The Feed

Accidentally touched the headphones icon in Spotify's iOS app and got a full-screen, non-dismissible dickover (perfect term created by John Gruber).

Improvement: don't have it at all.

They won't do that, of course, but they should make it dismissible, fix padding, add CTAs, etc.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001. 8:46 a.m. The start of the day that ended an era.

2,977 people woke up that day like every other before it, not realizing it would be their last.

Each and every day is a gift. Cherish your loved ones and be kind to strangers.

It'd be a small change but a big improvement. I hope Apple adds this context to iOS 27.

Please and thank you.

Completed this fun text redesign exercise for a double album I love.

This concept is only for instances where all queued items are from the same group (playlist/album/podcast).

When content is queued from multiple groups, the UI could utilize the "Your Library" view when a user selects multiple filters and they "stick" together.

The title text in Spotify's Queue feature should be more helpful.

I'd like to see the playlist/podcast name in the title, instead of just "Queue".

While I was at it, I redrew the icons with better consistency than the icons currently used in the header component.

After 1.5 years of daily posts, I'm going to post a little less frequently.

It's been a nice challenge that I posed for myself, but isn't as fulfilling as of late.

Here's a very small segment (256 images) of the 547 consecutive days of content.

Some closeup details of an AI workflows wireframe from a few years back - long before everyone was pitching their new AI agent.

A later version was designed to accommodate multiple layers of steps, and be able to fit within marketing materials and pitch decks.

It got a bit messy so it was subsequently reined back in.

A look back at one early iteration of a diagram for customer onboarding, showing how the demo app "EasyMint" interacted with the core application.

Added a few more shapes to this illustration.

Hi Apple, could you please recognize that the video experience for live sports is different than TV/movies?

Each time I mute Friday Night Baseball, I'd like to not have to also turn off subtitles. Just keep the setting enabled; it's quite simple.

In iOS 26, if you have both a timer and stopwatch running, only the timer is shown in the Dynamic Island.

I wish I could change the priority to show the stopwatch instead - whether through settings or swiping between the functions.

Does anyone know if iOS 27 allows this?

Software is a small portion of my design interests.

Some day...

A nice little button

In addition to decreasing file sizes significantly vs standard SVG image assets, creating the background with repeating shapes makes it possible to randomize per row animations.

I'm still tweaking the timing. This effect will only be called on hover or similar intentional user action.

Latest Plate Diamond Grid logo progress.

Watching each line come in like an old printer is beautifully satisfying.

Here's a different representation of how I'm creating this visual in the browser.

The highlighted row has a total of 23 shapes, but I'm only asking the browser to show 3 instances - which are then repeated a set amount of times depending on where they appear in the artwork.

Basically creating a paint-by-pixels system. Lots of tedious work required to initially plan out the grid system, but the file size savings will be worth it.

On today's episode of drawing vectors, we got a bit noisy.

Steadily making improvements 🙌

A look back at the earliest stage of getting the Home Plate Deals iOS app functioning. Text only. Messy but fun.

The illustration progress continues

A look at a few different variations of the pixelated wordmark.

The final version will be responsive - more details at larger grid sizes, and fewer to remain legible at smaller grid sizes.

Even when properly minified, SVG files can still be large enough to noticeably increase page load time.

Visually identical. Structurally unique.

Real nerd stuff (aka the good stuff) going on here. Will post more details soon.

Programmatically drawing plate diamond logos.

Care about the details, even if nobody else notices.

A look at some of the process of creating an illustration. Still in-progress, but coming along nicely.

Only genuine intelligence here, nothing artificial.

Some close-up details of an AI Workflows interface

Block by block, I'm getting closer

While you're here, take a few actions.

The pixelated progress continues 📺

A look at some in-progress pixel letters. Grids rock 🤘

A little over a decade ago, I created a design tutorial and resource site. I later shut it down but, lately, have started porting the content over to my personal site.

While the written content remains the same, I've been re-making the cover images.

A few wordmark explorations for Home Plate Deals in the leadup to the MLB regular season.

Some cool funkiness in here. Might make them into stickers.

Dark mode browser frame revisions in progress

These keys have depth. Created using my brain and mouse in Figma. No AI.

These keys have depth. Created using my brain and mouse in Figma. No AI.

Light mode icons are looking pretty good, too.

I sometimes wonder how much slop gets regularly retrained on verifiably incorrect business addresses, postal codes, etc. 😄

The app rebuild continues slowly, but accurately.

Late night browser frame refinements

A peek at some pixels of these in-progress icons.

Share modal with image previews. Just minimal enough, without sacrificing features.

A look at some more visual design work-in-progress.

An annoying experience will at least have a nice visual attached to it.

All set to deploy when the nightly build for tomorrow's Home Plate Deals update is published.

May you (hopefully) never see it in the live environment.

A few closeup details of my MLB Apple TV scoreboard concept.

A few closeup details of my MLB Apple TV scoreboard concept.

I wish MLB's Apple TV app showed other games info in Multiview, so I mocked up a way to use the existing empty screen real estate to do so.

MLB.TV on web shows other games info. The UI could use some help, so I also refined that in my concept.

Small MLB iOS feature concept:

Sticky header for Gameday feature that keeps users informed anywhere in their scrolling.

The current interface hides the game score, team info, and inning info unless user is at the very top of the screen.

Small Figma feature concept:

When performing a boolean operation, keep the name(s) in tact and append the boolean operation to the end of the name.

Recycled caption because it's still true:

Software is a small portion of my design interests.

Some day...

Slides in progress ⏳

Monopolies like MLB are great case studies on how not to treat your customers.

I'm sure it's legally outside of "bait and switch" territory, but it's disingenuous to send customers a push notification claiming they can watch a "free" game that you have knowingly blacked out.

Having persistent iOS Stopwatch status in the Dynamic Island is nice, though I wish there was a more pronounced visual distinction between "running" and "paused" states.

I mocked up a few concepts varying color and saturation to create a clearer separation between the states.

This omission has annoyed me for years. Here's a very simple yet helpful feature request for MLB's iOS app.

Don't remove the start time information when a game is in the "warmup" stage. Show both pieces of information side-by-side.

There's nothing like a wild Saturday night spent restructuring data 😃

Split diff text comparison feature for an internal tool

Some card details with a few changes on hover.

Just because it's an internal tool, doesn't mean it shouldn't be thoughtfully made.

Interface details from a content asset publishing editor.

Banner for a medical web app that provides persistent awareness of content requiring user attention, which is especially useful when viewing long lists of residents.

More internal tool table details

A few interface details from the dark mode variant of an internal tool

Early iteration of a workspace dropdown selector

Question: "How many iterations does it take?"

Answer: "Yes."

Very early version of an in-document AI text generation feature.

Case study creation interface for SaaS web app.

Share modal design for a B2B web app. Minimal visuals but still informative.

Adding low-fidelity gradients to Plate Diamond logos on Home Plate Deals.

An alternate layout where content is side-by-side, as opposed to being contained within tabs, and further template information is shown in the header.

