Dive Club 🤿 – Episode Summary

Episode Overview

Title: Ryan Stephen - Creativity, Storytelling, and Prototyping Playful Ideas
Host: Rid
Guest: Ryan Stephen (Designer, Microsoft; Twitter design experimenter)
Date: February 12, 2026

This episode dives deep into the creative and prototyping process of Ryan Stephen, whose playful, high-fidelity design experiments have captivated designers across the web. He and Rid discuss the intersection of creativity, spatial computing, rapid prototyping, storytelling, and the evolving toolkit of modern designers. The conversation traverses Ryan’s personal workflows, tools of choice, philosophies for ideation, and the growing value of visibility and sharing as a designer.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Making Ideas Feel Real

• [00:00] Ryan emphasizes the thrill and importance of designers’ ability to "make our ideas feel real," blending current tech with imagination for what's next.
  • Quote: “We have this opportunity to make our ideas feel real. And some of that is with the technology that's around us today, and some of that is looking off into the distance and imagining what is coming next.” (Ryan Stephen, 00:00)
• Importance of both practical and speculative design to stay adaptable as technology shifts.

2. Prototyping Playful Spatial Concepts

• [00:56–07:21] Ryan shares several experiments:
  • Compass in AR: Overlaying a compass in real-world video using After Effects and rotoscoping.
    Goal: Create a moment where viewers ask, "Wait, is this real?"
  • Spatial Desktop: “What if folders were physical objects you could fling around?” Built in Blender and Vision Pro’s screen share; playful, exaggerated 3D UX metaphors.
  • Hand Map Shader: A spatial map projected on the back of one’s hand—leveraging a shader and Vision Pro screen recording for playful, conceptual impact.
    • Quote: “Nothing about this is legible or anything, but it’s a really playful idea, and a shader was the best way.” (Ryan Stephen, 05:57)
• The tool informs the idea as much as the idea dictates the tool; quick, minimal learning to achieve convincing results.
  • Quote: “The tool is informing the ideas as much as my idea is informing what tool I use. It's like a two way street.” (Ryan Stephen, 03:05)
• Debunking the myth that spatial design requires heavy tools—sometimes just drawing over a phone video is enough.

3. From Notes to Prototypes: The Workflow

• [08:14–14:35]
  • Capture Everything: Ryan keeps a rolling phone note with thousands of playful, often absurd, raw ideas (“What if your mail app was a hot air balloon?”).
  • Low-fi Sketching: Initial explorations happen in Figma using mood board pieces, rough images, or random sketches; not all assets survive into the final product.
  • Form Study: He explores exaggeration vs. practicality—some ideas are near-satirical, others could become actual products.
  • Prototyping Blend: Builds custom tools (e.g., using Xcode + Blender for a “music player crank” prototype), focusing on what’s fastest to achieve the “suspension of disbelief.”
    • Quote: “What matters is the idea, really.” (Ryan Stephen, 15:47)
• Continual cross-pollination of video production, code, and physical device metaphors.

4. Collaboration and “Super Random” Projects

• [16:07–17:55]
  • Discusses "Then Gen," an interactive project with Chandler Simon (their duo "Super Random") that lets users blend image prompts using a Venn diagram interface.
    • Quote: “People could actually step into this idea in a different way than a video on Twitter.” (Ryan Stephen, 17:15)
  • This illustrates the spectrum from pure concept demos to “real” interactive tools.

5. The Impact of Sharing & Visibility

• [18:09–22:47]
  • Sharing ideas on Twitter has built Ryan’s network, gave him friends/mentors, directly impacted his career, and enhanced his creative practice.
    • Quote: “Professionally, prototyping is such an awesome way to test ideas or convince leadership...” (Ryan Stephen, 19:37)
  • Modern portfolios: playful, experimental side projects are now a major “green flag” for hiring.
  • Sharing is “all upside, with almost no downside” ([32:56]): the worst that happens is nothing, and you always learn for next time.

6. Ideation Techniques and Creative Process

• [22:47–27:45]
  • Capture Outlandishly: Notes are intentionally playful and not tied to current tools or feasibility: “I’ll work backwards later.”
  • Crazy Eight Sketching: Repurposes the “Crazy 8s” exercise for imagination, not problem-solving. Keeps all sketches for future reference rather than discarding.
    • Quote: “I use Sharpie because I don’t want the details to be too specific.” (Ryan Stephen, 25:17)
  • Time-boxing: Limits ideas to a day or two of work to keep momentum, avoid burnout, and focus fidelity on what matters most.
  • Pushing the Envelope: Avoids repeating idea forms, blending new metaphors, gestures, or mediums with each project.

