this. Let's have a body of work that is me that I'm excited about, and if someone sees it, they know what they're getting, and I know I will be happy.
- [23:19]
B
I underestimated how much you can get trapped in an aesthetic, too. Like, I've heard a couple people talk about it, but I did a web design for a client I don't know a few months ago for the first time in a long time. Like, I hadn't done client work, and I probably had six or seven other companies reach out and like, hey, can you make that for us? Like, they just want. One of them was even a competitor, and they just wanted the exact same esthetic. And it's like, oh, man, I can see how you could get a little bit trapped.
- [23:49]
A
Totally. I mean, I still get a lot of people that really like the text OS style, especially from engineers, because it seems to resonate. And I'm like, I haven't done anything in this style in six months. If you look at my Recent stuff, it's very different. So it was also. First of all, I get bored of the single style after a while. I feel like the text OS and the scribble, I kind of pushed it to what I thought is interesting, and then I got a bit bored again. And then I started doing more stuff with 3D scans, and that kind of morphed into a different style. And then again, now with the iOS bubble, I feel like I'm also kind of done with that.
- [24:27]
B
Do you already have a new one in your brain? Like, do you know what's next?
- [24:30]
A
Not really, but I do. Like, started combining stuff as well, like parts of the text OS with a scribble. I did one that was the letter where I had, like, these open letters, and I combined it with the scribble at some point and the layout of text OS with, like, very simple buttons. So it is fun to mix and match again.
- [24:51]
B
You push it so far, too. I think that is a key where it's, like, a lot of times for myself, like, I have an idea. I know that it's a kind of unique. Take, for instance, as an example, like, I've been working on this new brand, and I've been thinking a lot about, like, man, what if a website was a wall, Like a vertical wall rather than a flat pane? And what if everything on the website was as if I was hanging it on this wall and kind of jutting off, and I'm like, you know, there's something there, right? Like, I can do something interesting there with, like, backlighting and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, a month later, I explored it and it just was so dumbed down where it didn't really. It was. It was subtle, right? Like, it wasn't actually as interesting. And I think, like, that's the thing that you're doing that. At least for myself, it's a little bit scary to just push it so far, like, to take it to the extreme. Like, if I really made this, not only an accent in the aesthetic, but everything revolved around this idea, you know.
- [25:53]
A
I don't know why it is, but I always thought the same. And when we had clients where the idea was very pure and we went all in, like, for this one thing, like, all stickers or all hand drawn, and then, as you said, it's kind of scary for clients sometimes, and we kind of rolled it back and then adding, making it more subtle, lost the initial appeal, and then go back after months and like, oh, the first design was the most appealing. I'm not sure why this is, but it's the same with art, right? You could have like very futuristic house. And it's kind of appealing because it's completely like flat lined and glass windows and stuff. But then you see this kind of cathedral, which is the opposite, which is also pleasing because they went all in. And I think it's not different with design because I could have started making normal buttons for the running app, but I think the cool thing was that it's like all the buttons and icons were also hand drawn. It's very hard to go all in because suddenly your brain comes back in. Like, is this too much? And they want. Also sometimes you like, oh, I saw this other design, which is also cool with those gradients and you try to merge them, but it doesn't work. But I really like the wall idea. You should go for it and then really go for it. Because the cool thing is now once you have the wall idea, you've got all these other ideas, like, oh, maybe there's graffiti on the wall. And then, oh, we could have different lighting because the wall is probably outside and there's like rain. And then suddenly you've got this idea and you can pull like rabbits out of a hat. And it doesn't feel like work. It's just like the idea is so pure and so kind of natural that you just can go like forever.
- [27:33]
B
It makes seeking out inspiration more fun too. Like, once I had that idea. Now I'm in Pinterest and I'm looking for different signage. And I mean, I spent like, I actually am not even gonna say the amount of hours on this podcast because I'm. It's almost embarrassing. But like, I spent so much time looking on signage and like, I became obsessed with like the metallic plates that actually had the writing in negative space. Like they were cutouts. And then you have recessed lighting behind it. I was like, man, what would it look like to have a button that is metal and the text is. It's subtracted from the shape itself. And then you can like illuminate it with some kind of like, backlight. You're inspiring me. Maybe I need. Maybe I need to bring it back out.