Continuing the theme of yesterday's post, here's a look at more of the early designs of AI Workflows.

Here's a look at an early version of a template settings page for an AI workflows tool.

Making things better each day, one element at a time.

Same interface, different closeup position.

Just shipped a small but meaningful quality-of-life update to Home Plate Deals: instant auto-reload upon date change.

Most users close their window/tab to conclude their session, but I never want any user seeing stale data.

Update is now live on the site.

Here's a look at some closeup details of an API requests dashboard.

Text-heavy interfaces aren't inherently bad or good. That said, they should be especially well-considered.

New number(s), who's this? 😄

Taking a second away from coding a development environment system for Home Plate Deals to take a look back at an early iteration of a pricing modal for copy.ai.

"You see, there used be a platform named after a bird sound. Then, it got renamed to a letter."

Remember when people planned software? It was pretty nice.

Working on the first major revamp of Daily Deals social media templates for Home Plate Deals.

Updated Plate Diamond digits and added a ton of visual details.

This early version of an interface exploration may have been inspired by Trello.

Man, I really need AI to be trustworthy enough to go and find previous design work (without stealing it to train it for the slopiverse) I've never posted.

Made this years back and I guess I just didn't post it. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Don't underestimate how you present data density.

Has been fun to work on more visual design tasks lately.

Adding more depth and details to company logo updates on Home Plate Deals.

It's a fun challenge to blend other brand elements with my own.

April 15th is one of the best days in MLB.

I created this visual in honor of Jackie Robinson.

Here's a look at a portion of an aspect ratio planning document I created a few years back for UserEvidence.

Proper product planning seems to be an increasingly under appreciated aspect of the design process these days. Here's hoping that changes.

The Plate Diamond logo library grows even larger.

While I'm proud of the designs themselves, I'm even prouder of the deals that I've sourced and compiled for MLB fans on Home Plate Deals.

There are still great, free apps that provide true value to users without exploiting them.

Even after 467 days of daily posts, it's still intriguing which pieces of content garner attention on certain platforms.

Here's another diagram from this series, describing the secure enclave from a developer's perspective.

Revamping company logo presentation styles on Home Plate Deals. Currently, I use the same logo for light and dark modes.

New updates feature Home Plate Deals logo as a background shape, modified lighting angles, and have some unique qualities for light vs dark mode.

Well-designed diagrams can make complex concepts more digestible.

Firefox recently introduced Split View - keeping 2 tabs side-by-side - but I'd really like being able to see 5+ tabs simultaneously.

Opera has Split Screen which seems like it could do this but only see a maximum of 4 tabs on their site.

Placeholder copy doesn't need to be boring.

Awesome, Inc. seems like a nice place to work.

The goal is to get better each day.

Sometimes it's large leaps, other times a single step.

Getting the color and shape balance correct for Home Plate Deals' plate diamond alternate logo.

Next step: animating it and showing it with the wordmark easter egg in the application.

Created a helpful little Easter alert banner for Home Plate Deals.

A pleasant UX is always the goal; especially on holidays.

See it live.

A look at in-progress browser frame updates

The Plate Diamond grid logo library continues to grow.

Pixelated work but done using a unique pattern. I'm biased but it's pretty cool stuff.

From the archives, here's an un-used but not un-interesting UI exploration of stacked cards.

Happy 50th Birthday, Apple.

Friendly reminder that rounded corners aren't mandatory 😄.

Just published some design refinements for Home Plate Deals.

Enjoy it on the live app.

Almost forgot about this nice little abstracted UI spot illustration I created for a medical startup.

Padres and Brewers are the next logos to get Home Plate Deals' Plate Diamond grid treatment.

A few pixels from a survey creation process.

I was only going to post a closeup of one corner of the UI, but none of the sections revealed enough information to be useful, so I just included the whole thing.

A look at some very early progress of remaking logos using Plate Diamond grid for Home Plate Deals.

MLB Opening Night on Netflix happened yesterday.

Setting aside the broadcast, the score bug was not awesome. So, I took a run at redesigning it.

A great typeface (this one by U.S. Graphics Company) makes other design work much easier.

Sometimes you just want to design a browser frame.

Just the right amount of well-considered details.

Patient details view UI details.

Highlighting some recent mobile spa management UI design details 🟣 🍇 🦄

The beauty of passion projects is you can dive extremely deeply on details.

I know this is only a sliver of a preview but I'm really liking how Subtle UI is coming along.

Ironing out some final interaction details for Home Plate Deals as MLB offseason winds down.

Data shown here is for testing purposes only.

Figma should better communicate breaking changes.

Scenario: You correctly created a button component that uses Inner shadow Spread instead of Stroke. Somewhere in the design process, however, the border disappeared.

I mocked up one way to easily fix this problem. When an Effect is nullified by unchecking "Clip content", an alert is shown that contextualizes the issue.

When showing a notification count to users, make sure you visually correlate it to any action(s) required.

In this view of residential care leads and residents, I slightly modify card appearance based on priority to make it easier to see which resident(s) need attention first.

Same technique in a different environment. Still a big fan of filter: saturate(100%) on hover.

Subtle gradients point users to primary actions in this task view of a patient management app.

In general, when designing for experiences that will heavily feature media content, I tend to simplify the supporting UI.

It's only one part of the process, but helps keep everything visually balanced.

Big fan of increasing saturation values on hover.

Here are some branding iterations that didn't make the cut. Still love some of the details here, particularly in the lettering.

Reminder that pushing back at the right time can save a team lots of time.

A few icons and some subtle containers can make an otherwise text-only interface more engaging.

This hero section design wasn't inspired by egg yolks, but now I'm hungry.

Cute little loading state spot illustration.

Similar idea. It's not *best* for laying out floor plans, but the Arc tool and auto layout make Figma serviceable.

Also, if you already know a tool, the learning curve to implementing it in helping you on other projects is nonexistent.

And here's another almost buried design highlight from several years ago.

It's not the *best* tool for it, but Figma can be quite serviceable for print design.

I thought for sure I had shared this image I exported years ago, only to find out I never posted it.

Anyways, here it is.

Might need to try out Glaze to make a solution that searches local folders and checks what has actually been published.

Iterate, itereate, and iterate some more.

Liquid Glass is fine but I'm thinking Metal is the move.

The "in x playlist(s)" YouTube feature would still be helpful.

It should also apply to the floating menu that appears when you press and hold/tap ⠇icon on a video.

Selective icon colors can make even a data-heavy internal tool a little more approachable.

Wireframes aren't as common in software design these days, but mid-fidelity UI is still useful. You can create many iterations without sacrificing details.

In the early stages of copy.ai billing, I mixed mid- and high-fidelity UI as we planned features.

This preview UI hides a lot of complexity, while still giving users the power to finely customize their content asset.

Taste the data. Well, no, actually don't do that.

But, think about tasting the data.

Subtle dark mode delineation of two-column toggles.

And another one for good measure ✅

It's the little things in life. Like pun-tastic OpenGraph images 😄

Empty states usually feel like an after-thought.

