First Ever Livestream - Design Q&A, AI Workflow and Career Advice

Hey everyone, can you hear me? Are we good? Are we live? Okay, I need to understand how to, how to like, and how to stream and stuff. Let's go to like this. Okay, it works. Can everyone hear me? Whoever's here, I have the stream open as well, just like on delay, but should be fine. And by the way, this is going to be a Wait, this is going to be— I mean, you can watch the stream afterwards as well, so that's pretty cool. I'm just trying to understand how does this work as well. Are we good on this? Yeah, we're good. Okay, cool. So yeah, I wanted to stream just to like do something new and unique, especially for the community. I feel like I've been making videos for like the past year, and you know, it's always been me just, you know, recording a video, editing it for a while, posting it online. Now it's something new and different. I literally just like learned for the past hour and a half how to stream and how to like install stuff and like create scenes, so It might be a little shaky, but otherwise, you know, really, really hyped about it. I am shaking. I'm like, I'm like, okay, we got everything ready and aligned. And I'm on mobbin.com. You probably notice if you watch the videos and the redesigns. And you know, I just wanted to wait. I cannot see the chat. Why? Does it always go away? Okay, nice. Thanks, Valor. Um, yeah, I'm trying to like— it's like as soon as I'm on this, uh, on this mobbing, it— I cannot see the chat anymore. How do people do that? Oh, I can do it on— I'm using OBS, so I'm like Can I push it on the side here? Oh, that's cool. Okay, nice. Let me just do that. Okay, nice. Yeah, so I'm probably going to try to live maybe once a week, something like that, um, just for like to connect, to chat. Something I don't do on the YouTube content is— and I thought about it, I was like, what could we do on this live for like an hour? And maybe we can just chat, maybe we can design a little bit, but, you know, redesigning just for like a web— actually, they have new, new web design stuff, so that could be cool. But like, instead of doing the exact same thing that I do on videos, maybe you could try like redesigning mobile apps. I mean, redesigning— I'm not going to do like, uh, let's redesign in an hour, but that could be a pretty cool thing to do. I don't know what you guys think. Maybe sites as well, but I'm not like a web designer. But that could be— you can like— I want to also show that like I also improvise and stuff. I don't know everything about design, so it can be a funny little practice time for us. We can have, uh, yeah, a good little time for like an hour. I'm not sure if we do it on Wednesday, if we do it on Friday, uh You know, yeah, web design could be nice. Um, so, you know, like, I know, guys, like, again, if you, like, if you want to learn something about, like, again, mobile design, about— actually, I have a ton of, like, video ideas in backup. Uh, so, like, for example, uh, prototyping or design systems, that could be, like, a little things we could do on the side as well. I have the like the Figma scene ready. You know it if you watch the redesign. Actually, I did a new redesign video this morning, so it should come out next week. So stay tuned for that. Pretty cool. Yeah, so hyped about it. So again today, this stream is just going to be just me trying to like what do we do? What do we do? Um, and I'm not— so in the case, why not improving your people's design? That could be nice too. I've tried to like do that a little bit as well before on like, um, like asking for people's portfolio and reviewing that stuff. I'm not sure in terms of like logistics how we want— like, it's gonna be a good idea, not for now. Yeah, I agree with that. Roasting designs, that could be— that should actually be pretty fun. It depends on like, again, I You know, like sometimes with designers you're not sure like how much to critique or like give feedback to the designs. Um, I'm someone who's very like upfront about it. It's like if it's not good, it's not good. I'm not going to like, uh, sugarcoat it. But if that's something you guys are up to and ready for, that could be like a nice little, uh, stream idea for the future. So why not, you know? Why not? And that's so weird because usually, like, when I make videos, I can have like those like 3-minute pauses of me just thinking. And here it's like I have to— and I can cut those times. Here it's, uh, it's not. But yeah, like, definitely, uh, a cool little thing to do. Again, I think it's like a wide canvas here. We have every possibility and opportunity. It's just about how do we do that. Maybe actually something that could be cool would be Like maybe I could make a form and you guys can like link maybe, uh, your portfolio, a portfolio link, something like that. Or like maybe like a little text snippet to say whichever design to, to critique. That could be pretty cool. But yeah, I appreciate the, the suggestion on that. Um, but yeah, let's, let's try to do that. We have like what, 30, 40 minutes left on this. Um, so I want to like— I'm not sure. Maybe iOS could be cool. I like literally never. I don't. I'm not someone who like designs a lot of like mobile apps. I do obviously like when you design a web app, you need to make it responsive and make it mobile. But I'm I'm not like super into this. There was a project that I could have worked on, but I'm not sure if that's going to happen. Which was like for a mobile app, like a meditation mobile app, which could have been fun, but. Um, that's business, right? But yeah, let's look at some stuff. Or actually, maybe sites as well. Like, and sites, I did it— like, I do some projects for like websites, but it's still not my forte. Actually, the problem is with— I mean, the problem with Mobbin is that they showed like really cool websites. So I'm not sure if I can be like, actually, this website is not super nice. Um, I'm wondering if it's— if it should be redesigned. Um, but yeah, whatever could be cool, or we can, you know, appreciate the designs as well. But I, I just want to like do a quick check on, on this like new updates from the web app section. I always struggle with iOS. I don't know how to properly follow the guidelines. Hey Saf, welcome to the stream. Yeah, for iOS, you mean like— oh, don't, don't you have to like follow like a design system? Uh, not a design system, but like, don't they have a design system you can use for, for iOS? Because that's something I'm like, again, I'm not super familiar with it, or I, I, you know, like I'm not super— I don't know, just like usually I'm paid to like design creative stuff, so I don't know if it's different or not. Okay, cool. Nice. Hey, hey, welcome, welcome. Okay, they have the Figma community. Okay, that's cool. So yeah, I think I