Dive Club 🤿

Episode: Sneak peek of MDS’s Creative Process
Host: Rid
Guest: Matt Smith (mds)
Date: December 8, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of Dive Club features Matt Smith (known as mds), a celebrated figure in the design community. Host Rid invites Matt for an in-depth exploration of his raw creative process behind designing and building the all-new Shift Nudge website. The conversation dissects Matt’s Figma files, unpacks the unshipped ideas, and provides a rare look at how he uses tool-making and intentionality to reach “timeless” design outcomes. It's a step-by-step walkthrough of design thinking, experimentation, and the intersection between play and purpose in modern web and product design.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Complexity of Starting a Fresh Creative Project

• Who am I?
  Designing your own work—especially a personal or flagship site—brings unique internal struggle.

  “It feels just as difficult as designing your own personal portfolio... you're struggling with your own identity while you're doing it.”
  —Matt Smith, [00:19] & [04:16]

• Meta-challenge:
  Creating a foundational design system can feel like needing to build the universe before making the sandwich.

  “It's like, how do you create a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Well, first you have to invent the universe.”
  —Matt Smith, [00:05], revisited [01:08]

2. Visual Exploration: Starting Wide, Going Deep

• Ultra-wide ideation:
  Matt shares how he goes much “wider” with visual exploration than most people expect, rapidly iterating to break away from old patterns.

  “You said you went wide. This is admittedly wider than I thought you were going to show.”
  —Host, [05:11]

• Command D Mood:
  Using Figma, Matt employs repetitive actions—dragging, duplicating, laying out random elements—just to see what emerges.

  “Command D, move stuff around. Just playing around... not really designing the website. I'm just kind of laying a bunch of random things out.”
  —Matt Smith, [05:18]

• Embracing randomness and fun:
  Screenshots from Instagram, old typography books, and nostalgia (pixel art, 90s games) feed into experiments.

• “Pendulum” mindset:
  Constantly swinging between design extremes, allowing themes like pixelation/dithering to surface—but knowing what’s just a fun tangent or a trend.

3. Navigating Personal Taste vs. Timelessness

• Distinguishing “showy” vs. “showcase”:
  The website should communicate established craft, not just visual flair.

  “There's a fine balance between... botching that or, you know, doing it well. And so therein lies the internal struggle of forever trying to design this.”
  —Matt Smith, [04:48]

• Letting go of trendy for the enduring:

  “My vision for Shift Nudge is... the modern interface design school that's built on these timeless principles... This feels like a time piece. I wanted something that felt more timeless.”
  —Matt Smith, [08:29]

4. Toolmaking as Creative Superpower

• Pixel icon tangent:
  Matt obsesses over pixel icon grids—spending hours fine-tuning spacing—knowing most will never ship.

  “You wouldn't believe how long it took me to make this Figma icon... just on this one dumb icon that had no idea what I was even going to do with it.”
  —Matt Smith, [09:09]

• Building his own Mosaic tool:
  Rather than wait for the perfect plugin, Matt codes up a bitmap icon builder using AI tools (V0, Cursor), with adjustable grids, interactions, and export options.

  “I've got this kind of cool hover effect for these little blocks going around... AI is giving me superpowers now.”
  —Matt Smith, [17:52], [18:18]

• Iteration as play:
  Prompts to AI: “Give me five more hover effects,” adjusting, refining, revisiting—playing until it “feels” right.

  “You keep iterating, and you kind of forget... you kind of have to build your own command D.”
  —Matt Smith, [19:10]

5. Creative Play Leads to Breakthroughs

• Digital fidget spinner:
  Testing, tweaking, and just playing with interactive bits like pixelated photos leads not just to functionality, but aesthetic delight.

  “I just would. It's a digital fidget spinner. I just couldn't stop playing around with it.”
  —Matt Smith, [22:10]

• From missed ideas to shipped code:
  Many explorations don't launch, but their energy feeds the final product.