That doesn't have to be the case.

Software is a small portion of my design interests.

Some day...

Generated text content dock UI from several moons ago.

Wrapping up this trio of forgotten gems with a throwback to a mobile card tap transition prototype.

Another artifact from the process of reviewing old work for an upcoming presentation.

Quick screen recording of a prototype for Direct Review inside of company detail page of UserEvidence Research Library.

Would bring the ability to source customer testimonials directly to the platform.

I was reviewing some work for an upcoming presentation and re-discovered this screen recording of using Automator (created by Jordan Singer) in Figma to fetch API data and use it to programmatically generate new content using Components.

Years later and it's still magical to watch.

Portal theming UI details from an early version of Speakeasy.

Turbo-charged tables with collapsible sections.

A little typeface care and a few boxes.

Not very intricate, yet still satisfying.

Geometric love. Hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day weekend.

Text-heavy experiences aren't necessarily a bad thing. They should feel lightweight, though, while still providing enough information to users.

Dale Doback agrees.

Set a few tangerine slides to motion

A few more details from the Survey Builder.

I thought I had posted details from this version of the Survey Builder before, but turns out I hadn't 🤷‍♂️

Ron Swanson sure made a great survey 😄

In the end, it's just text and rectangles. The hope is that they're more interesting and useful than that to the audience.

Oh so many floor plan iterations. Above and below ground.

Not every experience requires a modal, but when it does, make sure it's well-considered and thoughtfully crafted.

Years later, these navigation components from the copy.ai design system still hold up.

A look at a shelved AI image generation feature I designed for copy.ai several years ago.

While the initial concept never got the green light for full exploration, this design still demonstrates some solid usability.

I wrote some some pretty entertaining placeholder text in these AI Workflows UI mockups if I do say so myself 😄

One of the early versions of an AI workflows builder for copy.ai

Another section of the AI workflows experience.

Making some good progress

I spent nearly the entire day making, breaking, then remaking stuff in 3D, so my brain is sort of scrambled.

But, since none of that is ready to share, here are some details from an AI workflow tool that didn't end up looking like this when it launched. Minimal but meaningful.

When using a streaming video app (Prime Video, HBO Max, Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, etc.) where do you expect to see "My List"/"My Stuff" content?

Polls aren't supported here (yet), but I'd appreciate replies on any of the linked social media networks.

"I'd like to see My List/My Stuff content in row number..."

Latest progress updates of Figma -> Spline workflow

Iterate more. You'll probably benefit from doing so.

The "Find My" iOS app deserves some refinement.

3D design work is challenging. Less bad at it than I was this morning, if even only by a little bit.

This was a very early wireframe when ideating an AI workflows tool for copy.ai.

I especially wanted to highlight the branching of thoughts and actions that would occur, as a workflow is rarely a simple, linear task.

The process is the point. Here are more drafts of office floor plan layouts.

Designing for digital spaces is great, but designing for physical spaces can be such a wonderful change of pace.

Grayscale lines and boxes. The opposite of polished.

Any guesses as to what this image depicts?

Here are some early explorations for lettering.

I know without context it can be difficult to pick favorites, but strictly visually speaking, which option(s) is best so far?

Things are starting to take shape.

Yes, bad pun intended 😄

While I try out different 3D software to see what will work best, it's still helpful to quickly mock up different views/layouts in Figma.

It's certainly not pretty, though it's highly functional. Here are a few of the several dozen iterations for a future home office layout.

I save YouTube videos to "Watch Later", and then selectively save videos to different playlists.

I'd like to be able to directly see which of these "Watch Later" videos appears in another playlist.

It was a wonderful Sunday full of messy shapes and in-progress logo drafts. It might not look like it but there is a method to this madness.

I'd like to be able to quickly swap selection colors within a frame in Figma. Yes, all instances, regardless of whether they're fill or stroke.

Here's one way the feature could be implemented (plus supporting current keyboard shortcut for swapping fill/stroke: Shift + X).

I wonder how many design elements sit inside a forgotten Figma project, never to be seen by anyone outside of the designer who once made them.

Lots I'm sure, but here's a design that will be shared.

These charts were later updated and shipped but never in this exact style.

In iOS Apple Maps, I'd like to just be able to "go" from the top search result. I don't need to "Look Around".

I mocked up a solution. While I was at it, I updated color values to be accessible, and corrected current corner radii nesting issues.

Some artwork that was ultimately shelved. DFA = DNF in this instance, unfortunately.

It shall live here.

UX design + prototyping meet the physical world.

I created a first version of tablet/phone holding system attached to my Rogue Monster Rack using:

1. Rogue Band Peg
2. SmallRig Super Clamp
3. 1/4" Male Screw
4. Joby GorillaPod Ballhead...

I recently reorganized some folders in my Dropbox account and noticed an area that could use improvement. After moving items out of a folder, there was no visual indication that the folder was now empty.

I mocked up one solution, and redrew the folder icon while I was at it.

Here are a few more archived scraps on this Sunday evening from the very early days of designing UserEvidence data visualizations.

Get ready for more unabashedly in-progress work incoming until I get this just right. I just stumbled into a new direction after staring at these glyphs for a while.

The frame title: "Selected Elements for Social Media".

Honest. Optimistic. Incomplete.

Another artifact from the archives, here's the grid I created for copy.ai's expanded navbar state.

In an age of vibe coding, it's important to keep in mind the structure that forms the UI's backbone.

I'm in the "it will be great but it's not yet sharable" stage of the creative process. Which means now is precisely the right time to share.

What this post today lacks in completeness it will make up for in future coolness and usefulness (yes, really).

I wrote about this Figma feature request nearly a year ago. I still would like support for multiple sticky elements.

Read about this and other features I'm still waiting for Figma to implement.

One of the best features of YouTube Studio is native A/B testing for titles and/or thumbnails.

Here's an alternate thumbnail I created for my most recent video in which I redesign Oasis iOS, creating a dark mode concept to elevate visual design aesthetics.

View the video here.

Here's the latest progress of a Lange concept watch I've been designing here and there for the last month.

I appreciate everyone who joined the live stream today. More live streams are coming soon.

Finalizing a YouTube live stream thumbnail template.

This template will be used while the stream is occurring, while an updated thumbnail displays the finalized design once the stream has ended.

I'd like for iOS Reminders to add weather-dependent triggers.

Now that my personal site's Daily Feed posts span multiple years, I've been working on creating a proper navigation system.

I also need to add the ability to search, along with a true tagging system, but this is a good first step that will be live on the site soon.

Here are some of my 2026 professional and personal resolutions.

Farewell, 2025.

For my final redesign concept of the year, I re-imagined the Oasis iOS app UI in dark mode. It was a lot of fun to create, especially the bespoke water bottle illustrations.

I also created a video demonstrating my design process - featuring a time-lapse of 10.5 hours of work condensed into a more digestible video length of 16 minutes.

Not every app needs a full redesign. Anker's iOS app has a nice UI, but there are a few UX improvements I'd like to see in 2026.

