Michela Frecchiami

A talented person can quickly become mediocre when you force them to be someone they aren’t.

The most irritating people are the ones who remind you of what you don’t like about yourself.

Julie Zhuo

Concepting is not just executing requirements

A checklist of requirements is not a design; it's a recipe for mediocrity. Design is about critical thinking. It’s about the things you decide NOT to include. Great designers know how to strategically question requirements, say no, and prioritize what really matters. The first step is to have a clear

Satisfaction does not come from money, rewards, status or praise; it comes from impressing yourself. Mistaking the former for the latter is a source of enormous misery.

Julie Zhuo

Design matters because it helps us solve problems, think creatively, understand the world around us, develop empathy, and be critical. Just as you would hire an architect when building a house, design plays an important role in creating functional, beautiful, and meaningful solutions in all aspects of life.

Ben Shih

While concepting, focus on… concepts

There’s a time and place for different discussions. Oftentimes, in the absence of strategic arguments, peers might raise tactical commentary when reviewing conceptual work (the classic “have you thought about the empty state” comment). But while it's tempting to address every potential scenario immediately,

“One of the superpowers a designer has is to envision a world that doesn’t yet exist and lay out the steps to get there and make it a reality.

There’s a piece of that that means some designers never really settle for accepting reality as it is, and they do what they can to influence and shape reality into one that’s closer to what they like.”

Dan