would, if I were to like really do iOS, probably what I would do is just like perma learn their like design system and just use that nonstop. And then once it's like into my brain, like, you know, like the rule of 4 that I always use or like multiples of 4, Like that's like carved into my brain at this point. I don't even need to think about it. And so probably that's what I would do with iOS as well. It's just, okay, let's just like do a, I don't know, like you could literally like, maybe not on like Mobbin and stuff, but probably you could just try to copy those designs or like understand how they're being made with iOS or redesign those. Like I can see Blue Bottle Coffee, for example. It's like, this is not at all what Apple would come out with, but you could redesign that and make it iOS style reusing the design system that they have on Figma. And that could be like a nice little workout in a way, um, to do that. That's what I usually do for if I want to have like a specific style that I'm not good at. I'm actually designing an ERP tool. I feel there aren't much on Mobbin for inspiration. Yeah, that's a problem. I think I've seen ERP. What's ERP? I'm not fully sure, but I've seen it before. But if it's not— Mobbin is pretty consumer-focused, I would say, with some exception for web app. But yeah, I think that's something that happened before when I worked on a— what was it? HR. App, they didn't have a lot. And so at this point, what I usually do is I ask the AI to suggest me, give me some rules as to what's common in those products, what are some of the major products leaders. And actually that's also a good thing because, I mean, it depends on the project, but if you're really into, if they pay you to create something different and unique and stand out in the market, Then you, your naiveness in a way is like a benefit. When I, every time I work on a new project in a new industry, I, I don't know about it. And so that gives me an edge in that sense. Similar to inventory management. Okay, got it. That's a, I've seen a lot of products these days on like inventory and like very business-focused products. And a lot of them don't look good at all. And so there might be, again, it's because probably complexity and people would use them, they don't really care. About the aesthetic. Um, but that could be, that could be a pretty nice opportunity as well. So at this point, you need to like be like a detective and search for those and try to like— something really cool is like you bring those like designs from other industries and niches and you combine them with like ERP, and that could be pretty cool, like iterating a lot, creating these different variants. That could be nice to do. Hey, Mandy, welcome, welcome. All right, so yeah, I'm not sure. Oh, we did Jobber. The reason of Jobber on desktop, I like— I don't even remember what I did, but it could be pretty cool too. I like that like little thing here, but yeah, that's another beast is like when they have this like 2 dimensions, like it can be web, it can be iOS, you need to like— it's a lot more complex to design or to be creative. But that could be cool. The main input from clients is that they want it to stand out from competitors, but the more iterations I make, we're coming close to plain white theme. Any suggestion on this? I mean, if you, if you watch the channel You know that I really like those super clean designs, so I'm all for it. I think it's not a bad thing because you only— the problem with a lot of design, or at least not design, but clients, is they always want to add more stuff. It's like, well, let's add this, let's add this, let's add this feature, this design, this idea. And you end up with so much noise in the product that actually Getting close to like this empty state, it's pretty nice to then rebound off like okay, this is like the bare minimum. We have like that foundation. It's done. It's ready. What do we do next on that? How do we like expand on the product? How do we create something that's like good for the client, good for the user, actually good for the client too, and and. add that little, that, that uniqueness into it. And I feel like sometimes it's not a bad thing. You like almost go back in time, if that's what you meant. I'm not sure, like, you can, uh, precis on that. But yeah. How do you use AI in your design process with clients? Mostly the AI in Figma for design, not images. Um, so I use AI for like in those recent redesigns that I've been doing. I've been using, uh, Figma Make. Which I think is interesting, but it goes back to something I wanted to make a video actually about this. But it's pretty much like the way to stand out as a designer is through taste and, uh, strategic thinking. And the thing with AI, usually it's like AI is the most basic general design you can make because obviously it's like coming up, it's like taking sources from everywhere and try to summarize it into a screen or an experience, a product. And so you end up with like the most basic thing, which is not bad, right? But then you have to be strategic again and have a good taste to be like, okay, this idea we take, this one we don't care about, this slide is interesting. And I think being able to like mix all of those together can really make something cool. And so that's how I use Figma Make. But again, like I use it very at like the high level of what I do on redesign, which is just Okay, let's have the copy so I don't need to like type it or whatever. That's a nice way. Or just like get that first idea moving, get like that momentum, get that first like, okay, this is like a first draft. What do we take? What do we remove? That's nice. The other thing that I use with AI is just like my copilot in terms of understanding the industry, understanding the design principles that we could use or how it can be applied to the product, what areas could be applied on. And it's not really like a, you know, ask the question, get the answer kind of thing. It's more like iterative, and it really helps to again be that— get that strategic angle as a product designer. At least for me, it's not something that I've naturally been drawn to. In the beginning, I was just like, as long as it's cool looking and it looks nice and clean, that's the best option. Now I'm trying to like add more of that, like, okay, let's actually be strategic about it and think about it before designing it. And so AI really helps me understand that. Something I've been working on also in the past is like a project I've worked on is like tax claim for tech companies in Canada. I'm not Canadian, I'm not like in any tax advisor kind of thing. And so for me it's like it was, I didn't understand anything. And so AI really helped me understand that specific thing. So for that I think it really like breaks Like every barrier, every problem