First improvement: quick preview of usage time remaining. Currently, you need to open each device's detail view to find this information.

I'm not under the illusion that YouTube values UX above engagement.

That said, it'd be nice if it utilized the label UI (currently used for Fundraisers) to mark a video that is a "Reupload" and/or "Compilation", instead of hoping creators will label videos as such.

From the cutting room floor, here is a series of donut chart concepts I created for UserEvidence just before joining the company.

Though created many moons ago, I feel there are some nice visuals that still hold up. My personal favorite is the middle chart in the third row.

The details are coming into focus.

Wishing everyone a safe and wonderful holiday.

The video is taking longer than anticipated but here are a few more in-progress pixels.

Buttons are simple. Great buttons are not.

Peep a small preview of pixels that will premiere on Wednesday in a process video.

Happy social proof Sunday.

A fun but challenging aspect of designing TRX's virtual trainer platform was accounting for different orientation views.

This mockup shows a series of common "phone" orientations mixed with a landscape orientation for the instructor.

Direct Review feature I designed for UserEvidence.

Just a reminder that modal overlays don't have to be boring, 25% opacity black.

The details are starting to emerge.

12px icons are typically reserved for complicated interfaces and/or instances where icons denote status(es) rather than action(s).

These custom 12px icons I made for the UserEvidence design system are small but contain some nice details.

Started making design videos in 2025. Here's the cover image for the next one.

Many more videos to come in 2026 and beyond.

So, if 64px icons are rare, then which size is considered common?

These 16px icons represent the "standard" grid size used in most applications nowadays.

Previewing a different kind of design work-in-progress.

There's something really nice about bold font-weight metrics. Mixed with a few custom icons, I still dig this UI I created a few years back.

I shared the first half of these metrics last month and then forgot to share the other half.

Better late than never.

I don't typically create 64px icons. At that grid size, we're usually entering spot illustration territory, and they require additional background visual elements.

Here is an exception to that occurrence. I made these for a survey template creation user flow.

If you're reading this post, you likely provide tech support to family during the holidays.

It seems obvious, but when a family member presses "+" in Messages to capture a photo, gently remind them to use the Camera app directly.

With significant amounts of data originating from multiple groups, I designed a collapsible table solution for UserEvidence.

Each group had metadata displayed in either state, so users didn't waste time needlessly expanding an empty group.

iOS 26 has still not corrected the lackluster search experience in its Settings app.

Most users have experienced this frustration. For example, when attempting to find settings related to Live Activities (a useful feature that several apps use) I'm currently shown zero results.

The entire point of the search function is to access an unknown or difficult-to-locate section of Settings...

Here's another look at a section of the Report Creator.

Inspired by FigJam UI, the bottom menu allowed users to drag in content and instantly see how it would appear in the final published case study.

The primary brand color was used only as an accent to maintain its effect.

An early look at a 404 page design for my personal site, inspired by that pink basketball site.

There's a distinct satisfaction in looking at work from several years back and feeling like it still holds up.

This was a case study builder I designed while at UserEvidence.

"My Awesome Account Report" might be placeholder text, but it'd make a great title, too.

Progress continues. The pixels are getting prettier.

Some otherwise pedestrian UI elements can hide a lot of planning.

When working with Saks to redesign portions of its iOS app, I spent considerable effort ensuring every feature was thoughtfully included in the components. Here's a look at some of that planning process.

I'm having a blast improving the deal details for the 2026 updates to Home Plate Deals.

The custom emojis are still in-progress but have been especially fun to make.

More UI refinements are ahead. In the meantime, here's a look at the current state of things.

Monday musings: what if you could charge AirPods directly on the Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro?

Unnecessary? Sure.

Cool? Yeah.

Progress is occurring, though it might not seem like it.

I go back and forth between feeling like I'm playing The Sims and hacking into a mainframe of an evil 1980's corporation.

This 3D stuff is challenging. It's fun to be a novice and figure out a lot of things by accident.

I appreciate the level of granularity Chrono24 offers in its filters.

However, the current filters modal doesn't show users which filters are enabled and which specific options are selected.

I corrected these issues and added further functionality.

It's not pretty or efficient, but bringing live app screenshots into Figma makes it easy to double-check and fix 1px SwiftUI alignment issues before they reach the end user.

Here are a few UI details from an early exploration of the "Brand Voice" feature for copy.ai.

It was meant to be a way to keep the tone consistent for all users throughout an organization.

I don't use the app very often, but when I do, it's almost always early in the morning. Dark mode user entering light mode is jarring.

It's almost 2026. Starbucks should really support dark mode on iOS.

UX issues aside, here's a UI refresh for the home screen.

Both the watch selection and site design of S.Song Watches are really nice.

One change I'd like to see is making the header position: sticky. Might seem small but it would improve UX, especially on larger screens.

I also updated alignment and padding.

I'm not up to speed on all AI browser features, but this is something I'd like to be able to do in Firefox (natively, without installing an extension).

Auto sort tabs (left to right) based on product price, tab title, etc.

Sort parameters would change based on tab content.

Grids, guidelines, and gradients.

Every so often, I get excited about creating 3D elements, and then lose steam after a bit. Here's to another go at it.

2026, I'm holding myself to making you a year of 3D betterment.

At least Spline eases the learning curve.

Yes, AI can be helpful, but wireframes are still useful in 2025.

I wish YouTube provided 15 second skip forwards/backwards controls on the iOS lock screen widget as opposed to next/previous video controls.

Spotify has this control set with podcasts.

Also, if you'd like the wallpaper seen in this feature concept mockup, you can grab it for free here.

Design is never finished; only shipped.

I went through several iterations while designing the scheduling feature. Here's a look at a version that allowed users to set exceptions and preview their schedule.

I wish Apple Notes added sticky titles in iOS 26.

I duplicate a lot of notes and some formatting is identical between them. Being able to glance up and confirm I'm editing the correct note would be really helpful.

One of my favorite features I designed for copy.ai was Workflows Scheduling.

The goal: make it ridiculously easy for a user to type in a preferred cadence, add some topics, and set a structure. Multiple segments (ie weekday vs weekend splits) were supported.

Text dominant interfaces are difficult because you need to present information to users without being able to hide behind visuals.

When you get it right, it feels really nice. I feel like I "got it" in this instance.

It's not the right tool for every job, but sometimes you just need a modal.

Remember Twitter Blue? Yeah probably not.

Anyways, when that was a thing, I was making a demo app for a crypto platform and I created this nice little tutorial section to assist users.

The demo app and Twitter Blue are both dead, so this will live here.

An unused design but not an unloved one.

It was a fun challenge to utilize a limited color palette while updating the look and feel of TRX's marketing site. I reserved usage of the signature yellow gradient to highlight specific actions and accent text headings.

Different metrics, different platform, same breathing room principles applied.

Giving metrics some necessary breathing room.

Here's another exploration for a virtual training platform.

It was a fun challenge creating a product that was meant to be experienced several feet back from the screen.

Legibility, contrast, and scale = success.

A slice of subtle shadows

Sneak preview of pixels-in-progress for an upcoming blog post.

