Ridd here 👋
Over the last ~18 months I’ve done 100+ interviews with A-list designers like:
But lately I’ve created a new format that I’m really excited about so I’m taking a minute to dust off the old Substack 😅
Each week I focus on a key idea—something I’m noticing across my interviews or maybe a lesson that really stuck with me—and I boil it down into a ~10 minute highlight video.
In my (biased) opinion these highlight videos are good…
So I want to share them with you today :)
But first a quick FYI…
I've received 50+ emails/DMs over the last month from people missing out on the bundle sooooo I did a thing...
Today when you purchase Figma Academy you get Tommy Geoco's Making UX Decisions course completely free. Seriously.
Here's the thing though... this page self destructs in ~17 hours so don't miss out 👍
My 3 favorite highlight videos
1 — Become a 10x startup designer
Many of my favorite episodes are when we get to hear from the earliest designers at companies like Linear, Perplexity, Ramp, Facebook, etc.
So this episode pulls out the key insights so you can learn what it takes to thrive as a startup designer.
2 — Time to rethink design systems
The pendulum has swung too far with design systems.
Somehow they’ve become synonymous with scale. But I believe they’re the perfect first step for startups. So this episode looks at stories from Perplexity and Cron to reframe design systems as the key to speed in the early days.
3 — 7 mental models for designing AI products
Over the last few months, I’ve interviewed the people designing cutting edge AI products like Perplexity, Claude, Dot, Humane, Visual Electric, and more…
During that time I’ve created a running list of all the metaphors and mental models they’ve used to explain what it’s like. So this episode breaks down 7 mental models for designing AI products.
You can find 6 more highlight videos on this new page I whipped up yesterday in Framer :)
I’ll be releasing a highlight video every week in 2025 so don’t hesitate to ping me if you have any ideas for how I can improve the new format!
Have a happy New Year 🥂
P.s. here’s the bundle link again for convenience ✌️