that you could have. And for me, it's like the best tool to understand a new project. Yeah, I hope it helps on that. Can I use AI for user research? If I do, do I need to mention it in case studies? Nah, nobody cares about— like, people care about the story that you tell them, not how you got there, pretty much. Like, when you look at my case studies on my website, for example, All I care about is just the story, what we help the client achieve, and what we've worked on. That's it. How I got there, like how many iterations I did, if I used AI or not, it's not really important. Like, you know, like in the work, if it's like using AI for visuals, you could mention it. I think it could be cool if it's like cool looking AI visuals. I think some companies like that. That could be nice. AI for kind of draft a mockup and assistant in AI. Yeah, like whenever I design on a product, I always have like Claude or usually Claude these days. I think it's the best one for me. Grok is also pretty nice. Yeah, it depends. Perplexity depends as well. I try to use every AI tool possible, but for me Claude has been pretty nice these days and yeah, it's always there. On a tab open, every time I have like a question, something I don't understand, or like an angle that I want to take, then I can just brainstorm, take some notes, and then I can like talk to the team about it. The initial mood board we agreed upon was something like legacy tools with more contrast and colors. Okay, so it's kind of like a lot of computers like Toto Focus is traditional legacy. Yeah, so it's kind of like make the logo bigger in a way, like just add colors but keep the thing. To keep on a clean yet standing out using accent blue for, uh, with small gray and white on main screen. Most status won't change very bit. Yeah, like I think, and again, like we're like at the early stage of AI in my opinion. AI is going to be like crazy, man. As a designer, I would advise anybody here wanting to be a designer long term to like really learn and take the time to understand AI and how you can use it into your process. Because it's like most companies are, in my opinion, most companies are going to remove the beginner designers. Not most companies, right? But the mom-and-pop shops, the really little shops are just going to rely heavily on AI. And that's pretty good because usually they don't really care about the best design possible or anything. But the problem is that I always mentioned that you need to be like market level to like get a job, to get clients. You need to be at this level. The problem is that how do you get there if you don't have experience? And so that's going to be kind of like the problem a little bit with AI. And so the more you can understand it and use it in your process, I think the better it's going to be. That's why I'm like, you know, do the work, like keep practicing, keep improving your designs. And like your process, simply because then you will understand, okay, when do I need to use AI? Do I need it for the visuals? Do I need it for understanding the process? Do I need it for improving the deck presentation for the client? The more you understand your process, the easier it's going to be to figure out those little pinpoints, those moments where you need AI. But yeah, for your problem, Raul, this is always the difficult thing is wanting to push for something that looks better or a better tool, better product, but at the same time having to match the client requirements. And so I would say that you can stick to that if they're open. It depends on you, right? But if they're open to exploring other ideas, you could push for a secondary alternative option. So this is what we agreed on. This is the product. However, we have this other version that we think could be, or I think could be better because of this and that. That's why, again, strategic thinking is good. It's like you explain your rationale. You don't just say it looks better, that's why it's better. You have a rationale and business benefits out of it. And you're not saying this is the solution I want to move towards. You're just like, this is an alternative. Yeah. Maybe they will not agree with the whole direction, but maybe some elements are going to be interesting to them. That's like, but you cannot do anything about a client that's like super locked in on what they have. It's interesting to me that in your site you shared the redesign you made here. Always thought practice work is not valuable enough in a portfolio. What do you mean redesign I made on YouTube? I don't think I shared redesigns. I mean, on YouTube, on my website. But honestly, I don't think. I've only shared case studies from real projects. So I don't know. Is Mobbing your project? I wish it was because they're making— they're printing money. So I wish it was my project. Unfortunately, it's not. I would be really, really well if I— I would not be designing projects if I had Mobbin. I can tell you that much. But honestly, if you don't have real projects, and I've told it with many people before— oh, the Circle one. But Circle is a real project. I think I've— oh, uh, I think I shared it on a video or two. No, no, no worries, no worries. But yeah, I shared it on a few, maybe on a few videos, or like some snippets of it. But yeah, it's a real project. Um, but actually, like, if you don't have real projects, I always tell people just share your redesign, share your concepts, make it like a case study, right? Don't just like one screen and that's it. Ideally, if you want to push the thing forward, you do pretty much what I do or advise you to do, which is like, again, add the storytelling to it. I like the strategic thinking to it and explain your rationale in like— don't write a ton of stuff. People scan your website or case studies in like a minute. So don't write like a book about it. But like, you can share your redesigns and your concept. I think that's super valuable. Like, as a recruiter, all I care about is just like, do you have the potential? I don't really care about your experience and stuff. I mean, I care about your experience, but can you design? Can you prototype? Can you have that strategic thinking to it? Is it just one cool screen that I can see on Dribbble, or is it an actual full-scope product or full-scope flows? That's what I think is really valuable. If we start in product design, do you think we should focus on web or mobile or do both like you said at the beginning? I think it, uh, I think it depends. Um, I know that I can do both just because it's just, it's design, but they don't work the same way. And so that's, I think, the kind of like a difference. Other Air Platform redesign. Okay, well, I forgot what's Air Platform. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, I see. No, no, yeah. No problem. But yeah, I'm not sure. I think it depends on— I always fall back to the, what's your natural skill? What you're naturally good at? Is it just— are you naturally good at both? Are you naturally good at UX specifically? Are you naturally moving or interested in web? I know that there are projects for both. I would think, however, or like usually mobile apps are mostly consumer focused and web app not always but mostly like business focused. And so there's usually more money, more budget for web apps than mobile apps where it falls more into like the, oh, it's just my side project, it's my hobby, I don't have a lot of budget for this. Um, whereas web app usually they have a lot more Usually they have a lot more budget, but honestly, both can be doable. And there are a lot of successful agencies and freelancers that do mobile design. So I don't think you need to really think about it that way. I think it's mostly about what you are naturally drawn to and what you're good at and what you enjoy doing. Sorry. Um, yeah, I think that's about it on it. Yeah, nice. Let me know if any more questions. I think it's actually much more enjoyable to actually like do almost like an FAQ kind of stream rather than just like me designing a little thing on mobile in my corner. But that's just— and actually, oh yeah, I wanted to check that. I don't know why I didn't do it, but I'll need to check the new, the new web app design. Instacart is cool. Mano, do you consider— do you do secondary primary research like user mapping and user flows for each screen, or just use or take inspiration from competitors? Um, I usually take inspiration from competitors for for the standards on, okay, this is the norm, this is the average, and understand why. The benefit I think when you redesign and learn from these big products is that usually they have massive teams that are doing research nonstop and optimizing everything. And so in this sense, you save money or time or resources because you're already jumping straight to the conclusion. The problem is kind of like in math, classes where it's like you cannot just say the outcome or like the result, you need to like show the process that you've taken. That's kind of like the same thing here where you need to like— your problem is going to be slightly different from the competition's problem, otherwise you just copy them and what's the point of having a different product? So you need to come up with your own conclusion as well. I still do like user flows, I do UX, But it depends on the project. It depends on the timeline as well. But it's still like that's something I've learned a lot in the past like two three years is just don't jump into the design right away. Take the time to actually understand the flows, the product, the user. And yeah, I think I don't know if that helps on this. But yeah, I don't like oh that's something I think I talked about before as well for like. Taking inspiration from competitors. Something that's really cool to do is like, again, to build momentum easily. You have Figma Make now, but something cool is just use like, like for example, if I wanted to, um, I don't know here if we have like an example, but like here for example, like this page, if I wanted like a product selection here design, I could use this as like a reference and then use that as like the starting point and then okay. Can we apply that to the product that we have? Yes and no. Okay, what can we do? Then I can take another one, and you see, like, you just kind of like mix. And that's my process. Sometimes it doesn't work for people, but that's what I enjoy doing as well. It's just like mixing and matching different design and interfaces and then being able to come up with my own thing, right? And usually— I mean, no, actually all the time— it never ends up being exactly or like like the references that I've used, it becomes its own thing simply because I'm combining the research and the UX kind of part of the product with those like inspiration, um, and a lot of iterations. Because again, a project, unlike redesigns that I do on YouTube, it doesn't take an hour, it doesn't take 2 hours, it's usually like multiple weeks, and it's usually like multiple people as well. So that's why it's always difficult to like create a product or like a redesign that looks amazing without people having to be like, well, the navigation is not really good actually. Yeah, I hope it helps. Talking about that, you never did a mobile app design on YouTube. An idea for a future video? Yeah, I mean, I never did it because I don't think I'm like the best at it or even good at it, but it's something I've been thinking about, like Ever since I've been doing the redesign content, it's something I've been thinking about of like, should I do mobile as well? The thing is, I don't, I, I don't want to say I don't want to like have mobile projects, um, because it actually can be fun. And I've realized that even industries that I didn't initially want to work on work— yeah, work on, working. I ended up liking those industries. It was interesting to like learn about those specifically because you end up liking the process of designing, not just what you're designing. So mobile could be cool as well. That's why I'm like, you know, even though in this stream we've not designed anything yet, um, it's something I'm considering as well. It's like, it could be cool. How do you find clients, or how would you first— how would you find first if you had to start now? So it actually— finding clients is like usually the tougher thing, and then once you have clients, the tougher thing is finding good designers to work on. And so I've been able to see both sides on this. Um, so some projects or some clients come from other agencies that I can work with on. Otherwise, it's just like, I mean, 100% of the time, if it's not that, it's going to be just people who saw my designs online. That's why I'm suggesting oftentimes to just post your stuff, share it, because you never know who's looking, who's going to look at it, who's going to, who's going to like. And also, it's not because they see it that they're like, I need to hire, I need to hire him. Or her. Like, it's usually a process that takes— like, I, I had the project that I worked on before for like a startup, which was really cool. It was, uh, SDK. I'm not sure the, the name, something technical for like banks. Um, and it was like one of the first designers at Cash App and also a nerdy designer at Apple. So like someone really, really good. And for some reason, I don't remember what, but on LinkedIn, in some multiples of my designs and then came into contact to like help him, uh, work on like the docs design for their startup. They end up getting, getting acquired last year. But it's like you never know who's going to see— like literally you never know who's going to see