One of the minimal iterations of Generation-in-Doc AI text editor features I designed for copy.ai.

Updating visuals for the 2026 season of Home Plate Deals.

I'm excited for Opening Day, but also glad to have some downtime to reconfigure the app for what will be its best season yet.

Nested lists are beautifully complex and yet shouldn't appear as such to users.

From the archives, here's a very early exploration for a virtual training platform.

Open text inputs are great, but only when they show helpful suggestions to users.

This was an early iteration of a dropdown for an AI text editor that surfaced suggestions along with template(s) (where applicable) that matched the input text.

Congrats to the Dodgers on back-to-back World Series titles.

First and foremost, I'm a baseball fan. I have a rooting interest in the Dodgers having lived in LA for over a decade. Already excited for the 2026 season.

Experiences don't always need icons or vibrant colors. One such example is this text-only empty state for an AI text editor.

An informative yet minimal workspace billing management screen.

Congratulations to Grammarly on becoming Superhuman 🙌

Last year, I had the pleasure of working with one of Grammarly's teams to update the UI/UX of an internal tool. Had a wonderful time working with great people.

Wishing the whole company continued success 💯

Here's a look back at a very early version of an AI workflow template details view.

Many of these core elements remained in subsequent versions, while the formatting got significantly updated.

Small visuals, such as icons and/or spot illustrations, can break up otherwise text-heavy content.

Content filter dropdowns deserve nicely considered design details, too.

Working on something for Home Plate Deals to highlight the conclusion of the 2025 MLB season.

Tables can get complex fast. It's important to distill the amount of elements shown and, where possible, tuck additional content/menus away until a user is ready to interact with them.

It's a balancing act, though, so make sure to not sacrifice discoverability for simplicity.

Even in an otherwise simple UI, adding a bit of depth to hover states can have a positive impact. Draw in the user's attention to especially important aspects of the experience, but don't overdo it.

Dialing in the last few details before this series goes live.

When I needed to show multiple sub-categories, it made sense to show a visual breakdown and separate the categories with "/" marks.

This method made it easier for users to understand the category path, and increased the scan lines of the column text.

In the spirit of hybrid UI design (part wireframe, part nearly-finalized comp), here's an introductory modal that contains an embedded feature explainer video.

Easily dismissible for experienced users, it offers new users a quick overview of Workflows features.

Dark mode charts are fun 🤩

Most placeholder copy isn't very informative. Whenever possible, I try to provide an example of what a user may enter or, at the very least, a more detailed description than what they typically encounter (ie. "Search" or "Discover").

More dark mode details from an internal tool with lots of data.

I love designing products where "ghost" cards or actions are feasible.

I prefer making buttons more obvious but, since cards typically contain more information, this can be a great option.

Make sure the default state is informative and then reveal more UI details on hover.

The downside of the MLB season finishing soon is the upside of having more time to work on Home Plate Deals updates.

In updating team deal cards UI, I'm exploring typefaces, visual design tweaks, and creating custom team logos.

Popover menu in an AI-native text editor containing a few nice details.

Dark mode dashboard dropdowns and data 🌑

In order to quickly explore a variety of concepts, I'll often fully design only select sections of the UI, leaving others with only wireframe-level details.

This allows me to focus on developing select features, while still providing the general context of where they'll live.

So much of design (and life) is trial and error. Some cool idea from Dashboard UI v26 might never get built but it doesn't mean that it's not a worthwhile endeavor.

If it's not ship-worthy, it might be share-worthy.

Minimal AI workflow template cards from the archives.

Another chart hover state exploration. This one is more saturated and shows dual data points for each time period.

A little while back, I came up with a bit of a UX flow vs actions diagram approach. The idea is that each indented level in a new stage of the user flow, with actions called out.

It doesn't work for every situation but it keeps everything in one place during the planning stage.

An early and ultimately unused version of a muted, monochromatic chart hover state. Still cool.

An exploration demonstrating how AI-generated text could be visually differentiated, with hover state indicating the ability to open generation/edit history UI.

While looking for a different design in the archives, I found this fairly minimal upsell mobile screen I created several years ago.

Always nice when a design doesn't feel as old as it is. Must have been doing something right.

Here are a few closeup details of a quick access panel for running AI tasks.

Batted 1.000 with Home Plate Deals during the regular season: at least one deal was posted for every day a game was played.

The postseason has quite a few gaps between games, so I needed to make an empty state.

Simple, text-based, informative.

Here's an early concept for generating content directly in an AI text editor I created while working at copy.ai in 2022.

On October 1, 2015, I arrived in southern California after driving overnight during the last leg of a cross country move.

A decade later, I'm still regularly inspired by this beautiful section of the country.

Wishing myself a happy 10 year Californiversary 😄

Yep, inputs are still fun 😜

Making text-only UI user-friendly can be a great challenge.

A few keys to success: use well-defined and consistent columns, while only using colors to emphasize key points and/or actions.

Sometimes a mid-fidelity wireframe contains almost enough detail to be serviceable as a comp.

This is one such instance from several years back, when I was designing a survey builder for a B2B SaaS involved in demonstrating customer satisfaction.

Input fields are so much fun. Maybe my favorite UI element. Layering details, accounting for various states.

Saturday nights don't get much crazier than this. Progress of work marches on.

Some UI details of a recent floating action menu featuring a combination of custom and Nucleo icons

iOS 26 feature request for Apple: Intelligent Orientation Lock.

90% of the time, I leave Portrait Orientation Lock on. I only turn it off to view media in landscape orientation.

I wish my phone understood this distinction and automatically locked/unlocked portrait orientation.

Once a user reports a phone number as spam, iOS 26 should clearly reflect this in its UI.

I made a concept of how this could appear, improving text contrast and making icons more consistent while I was at it.

iOS 26's Stopwatch should utilize the same fun, oversized theme as UI on the Lock Screen when a timer finishes.

Parts of iOS 26 are chomping at the bit to have fun, while other areas pull back, keeping some UI the exact same as past versions. It needs more cohesion.

Steeped in sepia.

Updated. Back to our regularly scheduled non-orange programming tomorrow.

Download the iPhone 17 "PRO" wallpaper.

Created a video going through a bit of how I created this design and animation in Figma.

Hope that folks find it useful and/or entertaining.

Check out the video.

Seeing if I can't make a nice wallpaper for this creamsicle.

I really like the dynamically sized iOS 26 Lock Screen clock typeface updates.

But when supported media thumbnails appear on the Lock Screen, the dynamic typeface is replaced with tiny, boring text.

I mocked up a solution.

The clock text shrinks/expands to accommodate the thumbnail as it's shown/hidden, respectively.

All of the hard work that went into creating the dynamic numbers should be highlighted, not hidden.

I'd love to be able to view my GitHub contributions graph directly in the iOS 26 app.

Mocked up how this could look, added some more Liquid Glass elements to the UI, and simplified things a bit.

While it's nice to be able to display app icons at a larger size without labels, the iOS 26 Dock inherits a mismatched corner radius issue.