- [28:15]
A
Totally the cool. Now that you talk about it, I guess I've never thought about it this way, but every time I start something new with a new kind of esthetic, I apply like, physical rules about it. If it's a hand scribbled app, everything else in the universe is getting dictated by that, so should be probably a paper static. And if I want to switch the screen. Because now we, in this world of like a pen, a pencil and a piece of paper, if I swipe, it should probably be swiping between pages. And then in my head I see this whole desk full of like, pens and papers. And if you zoom out, you probably see the desk. It's not like I'm having an idea, it just reveals itself because you have very kind of tangible rules around it. As the same with your wall. Right. It's. If you stop adding buttons that are very digital doesn't make sense anymore. You should probably have a sign that is bolted to the wall that is a button.
- [29:11]
B
I think it's a big difference between having a motif that's tied to something that is physical in the real world versus an online aesthetic, too. It's like the physical world places more constraints which can lead you to more interesting places. Whereas when we're designing something that, you know, it's like retrofuturism, it's totally enough to say, well, that looks really cool. And it's like, totally. It does. It looks really, really cool. But it is almost easier maybe to arrive at that place. Whereas if you are constrained by this paper world that you're creating for yourself, you have to take more risks in order to align with physics.
- [29:52]
A
In this case, it also rules out a lot of stuff because it doesn't make sense. So it's actually easy on your decision making in that way where you already know the rules. And sometimes I do the same. Like a lot of the. The male design stuff. Yeah, Done with a friend, Christian Wagner. And the funny thing is, as soon as we started, we were having the same thoughts on all of these things because we had rules, and suddenly it's like, oh, but the letter. Maybe it comes into a letterbox. Maybe the letterbox is then connected to a house, which is basically your profile, so you can visit friends and suddenly like, dude, we have to learn fucking 3D and make this in unity or something. Because now it's kind of. We went too far with some of the thoughts. But it's so easy and playful to come up with this world and these rules. And it's just nice because you don't have to. Every time you try to add something else that doesn't make sense, you can just rule it out. So in a sense, I think it's a way more fun way to work.
- [30:54]
B
Hey, it's rid. I'm constantly asked about my favorite product, so I'm going to take just one minute and give you a quick rundown of my Stack Desen is how I ship design changes without having to code. Framer is how I build my websites. Genway is how I do research. Jitter is how I animate my designs and Play is how I design and prototype mobile apps. Visual Electric is how I generate all, all of my imagery. And Raycast is my shortcut every step of the way. Now, I've hand selected these companies to partner with me so that I can do these episodes full time. So the best way by far to support the show is to check them out. You can find the full list@dive.club/partners. Okay, now on to the rest of the episode. Let's talk about the letter app for a second because, you know, I've spent so many years pushing prototyping and Figma as far as I can. And here you are, you basically started in March and that letter prototype is really cool. Like you figured some stuff out there. So talk to me about how you approach learning in general.
- [31:59]
A
I mean, the learning part is definitely. I just want to get to a result that I have in my head. So I'm not the person that knows Figma in and out or any other program. I have these things. I'm like, I'm brute forcing my way through it to get to the end result. And with the letter I was playing with like opening letters and stuff, I thought it's an interesting dynamic to open a letter. I wasn't watching any tutorials or anything. I just wanted to see how I can get to a place that looks convincing and is fun. It was. That was really fun because I had the mechanic. The mechanic was the main thing. And then the letter app kind of resulted out of that. It was just like so fun to play with the prototype on my phone. So it was very much play.
- [32:43]
B
Yeah, I watched the GIF just loop for a while trying to figure out. I was like, how would I have, how would I have done that?
- [32:48]
A
Yeah. It's also, you know, partly me being lazy and I'm not. I don't want to learn another program. I'd rather push figma until my MacBook explodes. And in the end it actually takes me more time to do like I have these animations and stuff where like type writes inside of Figma. Like in the prototype it looks like I'm typing in, which takes hours because you have to animate every letter and then time, time it right and all of these things. Like it took me so long. I was like, nope, I'm not downloading anything else. I just want to get it to work which is also fun. I think it's really fun to push a program to its limits and see what you can do.