your design. And so it's kind of like luck, but you just try to like make it more predictable by like posting regularly, finding more contacts. Creating something that's interesting, sharing your thoughts, and trying to post on different platforms. Sometimes you're going to post on, I don't know, I can post this on Twitter, it's not going to work, but on LinkedIn it's going to work, right? Or I'll post on YouTube. So try to find that specific platform, that specific type of content that could work. That's probably what I would do as well. And if I were to start, I would also probably maybe cold outreach products that I like and just say, I'm going to work for free for you. Obviously it's not enough. You need to have some good skills and you have to still have a nice portfolio and stuff. But that could be a really compelling case for not top-tier companies, but smaller companies in a niche or industry that could be interesting. to grow into, that could be interesting as well. But like, get in front of people. That's the only way really to like— except if you know super rich people, uh, I think getting in front of as many people as possible is, is the way to go. Charles, I have an app and have a Figma. How do I work with you? If you want to work with me, you can go on my website, bowen.studio. You can either schedule a call with me Or send me an email and yeah, we can talk about it. You stack the chances on your side by being everywhere. Yeah, pretty much. Again, the thing is being everywhere is very exhausting, especially since you have to also— if you have clients, you have to also work and do projects. That's why I'm like, just like a natural skill, figure out the platform that feels most natural to you where you get the biggest input-output ratio. So like, how much can you get for putting as little effort as possible? Figure out that platform, figure out that type of content. But you have to like, you know, do a ton of volume first, iterate a lot, learn, be super proactive. Like design, actually, it's the same thing until you find that like, that like key. Hey, Devansh, what's going on? We are live. That's what's going on. I'm trying new stuff. Yeah, I thought it could be nice to be live. And you will have the replays of those streams as well. I'm just trying stuff, all right? I'm just trying. I've spent like an hour or 2 before the stream started to like, okay, how do we create a scene? How do we have sources and stuff? Yeah, but yeah, I think it's cool. It's nice to be able to talk with you without having to make a video. I feel like the feedback loop between me, like, okay, what do you want to see next time? Or what are your questions? And then I have to get those questions, think about it, write some script, record, edit, post. Where here on stream, I can just literally just read it on my screen. Maybe we can sometimes design, but yeah. That could be cool. And then at the same time, I can learn some stuff as well. I'm like, okay, can we like learn some something about web design? Can we learn something about iOS design? You know, low pressure, just having a good time together. I don't know if we— I don't know if I'm going to do that multiple times a week. Maybe for now it's just once a week. That could be cool. But yeah, it's really nice to be able to like have a nice little chat with, with you guys. Your take on jobs at big tech, which becomes impossible without a good uni or at least a big design school? Yeah, I still— maybe I'm naive, but I still believe that if you have a really good portfolio and you have some good proof, you can get a good job. Maybe you're going to— it's going to be like a 2-step thing where it's like the first step is having average job and then climbing to that top-tier company. But it's crazy. I work with startups where it's like everybody knows each other. It's like they're all from Harvard, they're all from Stanford. They only hire people from there. It's really rough for us. But yeah, I still believe that if you're good enough, if you put in the work, if you stand out, you can get it. You can do it. I really believe that. Uh, yeah, so I think there is still hope. Not a lot of hope, but still, still hope. Because like technically not all the company can all be from Harvard, right? So maybe like 1%, 10% is like outsiders, and that's, that's your, that's your spot. That's like getting from the back door. That's how you, that's how you say it. Yeah. So there's still, there's still hope for us. What could be a nice little app? Like, actually, this one looks pretty cool. I think that's really cool with like in the past, I don't know, 3, 4 years, there's been so many more apps that are unique in the design that they have. Like more gradients, more colors, or more uniqueness. There was this app, I think in Japan, they have it somewhere. I'm not sure where, or it's been a while. It's a banking app in Japan, and it's just like, like here, this one, Minna Bank, and it's just literally just black and white. I mean, not all of it, but like, that's your, that's your banking app, just black and white. No, no shadings, no colors, just enjoy. And that's so cool, right? Like being able to have that uniqueness in what you do and not knowing, but like believing that it happened before and it can happen to you as well. It's like that, that different aesthetic is, I think, really reassuring. And that's kind of like what I'm trying to also explain in my redesigns and videos in general. It's just like You can just be yourself and try to find uniqueness in the way you design. And that could come out into something really cool. And honestly, that's the easiest way to stand out, is just to have a different take on stuff. Look at Rivian app. They have that cool 3D shader kind of design that looks so cool. And usually most apps now for cars is like, let's just do Tesla. And Rivian is like pretty different on this. Like they have beautiful colors, super geometric as well sometimes, black and white. Like that's so cool. Look at that. I'm actually surprised not a lot of people use concept of machine learning or data science into UX using heatmap for perf— To perfect your design, I/O flow integration, ML concept to name precise decisions. I think it's my take is that it's the same reason why there are not that many design engineers is because usually designers are not super into tech stuff. Or maybe that's just me, right? Like me, I have like a very simple brain. It takes me a long time to understand very complex things. So I take my time to understand those things. But like I would not probably do that just because it seems too, too much for me at first. Um, and maybe that's why also other designers don't really jump into that. I don't know. But also, like, you can just rely on design principles and basics to be like, okay, if you have like 10 