413: Design Mentorship

413: Design Mentorship

Author: Brian Lovin, Marshall Bock September 22, 2021 Duration: 31:27

This week, we talk about design mentorship: what does an effective mentor do, how to find a mentor, how to avoid giving bad career advice, and more. In The Sidebar, we talk about obsessing over the pixels, wasting time on unimportant details, and how to tell the difference between polish and procrastination.

Golden Ratio Supporters:

Plume empowers a billion smart devices in homes and small businesses through a suite of adaptive WiFi, AI security, and parental control. They're hiring product designers to build the future of smart home services. They're hiring product designers with 2-5 years of experience shipping products — learn more at designdetails.fm/plume. Oh, and they just raised a $270m series E, so now's the time!

Latest VIP Patrons:

  • Bilal
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  • First Name, pause, Last Name
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The Sidebar:

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.

Follow Up:

  • Manny asks on Twitter: Curious, how much time do you guys usually spend on side projects a day/week? Whenever I work on side projects, I always feel guilty of not spending time with my other half, friends and pets because we haven’t seen each other for a whole day usually
    • Probably...10-20 hours per week, on a good week? Huge caveat: we don’t have kids.
  • Siddharth agreed with Marshall about when to ship: sure you can ship fast and often (i try) and you’ll quickly learn what you didnt know w/ feedback 10/10. but there are some things that only click ✨ when you’re chasing that last 5%, someone else can’t do that click for you

Main Topic:

This week, we talk about design mentorship: what does an effective mentor do, how to find a mentor, how to avoid giving bad career advice, and more.

Cool Things:

  • Brian shared Amplosion and Achoo from Christian Selig (the creator of the Apollo Reddit app, which we love). These are using the new Safari extension APIs that are new in iOS 15! Amplosion automatically redirects away from AMP pages on Google, and Achoo lets you inspect the HTML of a page on your phone.
  • Marshall shared 14 by Peter Clines, the next entry in Marshall’s Book Club. More recommendations from Peter Clines: The Fold and Paradox Bound.

Design Details on the Web:

Byeee!


Every week, Brian Lovin and Marshall Bock settle in for a thoughtful, often meandering chat that pulls back the curtain on how things are made. Their Design Details podcast lives in the rich space where technology and the arts intersect, focusing less on polished case studies and more on the real, sometimes messy, work of design. You’ll hear them dissect the nuances of product decisions, debate the evolving culture of creative teams, and share personal stories from their own experiences in the industry. It feels less like a lecture and more like eavesdropping on a conversation between two deeply knowledgeable friends. The discussions regularly venture into the philosophical side of craft, examining why certain choices resonate and how design shapes our daily interactions with the world. For anyone curious about the thinking behind the pixels and interfaces, this show offers a consistent, grounded perspective. Tuning in provides a sense of community and a candid look at the process, making it a staple for designers and creators who appreciate substance over flash.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Design Details
Podcast Episodes
424: The Art of Unsolicited Redesigns [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:39
This week, we talk about the art of creating unsolicited redesigns at work — how to approach them, how to wrangle complexity and rabbit holes, and what to do when you have something worth sharing. In the Sidebar, we shar…
423: What We Learned in 2021 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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422: The Complainisode [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:04
This week, we were invited to have a rant session about the little things in modern software that drive us nuts. A complainisode! In the Sidebar, we share our strategies for having a successful design challenge interview…
421: The Future of Remote Design Teams [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:34
This week, we talk about the pros and cons of working on a remote design team, and what we think the future of design organizations will look like in a post-pandemic world. In The Sidebar, we talk about how to weigh comp…
420: The Pointer Cursor Debate [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:49
This week, we discuss the humble cursor and its role in affording interactivity in software design. In The Sidebar, we talk about the long term impact of the features we build, the importance of smart defaults, and the v…
419: Teaching Design at Work [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:48
This week, we share our strategies and motivations for teaching design at work. In The Sidebar, we talk about the shape of software, how we visualize the tools we build, and what it means for software to feel like someth…
418: Fictional User Interfaces [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:59
This week, we talk about the weird and beautiful world of fictional user interfaces: why do futuristic UIs look so cool? And why aren't they usable? Is the future really going to look like this? In The Sidebar, we share…
417: The Side Project Prophecy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:09
This week, we reflect on why it is that talking about building a side project can often reduce your motivation to actually finish the project. We dig into our latest side project progress and share tips for maintaining m…
416: UI Reviews and QA [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 22:33
This week, we talk about our processes for reviewing UI and making sure that things are shipping as close to spec as possible. In The Sidebar, we recap Apple’s Unleashed event, sharing our favorite moments and spicy take…
415: News Desk, Vol. 3 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:18
This week, we talk about the new Stripe Press website, pasting behavior in Figma, the latest tvOS UI, and the importance of using fake data in placeholder copy. In The Sidebar, we share our tools and strategies for remem…