- [33:28]
B
What about V0? I've seen some of your explorations. I saw the receipt web app that you made. But can you talk about some of the very first times that you opened it up? What did you do?
- [33:39]
A
I've been using webflow since this came out, so I've been pushing webflow in interesting ways. And then I was playing with Cursor as well. I did a couple of iOS apps with cursor a month ago, and then I've seen V0 here and there, but I just didn't have anything to build inside of it, so I wasn't that interested. And then when I did the receipt website, that was the first time where, like, I had the idea and in my head I was going, oh, I can do this webflow. And then I was like, oh, no, actually, maybe V0 works. So I did the design in Figma and then I just played around. I uploaded the actual receipt SVG from Figma in V0 and I just, like, played around until it worked. So it was very much, again, just trial and error and trying to get to the vision that I had in my head. The cool thing about these things, especially the web stuff, is how AI sometimes gives you weird stuff that then gets you inspired to do other stuff. It's similar in Photoshop if you by accident increase the font size like 240 instead of 24. And Sunny looks kind of interesting, you know. And it's the same with AI. It just sometimes does really weird stuff. And that gets me inspired and I'll just roll with it. These AI programs, they get you there. They get to the finished thing super quickly. Like, the first 90% are very easy. Everything that seems or you would think is easy then takes, like, so long. Like, the last 10% is like, excruciating. So that's why it's also good to know some code and actually go in and change some stuff by hand. But I'm not that good. But yeah, it is very fun because I'm probably better in explaining my thoughts than actually kind of programming it. And it also forces you to get very specific with your thoughts and your ideas. Because in my head, it's very obvious then to tell it to a machine, you have to be very specific. It's like explaining something to a child, which is funny.
- [35:45]
B
I was working on a projections app. Like, normally I would get into Excel to do some basic business model forecasting, and I was trying to explore different variables. And maybe it still would have made sense to do it in Excel. But I kind of. Same place was like, oh, what if I. What if I did this in quad? I wonder if I could make it. Like, you talk about beginning this conversation. You were talking about just constantly saying, oh, one more, one more. And like rerunning it over and over again. That was me a few days ago, where it's like, oh, but what if I did this? Oh, but what if I did this? And the next, you know, like, I'm so deep down the rabbit hole building this full, like, modeling experience. I didn't write any code. And I got somewhere that I was so proud of. Like, I, like, grabbed my computer and went downstairs and showed my wife. I'm like, look at this thing that I made. Like, it was so life giving.
- [36:38]
A
That's so cool. I had this exact same. When I did the first Cursor kind of iOS app, I was doing this daily image journal, I guess.
- [36:47]
B
Yeah, I saw that.
- [36:48]
A
I made it in like the first version of it in like two hours. And my grandma was there and my mom. I was like, running back, like, look at this. I made this. You can actually use it. I was like a child.
- [36:58]
B
Yeah.
- [36:58]
A
And then to get it to a point where I actually wanted to push it, it took like another two weeks. So I got there like 90%. And it's like, you know, you get to a point where if you have to do one more prompt, your head will explode. You will go insane. So I'm like, I'm looking at the clock. I'm like, okay, I'm doing one more hour. And then I'm like, I have to eat something. And suddenly, like, the hours over and you're like, okay, maybe two more hours. And it's like, never ending.
- [37:23]
B
Yeah. I think it was this past week I was working on a Christmas party invite in Claude. And, you know, obviously there's a million different Evite services that I could use, but I was like, what if I just built my own from scratch? And I was like, I'm not going to go that very far. I'll just play with it for like 440 minutes. And then those 40 minutes were gone. It's a slippery slope, but it's addicting in a way that, man, if you're listening to this and you haven't played with one of these tools, like, just truly approaching it as play.
- [37:55]
A
Yeah.
- [37:55]
B
It's so fun like that. It is so, so fun.
- [37:58]
A
But it only works if you have an idea.
- [38:00]
B
Yes.