buttons on a page, it's probably not going to work. If you have one button, well, people are going to probably click on it. So that's my, like, maybe excuse not to do it. Um, yeah, because you can just like That's so cool. You can just like, what, like look at a ton of designs, practice a ton, and I think it's good. You're going to get the principles and, and the basics. Like I've never really learned any of those. Like I never sat down and be like, okay, these are the principles, this is the, the rules and stuff. I just kept practicing and practicing and noticing the patterns and, and that's it. This is actually a cool one. I, I've, I've seen it before. Fuse, they did such a cool and surprising redesign as well. Like, you can see this is like September and it was like really dark and like lifeless almost. And then they switch it up in November, like, let's change it up. And that's so much brighter. And cleaner and lighter. It makes you want to use the, the product, right? Look at those beautiful colors. That's such a key thing is I've seen so many products when it's like on— when it comes to onboarding that just they don't care. They just like drop you into the— as soon as you get your email address and then you're like, yes, I want to try the product, it's like they don't care. They just drop you into the product don't tell you anything, or just like, okay, this is the basic stuff, okay, bye, and that's it. But you can actually educate people, help them build that momentum to reach that aha moment, that activation point. And people are going to rely on everything, on all of their senses to trust the— do I trust this product? Do I want to use this product? Do I want to recommend this product? When you see this kind of and onboarding that's super bright and colorful, that's light. Like, you just set up your wallet like this, and I don't know, I feel like it's such an easy win. Can I ask you a kind of technical question? You can ask, we'll see if I can answer. But yeah, feel free to ask. And if people in the chat know more than I know on this, then please feel free to also talk about it. But yeah, that's pretty cool. This one is really nice. I saw it before. Like, you see, like, I'm always looking— I, I always look at the, those like mobile apps as well, just because you like— how to say that? Because for example, when you think about web app, you think about this big layout. But actually, when you break out or you break down the layout, it's just almost like a mobile design, right? It's almost like a mobile or multiple mobile screens next to each other. Or you get those tiny little cards to see the stats or to see the panels for the settings and stuff, right? And so you could technically— technically, a web app is just multiple screens of a mobile app. And so when you think about it this way, you can also look and get inspired by mobile apps for your web app. I don't think it works necessarily the other way around because usually you take inspiration from web apps and you try to compress them into a mobile screen. I think it probably only works only from mobile to desktop. But like, that's why I'm like, I would advise people, even if you like, back to the question stuff you, you mentioned before, like if you If you want to do like whether it's mobile or like web, actually looking at both, it will still be valuable for you no matter which one you choose. You can still get some nice little inputs and nice little inspiration. And a good habit to have is as soon as you find like a cool screen, whether you work on a project or not, just like I mean maybe not on this mobbing platform, but like as soon as you see something, you just. Copy it, drop it in your Figma file or, you know, like a nice little inspiration file and just keep it there. Because as soon as you need something specific, you can just dive into that like library of visuals and it's so cool. Okay, let's see. When working with PNG patterns, what's the best blend mode to use if I want to overlay them on a color background? I want the pattern to slow through to show through while keeping the background color visible? Uh, you cannot just remove the— or like reduce the opacity. Let me see, let me see. So like you want to do— when working with PNG pattern, what's the best blend mode to use if I want to overlay them? On the color background, I would just—I don't know—you like mean like this, or you add it like as a as an image? Because as an image, you could probably just reduce the opacity if you want to put it there. I mean, first you would have to make it a frame first to have like the color and stuff. But then I would probably—I mean, it depends. I—you know what? I actually like apply geometric patterns. I think it's probably like, I actually don't know specifically what I always do. It's probably not super technical, but what I always do, and I just, I just do them one by one like that, depending on the case and the colors and stuff. Like, I just do them by one, one by one, and I just feel like, okay, which one is the best? I was like, oh, okay, soft light is probably the best. And that's it. I don't really— I'm like, I, I don't really know, like, just thinking about it or anything like that, which one would be the best. Uh, but yeah, otherwise AI could come in and be like, you know, can you combine those together? Could be nice. Um, but otherwise, just reading the text like this, I'm not super sure. Yeah, I hope it helps, but like, don't worry about it. Just, just try them all. Just hover them one by one, and then you're going to see which one works best for you. And if it doesn't work, because I guess that's what you're asking, right? What kind of spin patterns? Like, last resort, I would just ask the AI to Blend those two together. I think that could work as well. Look at this professionalism! I can just switch scenes. Crazy. I think Karim is interesting. It's like the super app. I think in Singapore they have. A version of that. I forgot which— I forgot the name of that, of the, of the app. But it's interesting because it's like you have so many different industries, so many different services with so many different information to showcase, but you still need a design system that works through all of them. And they must have hundreds of people working on that. Yeah, no problem, Mandy. Thanks for asking. Hopefully it helps. But yeah, take your time. Do them one by one. No pressure. What AI tools are you using in your day-to-day work? So for like, I don't use that many, or maybe I do. I don't know. If it's like visuals, I usually, I can do Midjourney. Or ChatGPT. That's usually the 2 I would use. And if it's actual working, understanding industries, having almost like a copilot with me, I try different ones. I try ChatGPT, I try Claude, I try Grok, I try Perplexity. So I guess it depends on the use