  “There's some really good work that didn't ship in this video file... I hate that this never saw the light of day.”
  —Matt Smith, [12:25]

6. Marrying Exploration and Execution

• Reality of constraints:
  Having time for deep dives is rare. When it’s not possible, Matt suggests time-boxing play, then switching to structure and progress.

  “Allow yourself some time to explore and maybe put a time limit on it and just knowing what your priorities are...”
  —Matt Smith, [30:30]

• Transferring fun to the user:

  “If I put fun and creativity and a good time into my project, hopefully that transfers... If I was bored and everything was on a deadline... it's probably going to feel sterile and rushed.”
  —Matt Smith, [31:25], [32:23]

7. Finding (and Trusting) Your Own Direction

• Beware the reference trap:
  Comparing half-finished ideas to someone else's launch leads to self-doubt; follow your own excitement.

  “Don't look at too many references... you might be halfway through, then see some new website, and just be like, ‘oh man, so much more than what I'm working on.’”
  —Matt Smith, [60:10]

• Filter through adjectives and intent:
  List design adjectives (“techy,” “classical,” “blobby,” “sharp”) to create a north-star.

  “Just try to get a vision for what you want it to be... That alone—just having a design direction... will help you filter out those decisions that might make you go this way or that way.”
  —Matt Smith, [60:10]

• Intuition over formula:
  Ultimately, Matt affirms there’s no one process—creativity is both mess and discovery, and energy/joy guide the best outcomes.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On building tools for exploration:

  “Having that as a knee jerk reaction is kind of a superpower in today's day.”
  —Host, [17:37]

• On “timeless” design and resisting trends:

  “It doesn't feel like it represents that... I wanted something that felt more timeless.”
  —Matt Smith, [08:29]

• On energy and creative breakthroughs:

  “Whenever there's an idea that's really energizing... it unravels other ideas... you can feel the energy, and then you're like, oh, I have to go down that route, because there are good things that I can't see yet down that route.”
  —Host, [34:07]

• On AI as creative partner:

  “I like to think of [AI tools] as, you know, it's like a hammer. You're not going to swing a hammer and accidentally build your dream home.”
  —Matt Smith, [28:31]

• On imposter syndrome & creativity:

  “I can't tell you how many times I saw something and I'm like, oh, that's so good. What I'm doing is just so basic.”
  —Matt Smith, [61:08]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:05] — Matt’s “invent the universe” metaphor for project scope
• [04:16] — The existential struggle of designing one’s own project
• [05:18] — Matt’s unexpected, “wide” Figma explorations
• [08:29] — Choosing timelessness over trends as a north star
• [09:09] — Pixel icons: Process, nostalgia, and why most didn’t ship
• [17:52] — “Toolmaking superpowers” and how AI accelerates creative play
• [22:10] — Playing with interactive pixel photo effects (“digital fidget spinner”)
• [30:30] — How/when to transition from exploration to execution
• [34:07] — The role of energy and intuition in chasing worthwhile ideas
• [60:10] — Advice to designers: Vision, conviction, and ignoring the comparison trap

Final Advice: Creative Mindset for Designers

Matt’s closing guidance:

• Get a strong “north star” for your vision—define adjectives and intent for your work.
• Limit external referencing to avoid self-doubt.
• Explore widely, then converge.
• Use AI/tools as extensions of your thinking, not as shortcuts to a finished product.
• Trust what excites you—fun and energy show up in the end result.
• Iteration is not wasted effort; even “silly” rabbit holes contribute to the final polish.

“Having that conviction of what just excites you and what you really like, regardless of how it's going to be received, I think that's what makes it fun... that’s where you can really explore AI tools and figure out how can I wield them to bring out my vision.”
—Matt Smith, [61:08]

For Further Inspiration

Host Rid thanks Matt for sharing the mess, beauty, and reality of the creative process:

“…I so appreciate being able to get a glimpse of the mess and all of the different silly pages and directions and just how deep you've went... this content is few and far between, so I appreciate you pulling back the curtain and sharing with us today.”
—Host, [61:59]

For more episodes, deep dives, and bonus resources:
🔗 Dive.Club