7. Motivation & Energy

• [27:45–29:22]
  • Internal energy in the process itself—rush of learning, not the outcome.
  • Finds additional inspiration from collaboration; creating “fake studio” projects with friends helps bring in fresh perspectives and skills.

8. Growth as a Storyteller

• [35:39–39:21]
  • Tailoring Story to Audience: Different levels of storytelling for team feedback vs. leadership buy-in.
  • Quick, high-fidelity prototypes shortcut context-setting: prototypes cut through “10 slides of explaining.”
  • Shift from “just keep fidelity low” to “effort fidelity”: make the right details feel real—gesture, IA, or language—depending on what will sell the idea.
    • Quote: “What aspect of the idea needs to feel real? ... Maybe the only thing that needs to be real is the language.” (Ryan Stephen, 38:42)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On tool-driven creativity:

• “The tool is informing the ideas as much as my idea is informing what tool I use. It's like a two way street.”
  — Ryan Stephen, [03:05]

On prototyping to drive belief:

• “The point is that end expression that makes you go, wait, is this real? And then respond to it in a really genuine way.”
  — Ryan Stephen, [01:43]

On playful experimentation:

• "I don't know any other way of working, but I think if you're zigzagging between solving really hard problems and just being almost unrelentlessly creative, it creates the best work in both of those worlds.”
  — Ryan Stephen, [12:38]

On sharing and visibility:

• “Visibility is a pretty important currency that people don't think about too much... That's way more powerful than a portfolio website because instead of the work statically being somewhere that you actively have to reach for, it's just presented to you.”
  — Ryan Stephen, [31:43]

On the safety and value of posting:

• “The worst case scenario is nothing happens. Actually, it’s better than nothing happens. You still learned something... and it gives you a starting place.”
  — Ryan Stephen, [33:27]

On tailored storytelling:

• “How you tell a story when you’re wanting feedback from a design team is super different from the type of story you would tell to a leader...”
  — Ryan Stephen, [35:59]

On fidelity in prototyping:

• “What I like to think about is effort fidelity more than visual fidelity. So if I can make something in a day...that fidelity is what matters, not necessarily how awesome the rectangles move around the screen.”
  — Ryan Stephen, [38:01]

Important Segments & Timestamps

| Segment | Topic | Timestamps | |---------|-------|------------| | Opening Theme | What excites Ryan about design | [00:00–00:22] | | Spatial Design Explorations | AR compass, spatial desktop, hand map | [00:56–07:21] | | Tools & Process | Minimum learning for prototyping, blending filmmaking/code | [03:05–04:36], [13:34–14:35] | | Ideation Workflow | Idea capture, playful notes, Crazy 8s | [08:14–10:02], [23:10–25:17] | | Stake of Sharing | Public posting, career impact, “all upside” | [18:09–22:47], [31:43–34:38], [32:56–33:27] | | Collaboration & Super Random | Co-creation with Chandler Simon | [16:07–17:55], [28:04–29:22] | | Storytelling & Fidelity | Adapting narrative for audience, “effort fidelity” | [35:39–39:04] | | Motivation & Energy | Why keep prototyping playful ideas | [27:45–29:22] |

Tone & Takeaways

• Vibe: Energetic, approachable, relentlessly playful yet deeply practical.
• For Designers: Permission to be weird, playful, and bold; share your work even if it’s unfinished or silly. Daring experiments are now a portfolio superpower, and social visibility is an underrated career accelerant.
• For Teams: Encourage high-frequency, low-stakes prototyping and storytelling internally—the line between design and code, play and product, is rapidly fading.

TL;DR

Ryan Stephen’s creative practice is a blend of impulsive ideation, low-friction prototyping across many tools, and bold, public storytelling. It’s clear that in today’s design landscape, playful experimentation, visible sharing, and the ability to “make ideas feel real” are currency for both personal growth and professional opportunity. Whether for Twitter or within your team, bring your experiments to life, and don’t let the fear of crickets hold you back—the upside has never been greater.