Before The Fountain Institute, there was Art School Dropout By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, In spring 2020, when the world had just gone remote, we ran a tiny experiment called Art School Dropout. It wasn’t about UX or product design. We didn’t even know that’s where we’d end up focusing yet. It was about exploring the overlap between art and design, and figuring out how to make learning online feel human, creative, and social. We weren’t thinking about building a business yet. We were just...

Ready Beats Perfect (+ four habits from Hatch Conference) By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, Last week I had the pleasure of hosting the Dome Stage at Hatch, a design-leadership conference bringing product and UX folks together to share what’s working (and what isn’t). Q&A with Iris Latour, co-founder of THEFT Studio. Photos from Hatch Conference Photographers Rebecca ruetten, Indigo Lewisohn, Not because I’m fearless, but because I’d done two simple things: I prepped my intros for each speaker,...

10 Design Diagrams To Study Instead of Staring Into the Void by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, It's that time of the year. Another boring Q3 earnings call, and all you want is to go back to the beach. You look at yourself in Zoom, and all you see is a bottomless void. Hey. Stop that. Instead, check out some of the best Jeffing diagrams on the internet. At least you will look like you are kind of working... 1. Diverging and converging in action by Nicholas Frota Designers talk a lot about diverging...