- [38:01]
A
Like, it's very hard that like to go into ChatGPT or Claude or Cursor and you like, okay, now what? And sometimes that's why I didn't jump onto these things. I knew they were around for the last year or two, but I never had something in my head that was compelling and I knew I would just like burn myself if I now jump in. I wouldn't have a good time. So once I had the idea for this really simple iOS app, then it was like, no holding back. And then they're really fun and it's back and forth and it's mind boggling and you go insane. But it's super fun. Yeah.
- [38:34]
B
How much of a coding background do you have?
- [38:36]
A
Not a lot. In university I'd like a basic HTML and CSS course and then I got into webflow. So I'm redoing my. I still do it, but I've done done it for the last 10 years where we do my website like three times a year. And that was my kind of exercise of no one can tell me what to do, I'm the creative director, I can do whatever and you can't tell me to change it. So that was my kind of rebellious thing to do my own website. So I went into webflow and you know, just using those tools, you kind of are forced to learn some code along the way if you want to do something special. I mean, one website I did was I implemented some like spline 3D scan. So you have to like, you have all these different programs, you kind of have to jam together. And I'm going down forums and copying like snippets and stuff so I can get my way around by no means programmer or anything close to that.
- [39:32]
B
I'm sure so many people listening have told themselves that they're going to redo their website for the last like three years. And here you are doing three redesigns.
- [39:40]
A
Per year again, you can't let yourself give yourself the time to think about. You just have to jump in and you have to be excited about. It's not like, oh, now I want to do a redo my website. I just see something that is inspiring and I'm like, the website is such a good testing ground for different aesthetics. And because there's no pressure as well, you're not like doing it for anyone else or it's just purely playground. It's a cool little kind of hack to just try out new stuff on your website and it's your calling card bet.
- [40:10]
B
All right, so this is going to be a little Bit of a hard left here. But you said something to me earlier. You said everything we are taught is complete bullshit. So what's something that designers are taught that you think more often we can ignore?
- [40:26]
A
I think if you want to get to a place where you do something special, most of the things we are taught won't give you that result. Like even how you design apps, there's like, you can't have any friction. It needs to be super user friendly. Like anyone on this planet has to be able to use this. And if you follow that and do like a B testing, you get to a place that we are in right now where every app looks very much the same and it's good. If you have a company or product that does reach millions, you will. You want to make sure people like, know where the settings are and like the menu bar looks similar, but it just doesn't look interesting. So I feel like learn the skills to do these things. I think they're good. And then like the old saying, and then you can break the rules. A lot of people, and me included, you start a job when you're younger and then basically the first couple of years is you repressing everything you think because, like more senior people tell you what to do, which is good in a lot of things because it's like basic stuff. But after a while it's very hard to consciously transition from, okay, I know these things now, but because at some point you have to start following your gut because otherwise you will always need someone to tell you what to do. But that's not very fulfilling. So at some point you need that testing ground to actually go with what you think is right. And that's a very tricky transition, I feel like, which again, doing your own website are like small experiments that go in that direction.
- [41:58]
B
It reminds me of something that Dennis, he's the founder of Amy, the calendar app he was talking about and he was saying how the only way to create something that is truly unique and really has like soul in the design is it has to come from inside of you. It can't come from some external process or even like creative collaboration to an extent, because there always will be this dumbing down of that initial inspiration piece.
- [42:27]
A
I agree. Yeah, no, I totally agree. Having a job in a company that is, I guess, more than just you. Like, there's more people involved. It's really hard to test your own ideas because as you said, they will always change because there's more people involved. And again, that what. That's why I started doing these Designs beginning of the year, because I wanted to get to ground truth. Like, do the things I feel strong about actually resonate with other people. Like, what happens if I do something when no one tells me to change it? I'm my own dream client, basically, and I'm going with my gut. And even if it's not perfect, I can still learn and I can take that feedback.
- [43:05]
B
Even, like, the departure from the traditional design process comes to mind because so much of what we associate as like the I wireframe, write out my problem statements, Personas, I, all this kind of stuff that is what you would expect to see on every portfolio website from someone earlier in their career is like the boot campification of design. It has to be a thing that works for everyone. Everyone should be able to follow this process. And it's like, well, if that's the case, then by definition, you won't be doing something that only you can uniquely do.