The "fluid" aspect of Liquid Glass should adapt to the specific corner radius amount of the device. I mocked a few concepts using the iPhone 15 Pro Max corner radius as my example.

I waited to install iOS 26 until the public release was ready.

Overall, it's pretty nice. I've noticed the typical visual quirks, but it's not terribly jarring most of the time.

That said, there's still a bug in the Clock app that has persisted since at least iOS 17.

Tab bar transition timing tweaks.

I'd like to be able to view and sort by song tempo in Spotify playlists.

Friday :focus

Tuesday, September 11, 2001. 8:46 a.m. The start of the day that ended an era.

2,977 people woke up that day like every other before it, not realizing it would be their last.

Each and every day is a gift. Cherish your loved ones and be kind to strangers.

Little idea I had when comparing iPhone 17 models today.

Even faster column swapping on Apple's site.

Figma Community file updates coming soon.

Full vector version of the highly anticipated Apple x Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte™ collaboration is in progress.

17 Pro Max Dynamic Island is the same size as 16 Pro Max, though top speaker is nearly twice as wide as 16 Pro Max.

It will be live on my Figma Community profile.

When it works, Figma iOS is wonderful.

When it crashes, I find myself tapping through a number of different screens just to get back to where I left off.

While you can set a Flow Starting Point, this doesn't allow you to simply navigate forward/backward through a series of Frames.

Figma forces you to set up a variety of Flows and/or Pages to preview your work.

The more iterations you make, the more frustrating the experience.

I know there's a workaround, but I just want a "Duplicate Note" feature in iOS, Apple. Please and thank you.

It seems like iOS 26 might support it but I can't find any screenshot evidence of it. Guess we'll see this week.

If an email startup showed a “Report spam or unsubscribe?” modal after users clicked “Report spam”, I'd presume it was gauging interest and/or educating users on the difference between the actions.

But, Gmail collects enough data to be able to predict users’ moods on a random day in 2035.

So, when I clicked “Report spam” for the thousandth time today, and saw the same modal that’s seemingly been in Gmail since I started using the service in 2005, I decided to mock up a better solution.

Working on an early iteration of Home Plate Deals native iOS app.

Going to be a fun MLB offseason preparing and visually updating it for 2026 opening day.

Little preview of a new series I'm launching next week.

Excited about it 🙌

When icons appear on translucent elements, make sure you're accounting for the variation of background content.

Here's a clip mask fix that corrects YouTube's iOS app current notification indicator bug.

"The bigger the company, the more likely it is that simple design mistakes make their way into production."

A blank page is an invitation to start making something great.

Very rough draft. Eventually this will be photorealistic. Still a long way from that point but the challenge is the reward.

Hundreds of humbling little details still needed.

Late night leaning letters on this Labor Day weekend.

Mocked up the keyboard shortcuts I'd like to have while listening to Spotify podcasts on iPadOS.

And cleaned up some alignment and UI issues while I was at it.

Friday night Figma frame fun.

I'd like to be able to quickly select the inner elements of a frame/group in Figma.

The current "Select All" feature menu supports selecting by visual properties of elements, but I'm looking to select by the element type.

Mocked up a solution and polished the UI a bit.

How much do I think about UX? A lot. And it doesn't stop at digital products.

I'm not the only person to be frustrated with the arrangement of variety pack beverages.

I might be the only person to diagram a solution, though.

👀 I'm looking at you, Celsius.

I'm biased but HBO Max has the best streaming service name.

That said, I wish it allowed playback speed control, similar to Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify.

I mocked up an iPadOS version of this feature, updating the visual design quality of the app UI as well.

Filtering table content can be a slog. User research mirrored my impressions of the previous Contentstack UX.

I prioritized search and filtering improvements. Flexible and nestable search was a key feature, allowing users to easily search sub-categories.

Finally moved Daily Feed items to their own page and added navigation cards to the home page.

Stacked border-radius and box-shadow effects for hover/focus states. There are a few nice details sprinkled throughout.

Was it necessary to create a custom background image using a single gradient? Nope.


Is it cool? I'd say so.

It's 5 o'clock somewhere.

Hope everyone has a great and safe weekend!

Deceptively simple at first glance, this table design allows customers to create groups for survey recipients.

Would love to be able to mute specific post types and topics from accounts on X.

I'm a broken record and only post about design. At least I'm consistent 😄

It's good for you.

"The bigger the company, the more likely it is that simple design mistakes make their way into production."

Spotify iOS has 6 different right-side alignment planes and 5 different left-side planes. 1px issues galore.

I cleaned up the alignment and icon inconsistencies.

Occasionally, there's a cool idea that gets left on the cutting room floor for one reason or another.

One such example, in my opinion, is this early UI exploration for Generation History I designed for copy.ai in 2022.

Data point details from an internal tool's UI.

Icons were part of the client's existing design system but everything else was created by yours truly.

Adding most recent posts to the navigation cards and removing un-needed details from the default states.

Hovering shows shadows, animates icon, and changes corner radii of visuals.

Another fun aspect of the Home Plate Deals wordmark: it responsively hides content based on viewport size.

Scaling down the logo and hiding the wordmark is a fine solution for many companies, but this demonstrates better care and attention-to-detail.

Mocked up a "what if" Wednesday concept. An ultra-thin bezel, under-screen front camera, under-screen fingerprint sensor, future iPhone.

The iPhone 30 Pro Max (depending on whether or not this year's model is named "iPhone 26") won't look like this, but it's fun to dream.

Though Apple's icon for Work focus state isn't bad, here are some alternate SF Symbols that could work equally well, and perhaps more universally than the existing badge icon.

The one exception here is the briefcase, but it's a commonly used "work" icon.

Working on custom dashed borders. Standard dashed borders get distorted in the corners (especially with larger corner radius amounts).

This method fixes the corner issues, and allows custom corner radius amounts for the dashes.

It'd be nice to be able to show/hide all Figma Effects with one click. Complex frames/layers can have several stacked effects and this would make comparisons easier.

Paper could benefit from this feature, too, if it doesn't already have it.

Design progress can be extremely subtle. You develop habits, go-to solutions, get comfortable, etc.

Take time to look back at old designs. Especially if you feel like you haven't been advancing as quickly as you'd like. I'd design this differently now. And that's great.

The easter egg is now live 👀

Check it out

I've seen Square's logo hundreds of times but never really looked at its construction.

I refined the logo to correct the inner square's corner radius issue, increased corner smoothing, and adjusted the scale of the logo elements.

Subtle, but better.

Hot take: Apple's SF Symbol for Do Not Disturb doesn't make sense. All other Focus icons use common symbols but the moon should represent dark mode, not a general do not disturb/focus state.

Here are six SF Symbols that represent the concept better.

Icon refinements and dialing in light mode colors. Oh, and actually centered things this time 🤦‍♂️

Working on a fun little easter egg that'll go live on Home Plate Deals this week 👀

Adding depth and separating the tab bar from the edge of the viewport.

And, of course, that means a dark mode highlight post is next.

