Design conversations for the AI-shaped present.
Dive Club treats design as a working practice, not a portfolio pose. Across conversations with designers, it follows how AI, systems, tooling, craft, and team structure are reshaping everyday design work.
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Dive Club is a design interview show built around the realities of modern product work. It moves quickly. The conversations tend to start from a concrete prompt and then widen into craft, systems, tooling, collaboration, and the changing identity of the designer. Recent episodes are especially focused on AI. Not as a vague trend, but as something designers are already using to prototype, code, refine interfaces, test ideas, and rethink what design systems are for. Guests talk about Cursor, Codex, Figma, agents, design-system connections, and the gap between feeling productive and actually producing better work. That tension gives the show its useful edge. It is excited by new tools, but it keeps asking what happens to quality, focus, taste, and team operations when output gets faster. The show also returns often to career growth. Designers are presented as people who need to move between disciplines, build their own ideas, explain intent clearly, and stay calm while the tools change underneath them. Episodes with people connected to OpenAI, Shopify, Stripe, Figma, Cash App, Paradigm, Dropbox, Mercury, Wealthfront, and other product teams give the archive a strong working-designer perspective. The language is informal, but the subject matter is specific. It can jump from a personal career story to a detailed interface problem, then from a design-system concern to a broader point about how organizations ship. That range is the appeal. Dive Club is best for listeners who already care about design and want to hear how ambitious designers are adapting their practice in public. It is not polished theory from a distance. It feels closer to sitting in on a smart studio conversation where people are still figuring out the rules while building the next thing.
Made for: Dive Club is for designers, design engineers, design-system practitioners, and design leaders who want concrete signals from teams already working with AI. It also suits ambitious early-career designers looking for practical language around craft, tooling, and career momentum.
What sets it apart: The show stands out by grounding AI-era design talk in named tools, workflows, and shipped-product constraints. It gives guests room to think aloud, but keeps pulling the conversation back to how designers actually make better software.
Where designers never stop learning 💪Dive Club is an interview series hosted by Ridd that is designed to unlock knowledge from today's most prolific designers. We go deep into craft, storytelling, tools, design engineering, startups, and much more.You can find all of the episodes, key takeaways, and bonus resources here 👉 Dive.club
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Dive Club makes emerging design workflows legible by tracing how craft, code, and AI meet in the practical work of building interfaces.
Dive Club treats interface design as a working practice, with Rid steering interviews toward the decisions behind prototypes, production systems, and finely judged interactions.
One slider controls three variables, and suddenly your next interface has a higher bar.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded AI-design discussion about harnesses, intent, and the fading edges between design, PM, and engineering.
Brian treats AI less as a gadget and more as a design challenge. The episode is clearest when it argues that once Figma alone is not enough, the designer's job expands into shaping the agent's harness, setting intent, and choosing what to hand off.
A focused look at how design work is changing around AI.
OpenAI's head of product design, Ian Silver, traces a path from Instagram to Artifact and then to OpenAI, using that route to frame a practical conversation about designing while the platform keeps shifting.
Small interface choices can signal care and make a product feel more worth returning to.
The episode takes interface design seriously, treating small decisions as signals of care rather than decoration. It makes a practical case that details can build trust, lift perceived value, and leave people feeling more attached to a product when it behaves a little better…
A grounded look at Rive's push to make interactive vector graphics more capable for designers.
Rive is framed less as a motion tool and more as a long-term bet on rebuilding vector graphics for interactive software. The strongest stretch comes when the discussion shifts from ambition to execution: responsive layouts, vector feathering, and the text engine are treated as…
A grounded look at how AI is changing design work, tools, and expectations.
Stephen Haney treats AI design less like a slogan and more like a look at what teams are actually doing. He talks through designers at Atlassian, Shopify, Vercel, and Notion, and the useful tension is that the public debate feels louder than the work itself.
Two product designers talk Figma workflows, button sizing, and AI design tools weekly.
Stockholm hosts James Royal-Lawson and Per Axbom interview UX and accessibility experts.
Four design-business owners, including Design Cuts' Tom Ross, talk pricing, agencies, and creative burnout.
Monocle's design team tours museums, furniture studios, and landmark houses each week.
Design roles are getting blurry fast.
Designing at OpenAI sounds fast.
This episode features Marvin Schwaibold discussing Shopify's acquisition of Mali Studio to create a new product design studio, focusing on creativity, AI tools, and design differentiation.
This episode features Flora Guo discussing how AI can accelerate design careers, covering topics like design engineering, career growth, and insights from design conferences.
This episode explores what it means to be an AI-native designer through a conversation with Kris Puckett, focusing on integrating AI into design work and personal projects like the Epilog app.
Uncommon care is the subject here.
An interview exploring how LLMs and AI are transforming design systems, collaboration, and the role of designers.
A design leader discusses how AI and organizational change are reshaping product development at Cash App.
An interview with Stripe's head of design about evolving design practices and the details behind Stripe.com's redesign.
Host Ridd interviews Julian Martin, head of design at Zenly and Ammo, about creating delightful user experiences and fostering creativity.
A design engineer discusses how a refined portfolio and side project helped him land a job.
Designer Ryan Steven discusses his ideation process and spatial design experiments using tools like After Effects.
Hannah Harf discusses her journey to becoming head of product design at Vercel and how AI tools are transforming the design industry.
An interview with Carl Koch on tactics for leveling up as a design engineer, including using AI effectively and sweating the details.
Rive starts with a blunt design question: what if vector graphics were rebuilt today, away from SVG and HTML limits?
This episode features Xavier Jack discussing how to create immersive 3D web experiences, including insights from his work on the viral Amy website.
An interview with designer Matt Sellers about creating a standout portfolio website for top startups.
The Twitter version sounds too neat.
An interview about how Atlassian scales AI prototyping internally, focusing on integrating design systems with AI tools.
Lovable's head of design discusses how to build a design team and what they look for in hiring designers.
Ridd interviews designer MDS about his creative process for designing and building the Shift Nudge website, including exploring visual ideas and using Figma.
An interview with Steve Ruiz, founder of TL Draw, exploring the complexities of designing infinite canvas interfaces for AI collaboration.
An interview with the co-founders of Supercut about their approach to building excellent software products and user experiences.
An interview with Neuralink design engineer Ruz Madavian about designing neural interfaces and brain-computer interaction.
An interview with Shopify's CDO about design leadership, AI's impact on design, and the company's design-driven history.
A staff designer discusses how to build influence and trust as a designer, sharing tactics for strategic impact and career advancement.
This episode features Sara Vienna discussing how designers can create meaningful and differentiated products in an AI-driven world, touching on industry challenges and brand innovation.
This episode features an interview with Gabe Valdivia about his journey as an independent designer, focusing on his transition, client experiences, and the evolving market for fractional design work.
This episode features Dan Winer discussing how designers can advance their careers by becoming more strategic, focusing on hiring insights, visual design fundamentals, and adapting to AI in the design industry.
Ridd interviews Vitaly Friedman about how AI is changing UX design and digital product interactions.
An interview with Adam Nofsinger about transitioning from senior designer at big tech companies to founding his own design startup, Alma.
A discussion about how design is integrated into the culture and workflow at Raycast, featuring insights from the product design team.