cases. I usually ask the same question to all of them and see which answer satisfies me the most. And then based on that, continue the conversation so that you never really stay stuck into one product. Actually, Purpose City is more like research and understanding if what you've said is actually true or not, which I guess you can do with the other ones too. But my go-to for these days is— it might change in the future, but my go-to these days is Claude. Hey, is AI actually worth it if any idea didn't hit in mind and actually answer according to user perspective? What do you mean by if any idea didn't hit in mind? Like you didn't come up with any good idea or the AI? It actually answer according to user perspective. Because usually if AI doesn't— oh, you. Well, that happens to me when I'm in a new industry, new niche, and I don't know what I'm doing. And I don't know what's a good standard and what features should I have. I just ask a lot of questions about it. I'll ask for, give me some examples of products that are doing that. I can ask for, again, just a list of features and then I can try to map it out. On like a screen. So let me check this and then Figma. So again, let's say that this is my— wow, that's a really big screen. But I would have, for example, a screenshot of whatever the AI said right here with number 1, number 2, number 3, for example. And then I would just be like, okay, so number 1 would be like a A clean, clean navigation, whatever. I have the product reference at the top here, and then it would just be okay. So this could be like the actual like feature number one. Okay, cool. Maybe it could be nice. Maybe it's not super good. Actually, let me iterate on this. Okay, cool. Let's try to have like iteration number two. Nice. Okay, that could be nice. And then okay, list feature number two. Let's do it. Have the layout here like that. Could be nice. And so I just like take it one by one. If I have an idea after, like the more you do, the more momentum you build, the more ideas you're going to come up with. Then I can also just, you know, look at Mobbin here and think, okay, I have this idea here. I can just search for UI elements and then I want to search for, I don't know, like a button here. What kind of buttons for different— this, this category, for example, that I want. And then I look at what they have. I'm like, okay, that's different from what I thought. Maybe I could try adding that to the product. So that's like iteration number 3, and you keep iterating. Every idea is a new screen. Can you teach us how to build design systems? Actually make a video on it. Yeah, that's been on the back burner for a while. The reason I didn't do a design system video before is just because it's not something I enjoy doing a lot. I have to do it most of the time on projects, but it's not something I'm like, yay, I'm going to design a design system. So that's why I probably didn't do it. But yeah, I think it's still super important. For me, it was a big unlock, the design system, knowing how to do it. Uh, yeah, it was a, uh, something that was difficult for me to like, okay, let's actually learn how to do that. But I can understand how it could be, could be necessary. Yeah. Also, when you're working on a real-time project, do you build out design systems or you just set styles for it? I'm more of someone who uses style more than design system. So the thing is, design system is usually when you build like whole products. So like, if it's just a flow, do you really need a design system for that? Probably not. But if it's like— I worked on this project, we had I think 100 screens. So like, I don't know, maybe like 16, 20 flows and 100 screens or more. You have to have a design system because if you, if you have to change a little button and the button is being used on like 3/4 of the, of the, of the flows Well, good luck doing that manually. And so that's when you need a design system, is when you're like— I, I don't do it like, to be clear about my process, I don't do a design system as soon as I get into the project. I would be usually the one who's like, let's actually wait a little longer before doing the design system, just because I'm not sure if this is going to be what we keep, or if I like to— I want to iterate a bit more on that. Also, it's not black and white. Like, I don't have to do a whole design system for everything, but I I can do a design system for a button, for the navigation, for the AI chat input bar. You can design system progressively. And so it depends a lot. But the only time we don't do a design system is when the client has a design. For example, I want to— the client wants to optimize their onboarding flow, but they don't want to redesign the product. We have to use the design system that they have from the product. We can also suggest different new components based on what they have or updates. But that's the only time where we don't do it. And styles are always, or most of the time, used styles. Also for me, when you look at my redesign process, I usually use almost the same 5, 6 colors until it's time to design a design system. And to like, uh, like we are like, okay, this is, this is what we want, we agree on that. Until then, I usually keep the same like 5, 6 colors, so I don't really need to like think so much about it and you can focus on design. But yeah, I— yeah, it depends on, on how you work on it. You, you need both in my opinion. You'd still need a design system when you work on like multiple flows. Are you using a modern design system which actually worked on different projects, or you design it from scratch for every project? From scratch for every project. And that's what you're being paid for. It's not to like recycle stuff, um, especially legally. It rarely happens, but legally, like, if you use something for multiple projects, they need— I don't know, like, people pay you to like create something for them. It doesn't feel super, super professional to like reuse. I get what you mean, um, And like, for example, you could use like a base wireframe design system that you've already used and you use it for multiple projects. But I usually skip the wireframing or like it's usually very broad. Now actually, even if it's very broad, I don't— it's always like for a specific project and that's it. What I can do, however, is like reuse an exploration I did for a previous project that I think could be relevant for the project I'm working on. So like, if it's— I remember this like cool card I did and it could be nice into it, I created like a new variation for that project I'm working on with the old project exploration. Not actual product, like just an exploration, because like I said, usually I explore a lot of things. That's something I, I can do. What is the real difference between a product designer, design