Yo it’s Ridd 👋 Somehow after ~14 years in design, I’m learning more right now than at any point in my career (and I want to share it with you) 🧠
So I’m sending this email to let you know that I’m sunsetting Design Tactics and going all-in on the weekly Dive Club newsletter 🤿.
Starting a podcast is a cheat code because it plugs me in to insights from the best designers on the planet—people like Soleio, Fons Mans, Jenny Wen, James McDonald, David Hoang, Grace Walker, etc.
So that means two things:
In my biased opinion, my emails have never been better
If you want to keep hearing from me, you’ll have to sign up here ✌️
Here’s what to expect 👇
Each Thursday I share an email for designers who never stop learning:
It includes a written insight to help you grow in your career
An interview so you can learn from an incredible designer
Featured resources and inspiration
So here’s a preview of my welcome email so you can get a feel for the vibe 👇
Featured interviews
1️⃣ What makes a truly great software designer
Soleio has had a massive impact on the world of design over the past ~10 years and this episode is jam-packed with insights about standing out as a candidate, making an impact on your team, the future of spatial computing, and much more.
2️⃣ How to build an independent design practice
In this episode, Kevin Twohy shares lessons from his 10+ year journey working for himself. That means this episode is a freelancing masterclass.
3️⃣ Leading design systems at scale
In this episode, Lauren LoPrete pulls back the curtain and shares what it's really like to work on design systems at companies like Dropbox and Cash App.
4️⃣ Landing page techniques used by the pros
Erik Kennedy has helped thousands of designers level up their visual skills. So this episode is a show & tell where we dissect some of our favorite websites and pull out techniques you can use to add that extra bit of visual polish to your next site.
5️⃣ The art of designing for delight
Jenny Wen is the person who designed and brought to market Figjam. So this episode goes beyond confetti animations to help you add REAL delight to your product.
If you're looking for even more... 👇
Featured resources
Each week I scour the web looking for useful tutorials, tools, and inspiration. Here are some of my favorites 👇
1️⃣ How to make something great
As soon as I saw Ryo Lu (one of the early designers at Notion) tweet a screenshot of his list of 6 ways to make great software, I DM'd him immediately asking if I could share the full list with you...
My favorite part is the importance of "ignoring artificial bounds like team boundaries or short-term mindsets" 👏
2️⃣ Creating an aurora gradient with Noise & Texture plugin
The Noise & Texture plugin has quickly become one of my favorites. This ~10 min video from Mark is an awesome example of how powerful it is.
3️⃣ Designing chonky buttons
MDS taught me more about visual design than anyone else. So when he releases a Figma tutorial, you don't want to miss it.
4️⃣ Learn how to create 3D effects in Figma
3D can be tricky so I wanted to share this file from Anatole so you can see how the sauce is made 👀
5️⃣ How should designers code
As an industry we waste so much time asking should designers code instead of creating playbooks to follow. That's why I love this article from Dylan Smith (design engineer at Github).
There’s a lot more where that came from :)
Hopefully you decide to join me for tomorrow’s Dive Club newsletter but if not that’s totally cool. You can always say hey on the Twitter bird ✌️
— Ridd