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 wasnāt about UX or product design. We didnāt even know thatās where weād 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 werenāt thinking about building a business yet. We were just...
21 days agoĀ ā¢Ā 2 min read
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 whatās working (and what isnāt). Q&A with Iris Latour, co-founder of THEFT Studio. Photos from Hatch Conference Photographers Rebecca ruetten, Indigo Lewisohn, Not because Iām fearless, but because Iād done two simple things: I prepped my intros for each speaker,...
about 2 months agoĀ ā¢Ā 3 min read
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...
2 months agoĀ ā¢Ā 2 min read
Level-up your critiques in 3 questions By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, You know the critique that starts with āquick feedbackā and ends 45 minutes later with five conflicting opinions and no next step? Or the one where a senior voice speaks first and the room quietly aligns, even when the data points elsewhere. Hereās a simple pattern, adapted from Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), that pulls critiques out of taste debates and into clearer decisions. What VTS is (in 60 seconds) VTS is a...
3 months agoĀ ā¢Ā 4 min read
The Summer Edition(and a Free Masterclass) by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, I'm taking some time off for summer, and I hope you are, too. When I'm off, I end up watching a lot of YouTube, so... A Free Masterclass on YouTube If you've ever wondered about design strategy, this masterclass has you covered. It's called "What is Design Strategy?" The toolbox of the design strategist is incredibly powerful, but it's not well documented. See what it looks like when the designer's sphere of influence...
3 months agoĀ ā¢Ā 1 min read
A Workshop Agenda No One Wants By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, Last week, I posted a fake workshop agenda on LinkedIn. The kind weāve all been in that drains your will to collaborate. I shared it as a joke. It reached 100,000+ people ā¢ 800+ likes ā¢ 100+ comments ā¢ 20+ reposts But the comments werenāt just laughs. They wereā¦grief. People didnāt just say āha ha, Iāve seen this.ā They said: āOh no. Iāve run this.ā The real takeaway? Weāre not bad at facilitation, we have to break the status quo. We...
3 months agoĀ ā¢Ā 2 min read
5 Signals That Hint at the Future of AI Interactions by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, The AI landscape is changing fast, and the way we interact with AI is changing even faster. Who knows what the UX of AI will be in 2035? Right now, most of us talk to AI through clunky, chat-based interfaces. But new hardware hints at something more human and ambient. Today, I want to share 5 signals: surprising examples from today that suggest where the future might end up, and a method used by future foresight...
4 months agoĀ ā¢Ā 2 min read
When Your Strategy Slides Hit Silence By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, Iāve shared strategy before, and watched it stall. Not because it was wrong. But because the room didnāt know what to do with it. I wasnāt looking for feedback. I wasnāt asking for approval. I was hoping theyād pick it up and run with it. Instead? Confusion. Silence. They didnāt see what I saw. Not because they didnāt care. But because Iād built the strategy, not the on-ramp they needed to step into it. Itās something Iāve...
4 months agoĀ ā¢Ā 3 min read
Let's Talk about Liquid Glass by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, Goodbye, paper-like design. Hello, moving blobs of liquid glass! Play button blunder from Apple Apple's new paradigm in aesthetics is both cool and potentially awful at the same time. "Rather than trying to simply re-create a material from the physical world, Liquid Glass is a new digital meta-material that dynamically bends and shapes light." -Apple Just when you thought skeuomorphism was dead, it rears its realistic head again. I...
5 months agoĀ ā¢Ā 3 min read