- [43:39]
A
I think a lot of that is also like play pretend and people doing it because people before them have done it. And there's all these design processes with the fancy words and stuff. But in the end, what is the result? That is the only thing that matters, right? Even with my process in quotes, there's no real process. It's. I have a gut feeling, I have an idea, I just go for it. My Figma looks ridiculous. I don't sit down and like, do post it notes or like brainstorm sessions.
- [44:09]
B
It sounds like a lot of your design process is actually happening in your mind's eye.
- [44:12]
A
Yeah, most of it. There is a difference between doing design as like a craft where you go in, you have a specific outcome and you want to do like, flows and there's a bigger product in the background and you're like part of the team and there's stuff you just have to get done that's very different from the things I post on Twitter because they're like, way on the other end of the spectrum. It's like more like art or graphic design and none of this, like, right or wrong.
- [44:39]
B
My hope is that more people get to experience that because the fact is, most people listening probably work on B2B software, you know, where it's like they don't have that kind of blank canvas and it is cool. There's a lot of joy and fulfillment from solving complex problems with design, for sure. My hope is that we are moving towards a world where a variety of factors come together, where there's more space for designers to, you know, follow their gut. As you were talking about whether that's more opportunities to work for themselves, more opportunities to build their ideas like you're doing. There is something that is freeing from doing that type of design, and I just hope more people get to experience it.
- [45:23]
A
I mean, there's nothing really in the way of that right now. Right. Everyone can use those programs and AI and all of these things. I think you have to be honest with yourself. If you see design as something that you go in, you do a good job, but then at the end of the day, you go home and that's it, and you're like, okay, I'm done with my job, or with something that is deeper. People that obsess over kind of design, you don't need to tell them. Right. They just do. And it's the same with people that make music or whatever. There's these two worlds, and I don't think there's like a right or wrong for any of those. You should be able to make money with design and it being a job.
- [46:01]
B
Before I let you go, what's something that you're excited about? It could be career wise, design wise. Like, what's next for you?
- [46:07]
A
This year was for me all about finding my own voice in design, doing things I'm really passionate about, not holding back. Next year, it's probably more about putting all of these things I've done and the way I want to work into a framework that actually makes sense for me to live off and, you know, continue having fun. Even when attaching kind of the money part to it. Because the stuff I put on Twitter is like, none of that paid bills, you know?
- [46:34]
B
Yeah. Have you already experienced the opening of doors from that work, though?
- [46:40]
A
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. But a lot of things. First of all, I didn't want to jump right back into employment. I just wanted to figure out first what I want to do. And I've also been starting to do more consulting in a way which I find is really interesting, because in order to do the designs I do, I need to feel like I own it and it's completely my idea and I can, like, do whatever I want. And in order for me to do that for other people, it's always tricky because then you go back into this kind of, oh, you have to compromise. So doing the more design consulting stuff is I can have my honest feedback, I can tell you what I think is cool and I can ask questions, but I'm emotionally not attached to the outcome. And I can give my honest opinion without kind of me having to deliver any, like, visuals.
- [47:31]
B
I mean, it makes sense in a world where the generic templates are pretty quickly going to approach zero in terms of cost. It's going to be so easy to solve problems in a homogenous way. That little dash of Sam consulting, I think, will become increasingly valuable in the future.
- [47:47]
A
And, you know, it's very similar to how you talked about the idea with the wall, where it's not my idea. I can just ask you, why don't you go, like, all in? Like, why did you sway from it? And people probably already know the answer. They know they should be, like, maybe be more bold with this stuff. So it's. But it's also nice to have someone from the outside kind of ask some questions and just give some confidence in what they think is right is actually the right way to go.
- [48:15]
B
Well, Sam, I'm very excited to see where you go from here. You've pretty quickly become my favorite designer to follow on Twitter. Thank you for sharing all your work, pushing the boundaries in so many ways, and coming on here to talk about with us today.
- [48:27]
A
Totally. This was really fun. Thanks.
- [48:30]
B
Hey, it's Rid. Don't forget if you want to go even deeper. Each week I send an email out to over 10,000 designers with bonus resources and key takeaways from these conversations. So head to Dive Club email to sign up. Okay, I'll see you next week.