Celebrating seven months of daily posts with seven of my favorite light mode design posts this year.

Like I suggested in February, I'm still hoping for a preferred playback speed feature on YouTube.

Additionally, it'd be nice to be able to set preferred playback speed for music video content vs other videos.

Spotify does this with podcasts, where playback speed can saved as a different value than music playback speed. It's automatic and very helpful.

Yeah, I still love side projects.

Continuing to refine the icons for these navigation cards. Default and hover states are shaping up nicely.

Wireframe for AI text editor template view containing just enough visual detail to convey the concept.

A little dark mode preview of personal site section updates coming soon 👀

Today's tab bar progress brought to you by lemons and limes.

Here are a few mid-fidelity wireframes from a mobile trading platform project.

I've found many engineers don't open Figma's prototype view, so annotating which sections are sticky vs fixed makes it easier to understand early interaction ideas without leaving the design view.

Make sure to let users know when they're about to do something important.

Give them the power to take action but, also, the context of their actions.

Some dark mode details from EasyMint - a demo app that showed prospective users how Wally worked.

I was looking for something else earlier today when I rediscovered this early feature concept I created in summer 2022 for copy.ai.

Generation History would make it easy to browse previously generated content, see metadata, add keywords, re-use, or branch off of a specific version.

Sometimes you need to go through a bunch of versions of "eh, not great" to start to feel like you're getting somewhere.

Exploring a number of app icon iterations for Home Plate Deals.

Recently revisited a logo I created in 2016 that merges "A" + "i", redrawing it to create better balance and additionally incorporate a user symbol in the "i".

I wish Figma displayed export status.

After export is initiated, the app can take a while, displaying no indication anything is happening.

Initial version of this feature: button state updates and text changes from "Export" to "Exporting". Later, could add "Cancel Export".

Man, I love side projects.

I wrote about designing, coding, and posting every day so far in 2025. Here's the cover image I created for the post.

I first illustrated daily posts as checkmarks in a calendar. Decent concept, but it felt too "ordinary". Like anyone might have landed on this concept. Also, even after several iterations, I never loved the quality of the calendar illustration.

So, I went a different direction. I mocked up an abstracted version with 7 squares per row each representing a day of the week, and the iOS app icon "squircle" as the updated "calendar" container.

Finally, I made the "track" of squares continuous to demonstrate a visual of the months progressing.

I enjoyed layering dozens of effects, gradients, and blurs to get the dimensionality just so. Used the Figma Noise effect to subtly add realism.

No AI was used for any of the illustrations (ideation or creation) or the blog post. Your brain is pretty remarkable if you give it a chance 😃

The bigger the company, the more likely it is that simple design mistakes make their way into production.

In X on iOS, the app icon showcase card has some corner radius errors, so I corrected them.

Flighty and other apps deserve better.

Empty states are often neglected, which is unfortunate. Just because there isn't data to display doesn't mean the experience should be devoid of care.

I created this visual for the 2025 MLB All-Star break for Home Plate Deals to display in lieu of the typical daily deals.

Deals return 7/19 🤍 Until then, you can see the live version of the empty state illustration.

✅ Ample spacing
✅ Suitable font-size
✅ Clear CTA's

Tables should be usable. And if you're bothering to design one, why not make it visually pleasing as well?

Dark mode details 🟠

Day by day, pixel by pixel, things are coming together.

I've graduated from grayscale.

It's easy to enjoy designing an app that's only for you. The most opinionated software I've ever designed.

I think others will find it useful, too.

As I'm redrawing MLB team logos for Home Plate Deals, I've also been updating default and hover states of cards to better highlight these logos.

Progress in work. Slow and steady but things are coming along nicely so far.

Dark mode tooltip details from work on a Grammarly internal tool.

Preview SMS Dynamic Devices is now live!

- iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max drawn with 100% vector effects in a responsive frame. Being vector images, you can export these mockups to a billboard size if you'd like.
- Pixel-perfect matched to official Apple product bezels.
- Completely free

The plan is to roll out a model line per week. Next week: iPhone 15 models, followed by 14 and then likely all notched iPhones together. Going to support iOS 26 compatible iPhones (11 and up). Might make the SE but that'd be a one-off with Touch ID, so we'll see.

A few gradients, some background blur, and a little timeline UI make this dark mode text feel more considered.

Tomorrow, the device mockups used here will be made available free on Figma Community.

Finally beginning the very earliest stage of conceptualizing an app idea I've been thinking about since February.

Using some recent mobile work to perform the last few tests of the device mockups before they go live this week.

Happy Fourth of July!

Hope everyone has a fun and safe weekend 🇺🇸

AutoWake Apple TV when first pitch is about to be thrown on Friday Night Baseball. Apple owns the hardware, OS, and broadcast rights.

Audio would be muted upon wake. Optional feature of course.

3rd party apps couldn't support it because it'd likely be abused.

Minimal UI still needs to be intentional in order to be impactful. Shadows and background elements add just enough depth to pull focus into specific areas of the experience.

This tangerine screen is part of some early work-in-progress. The call-to-action is compelling if I do say so myself. The button is nice, too.

I'd love for Threads (as well as X and Bluesky) to steal this great Mastodon feature.

Sometimes you write a long post only to realize that you need to update information after the editing time frame has closed. Very convenient, especially if you need to correct multiple posts.

Making subtle refinements and updates to dark mode versions of some recent app icons.

Simple SaaS empty state on this summer Saturday.

I wish iOS Control Center would display which AirPods noise cancellation mode I'm using. Currently, you need to long press volume control to see which mode you're in.

I created custom icons, taking visual cues from current SF Symbols, to demonstrate how this feature might look.

Still refining details but starting to get the comparison slider implemented using motion.dev as a foundation.

I need to finalize the handle design as well as get the labels to wipe away with the slider content, but I'm liking the look and feel so far.

Since June 25, 2024, I've committed code every day. Pretty proud of this streak. Since GitHub doesn't have a badge for this particular achievement, I created my own.

Time to start another 365 day streak.

Nearing the finish line on a series of device illustrations that will be available free on Figma Community.

Two weeks until launch.

Implemented an updated loading animation for Home Plate Deals using motion.dev and flubber.

See it live.

Continuing to refine the multiple social media post feature in Preview SMS. Enjoying the challenge of making sure the text-heavy, largely grayscale experience is manageable.

Canvas is a nice visualization feature in Spotify's iOS app.

But, when you minimize the UI, swiping between tracks eliminates this minimal UI, pushing back the controls of the standard UI.

I designed Continuous Canvas, which keeps UI minimal from song-to-song.

I'm working on a comparison slider for my personal site to provide a nice before-and-after representation of redesigns.

There needs to be enough contrast between the slider and the content to clearly demonstrate the effect, but not so much contrast that it's distracting.

I like that iOS 26 appears to be adding a charging time indication. But, I wish the charging time was shown in the Dynamic Island, and not just on the home screen.

Once charging time joins the rest of the UI, it should appear next to the day/date, and not replace it (as it does now).