engineer, and UI/UX designer? From my understanding, design engineer is someone who can also code. So basically people companies just pay you instead of paying 2 employees. They just pay you once, which is really good for them, and for you it's just having 2 jobs. Um, that's the thing. Product designer, in my understanding, it's usually someone who, uh, does what UI/UX designers do, but on top of that has a more strategic take on it. UI/UX designer is mostly focused on the product, the experience, the aesthetic, the branding. Product designer has that extra layer on top of it. Some could argue that you do two jobs at once, like almost like a product manager job and a UI/UX designer job. I would not say it's wrong, but yeah, that's that's how I define those three roles. Okay, I think we're almost. Out of time on this one. It went by fast. That was a nice first stream. Thank you everyone for, for joining. If there's one last question in the chat, I will, I will be ready to answer it. Uh, oh, there we go. William coming in. You have any frameworks you use when coming up with concepts for a project? Uh, what do you mean by frameworks you use when coming up with concepts? Usually for a project Almost all of the time I start a project, I, after understanding like, okay, UX-wise, the flows, what do we need, like what the user needs to input to output their goals and stuff like that, then I'm like, okay, how do we actually design this thing? Um, and so it's going to be outlining the layout, just like really rough rectangles and square all around, just gray. Um, and then I can look at, for example, again, what I just did here. I'm like, okay, it could be a specific screen, it could be a specific element. What do they have in common? What's a little detail that I like? And then I try to implement them into the product. And then from that, this is the foundation and I just iterate a ton. So it could be 10 screens, it could be 100 screens, or how long it takes until I'm like, this is actually good. And then usually maybe 2, 3 versions of that or 2, 3 variations. And I can present it to the team, to the manager, to the stakeholders, and be like, okay, what are your thoughts on this? And give the rationale behind it. Has AI actually improved himself that much, so need of refresher not needed? I think it's mostly progressive, at least for now with AI. It's like baby steps, but as soon as it's the next level, it improves a lot. As a designer, you always need to be learning new stuff. and improving. So I would say that keep the habit of always be on the look, just like I'm doing now with web and iOS, always be on the lookout for new updates, new changes. What can you do better? What can you improve? What can you learn? And if you keep that mindset, I think you will still stay pretty close to the actual truth of where AI is right now. Can you help me with some questions to ask my interviewer? I have an interview tomorrow for Mural. As a new designer. Oh, congrats on that! I hope you can get it. Tips or questions I can ask? Ask for the pay if you don't already know about it. I think it's interesting to know that. Ask for like the design process that they have, if they have like a design system, how they usually like design, how they iterate. I think that's interesting. And depending on like who you are and what you like to design, I think that could be cool too. But yeah, like what you expect, what's the culture like, these kind of things. I think that could be— that's a good step forward. I would advise, like usually you need to, at the end of the— like that's more like for clients, but like at the end of the call you need to know, okay, what's the next step and what's their budget? And that's pretty much what's going to happen, what you need to know if you don't know it already. for that interview? What's the next step for you? And how much do they pay you? And also, actually, a good question on that would be how you grow in that role. How do you get paid more? Don't say that, but how do you make more money in that role? So that you can have this roadmap on, okay, I need to improve the skills, I need to get better at this. And that's going to help you. And that's going to show actually the interviewer like, okay, He's, uh, pretty serious about this. He wants to learn and improve. That's a really good investment. Can you please make a video on whiteboarding in detail? I don't really whiteboard. Or like, maybe we can talk about it in another live, but I don't think I want more a lot. Maybe for like super high-level strategic thing, but that's about it. When you design UI, how do you make sure the visuals actually match the app's overall aesthetic? I struggle a lot when designs get really heavy Visual heavy, iterating a lot. I think that's like the key is just like keep iterating until it feels good. Something I would advise is like when it's super like visual heavy, take a step back. Look like cleanse your mind and eyes from like this oversaturation because as soon as you like like tunnel vision into something, you kind of lose track of everything else. And yeah, that's— I would be mindful of that. So like, take a step back, maybe look at like this like super clean design and aesthetic so that you can get like a breather, and then you can go back in with a fresher mind. One last question is, do you code or do you use any no-code tools because your videos are always on Figma? I don't code. I can like do some QA. I can like understand why, how the code works in terms of like Like, it's inside this container, it's going to do like this, this is the, like, the max width and stuff like that. Because I use Framer as well, and I think that's a nice soft introduction into coding, even if it's not really— it's a no-code tool. So that's what I use for, like, websites. But that's it. Thanks a lot, Amit, for being here as well. And thank you everyone, I really appreciated this first stream. It was really awesome. Thank you all for the kind questions. We ended up not designing a lot actually. or not designing at all, uh, but that's part of the stream and it was super cool. So I appreciate everyone who showed up. Thank you so much. You can always watch, watch the stream. I don't know, watch the replay. Um, and yeah, have a good rest of your day, evening, morning, whatever it is. And when is my next stream? I have no idea. I don't know if it's going to be next week, same time. Uh, thank you, Mobile Steel. Uh, I would probably do like write something on like the community note Make sure to hit the bell notification as well so that you know when something next is coming up. If you have not watched the new video that I've just posted this afternoon, or afternoon for me, France time, go watch it. It's a new redesign. And yeah, thank you so much everyone. Have a great rest of your time. Bye.