Dive Club
Posts
🤿 the robots insisted

🤿 the robots insisted

+ the difference between good and great animation

Ridd
May 06, 2025

The more I study today's top design teams, the more clear it’s becoming that we're entering the era of a new type of design leader…one with taste and the skills necessary to uphold craft.

So this episode studies this new archetype by highlighting clips from design leaders at Airbnb, Ramp, Duolingo, and more… 👇

🤝 WITH MOBBIN

So I’m working on a lot of video and playback features for the first time and honestly… I have no idea what I’d do if it wasn’t for Mobbin 😅

You can use natural language to search for anything you’re working on and they even have visual search so you can upload a screenshot of your designs and then see relevant UI for inspiration.

Mobbin is a total cheat code and I can’t imagine designing without it…

So click the link to get started today 👇

🔗 FEATURED RESOURCE

Good vs. great animations

Emil Kowalski from Linear has the most popular web animations course on the internet…

So when he shares a free resource I jump all over it.

Everyone's software is good enough these days. The barriers to entry are low. To stand out, you need to make your product feel great. One way of doing that is through animations.

Emil Kowalski

Not everyone appreciated the way Mig and I talked about craft in last week’s episode 😅

The reality is that it means different things to different people.

Most hiring managers regurgitate “craft” because it’s the word de jour and what they really mean is “visual design”. And I think that’s important to recognize because visual design is incredibly important today if you’re looking for your next role.

But for the actual craftsman like Emil, the definition of craft is much more rich and nuanced (something this article captures beautifully) 👇

🔗 FEATURED RESOURCE

A design portfolio you listen to

So Sujan from Microsoft AI created a new type of portfolio where conversational AIs walk through his work and you can ask them questions.

Is it the future of portfolios? Maybe not 😅 but it’s a neat experiment and I enjoyed myself enough to share it with you.

My critique is that the modality is kinda backward. I’m very bullish on voice as an input but it’s much faster to read than to listen.

This is part of the Inflight thesis actually…

I believe we’ll do a lot more speaking rambling to each other and rely on AI to tidy it up in writing.

👥 COMMUNITY QUESTION

Want to hang with me and other listeners?

For a long time people have been asking for a Dive community and I think it’s finally time…

So I’m creating a new channel for us to hang out ✌️

Tbh I don’t know what it will become. This isn’t going to be a formal thing… just an open space to share ideas, ask questions, or riff on anything really.

This is the last call before I send invites out! click below to get on the list 👇

🧃 INSPIRATION JUICE

3 things I saved this week

1️⃣ Tree menu interaction

True story: I was cramming for an interview and stupidly opened up Twitter and came across this interaction from Nitish.

Even though I had 0 time to spare, I had to drop everything and save this to my taste library because it’s so good 👏

See it live →

2️⃣ Fun scribble background

This is a simple share but the subtle details make the composition super unique.

I love the background scribble (notice the texture and the strategic angles).

Also the font pairing is quite nice 👌

Check it out →

3️⃣ Glowing card concept

I have no idea what to do with this Oguz masterpiece yet but it’s pretty stunning. The way he captured the lighting in the star cutout up top is incredible work.