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🤿 practicing taste

🤿 practicing taste

+ how to design lifelike UIs

Ridd
February 21, 2025

If you asked me “who has the best taste in design right now?” one of the first people I’d mention is Thiago Costa.

His product Fey is in the S-tier of design and I’ve studied his visual techniques for many years.

Finally, after over a 12 months of pestering he agreed to share his secrets in a interview! Here are a few things to look forward to 👇

Designing an AI-native Fey 2.0

Thiago and his cofounders drew a line in the sand and paused feature development to go all-in on putting AI at the center of the Fey UX. Finance products can be complex. So it was fascinating to hear Thiago’s strategy for using AI to bring greater simplicity to the product.

This also meant Thiago had a massive amount of screens to get through as a solo designer (without the pressure of deadlines).

So we talk a lot about chasing the “ever-moving goal post of perfection”.

Drawing inspiration outside of UI

Thiago talks about the idea of “practicing taste” by having a heightened awareness for beauty in his everyday life.

In fact he makes a point to not draw inspiration from other UI (something I’ve heard a lot from the designers I look up to most).

So much of Fey is directly inspired by Art.

Designing lifelike interfaces

Thiago goes above and beyond to ensure his interfaces feel “grounded”.

In ~100 interviews I’m not sure I’ve heard someone obsess over lighting the way he does. And in the full conversation he shares specific visual techniques to ensure his UI is lifelike (gradient borders, punctured lines, indented empty states, etc.).

I’ve anticipated this interview for over a year and it’s finally here 😁

Listen on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts 👇