Here is a very early work-in-progress feature for Preview SMS that will show how long social media posts can be broken up on X, Bluesky, Threads, and Mastodon.

Text is pasted into input field and then can be individually modified for each platform.

I love a good dark mode map.

Testing out how a variety of app icon designs appear together with iOS 26 formatting updates.

Happy Father's Day 💙

Work-in-progress pattern for a new project. Combining different brushes, stroke widths, and texture makes for a pretty compelling wood grain.

When posting Home Plate Deals daily deals on Reddit, I always tag the teams' subreddits.

Certain subreddit names are obvious, but others aren't. I'd like to see which subreddits I've joined to ensure I'm tagging the correct community. Those subreddits should be indexed first.

There are lots of subtle details sprinkled throughout this Internet Archive navbar dropdown concept.

I hope you never encounter the Home Plate Deals 404 page, but at least you'll get a nice visual if you do.

See it live

Expanding on my Internet Archive branding concept, I took a run at redesigning the top of the home page.

Not only a visual refresh, the core goal here is to highlight key areas: search and categories. Showcasing the depth of the archive, it invites users to jump right in.

When an MLB game is blacked out, I'll use the audio feature in its iOS app to catch the game via a radio broadcast.

Playback mostly works as intended, but the audio section needs some UI/UX love, so I redesigned it.

The header section of MLB's Scores web page has a few issues that diminish UX.

I redesigned it to improve contrast, alignment, kerning, and visual balance.

MLB: If nothing else, please at least update the color of selected date to make it more obvious as to which date is selected.

Working on visuals coming soon to Home Plate Deals.

What might Apple AirPods Ultra look like?

Features:
- Aluminum surfaces reduce slipperiness
- Standalone Apple Music Support (activated via Action Button) over WiFi and/or 5G network
- Significantly improved battery life compared to AirPods & AirPods Pro
- Better ear-fitting seal further attenuates background noise
- Detachable USB-C cable (in Y configuration) enables Lossless Audio

The light mode UI is nice, but the dark mode version of this home screen is even nicer.

I recently purchased an Aranet4 air quality monitor. It works well, and I like the iOS app.

I just wish the app UI displayed the charm of the physical device. I redesigned the UI, blending elements of the current UI with the device, and cleaned up the general appearance.

I also recorded a time-lapse showing how I created the concept using Figma. 1.5 hours compressed into about 1.5 minutes.

With Home Plate Deals deploying updates daily, I'm always looking at Netlify's deploy page. And it's a bit frustrating.

This page should be as easy as a traffic light. Just let me know if my code commits are going out to users. Everything else is secondary.

I really like Geekbench. I wish it had a simple comparison tool, though. You currently have to hunt through tabs and pages to compare various metrics.

So, I mocked up a feature concept. As an added challenge, I illustrated the Mac Studio & mini, drawn in scale to one another.

Small icons. Big details.

Variety is the spice of the life. I used to illustrate things.

Here are a few items I drew for a private plane safety manual.

It would be nice if MLB's iOS app would allow its Multiview (picture-in-picture) feature to show multiple games simultaneously. tvOS allows it, but not iOS or iPadOS.

Currently, you need to have a separate RSN, TV streaming, or (for Friday Night Baseball) Apple TV app open to enable multi-game viewing.

Please make it happen, MLB.

Every once and a while, you get lucky with a clever logo idea. This is one of those logos.

Created years ago for a medical startup, it combines an eye with a DNA strand.

I wanted to see how it'd look animated, so I gave it some motion.

Latest dark mode treatment update: the location details view.

I wish more designers would embrace the Display P3 color profile. The technology has been around for years. You’re leaving colors on the table by avoiding it.

B2B ≠ boring. Charts and text. Simple but strong.

Since creating the first deal image this April, I’ve made adjustments big and small to Home Plate Deals daily deal images to arrive where the branding sits today.

Here’s a reverse chronological time-lapse demonstrating how the branding has evolved so far this MLB season.

I recently received a delivery confirmation email from Lowe’s, even though the items hadn’t been delivered.

The email failed to mention:
- Which store delivered my items
- How to contact them
- Where the items were delivered

I decided to design a solution that fixes all of these problems.

Here's a look at some logo animation work-in-progress. The concept is nice, but I still need to refine the execution.

The limitations of a grayscale palette can reward you; the constraint forces you to find and highlight qualities outside of color usage. When it works, it feels awesome.

For the daily Home Plate Deals social media posts, I’ve created images that use the custom Plate Diamond font to display the date.

Up until now, I manually adjusted spacing between the numbers to create the double-digit combinations, but not every kerning pair was as cohesive as I’d like.

It was time to create stylistic alternates to have the number cutaways seamlessly fit with the accompanying number.

Turned the lights out for a dark mode version of this profile view.

The details are where the fun resides. Had a great time layering subtle effects to create this marketing site.

There goes my hero (section).

A few UI details from a content publishing experience. Mostly minimal with a few areas of visual depth.

Small easter egg - the checkmark icon is the same symbol I created for the "Check Smile" UserEvidence logo. Little things really do make an experience special.

Working on revising these duotone dark mode icons.

I'm liking how they're looking. 16px grid with 2px stroke. Chunky and friendly.

A few iterations of Home Plate Deals wordmark.

Here's a collection of some recent dark mode designs.

When working on upgrade modal designs for copy.ai, I explored versions that included customer testimonials.

The testimonial needed to capture user attention while still only being a supporting element, as cost and seat selection were the most important details.

They're often low stakes, undervalued, and nearly forgotten. And I still love designing settings screens.

In revisiting a location-based social network iOS app to create the dark mode UI, I decided to keep the settings structure minimal, allowing the custom icons to have more visual impact.

One of the early iterations of copy.ai Workflows

I loved working on the dark mode version of a workspace selector for Speakeasy.

Happy Mother's Day 🩷

I redesigned social media platform logos as a way to present consistent, proportioned, and unique usage on my personal site.

For Dribbble's logo redesign, I created a version of the iconic basketball that hides a subtle "D" letterform.

When redrawing the Claude logo, I created a few iterations. These are a few of the more symmetric concepts.

I still prefer the asymmetric final version, as some of these concepts were too similar to other logos, and none of them properly conveyed the abstract flower concept.

Simple yet powerful. Position cards for Drift.

Swipe to quickly access ability to close position.

I had a great time working with Grammarly to redesign portions of an internal tool. So many small tweaks and iterations led to the final version. It was a complete group effort with plenty of team feedback implemented to make it as useful as possible.

And it looks good in dark and light modes.

The Subtle UI table looks pretty good in dark mode, too.

Every app has a collection of design iterations that didn't make the final cut.

I helped redesign sections of Saks Fifth Avenue's iOS app and, in the process, created a number of iterations of a product showcase section.

Aspects of these designs are live in the app today.

May the 4th be with you.

I’m finally taking more deliberate time to revisit Subtle UI. Here’s how the table component is coming along.

Every aspect is made in light and dark modes. I’m a dark mode user but this light mode table is one of my favorite parts of the library. It still needs more depth but it’s taking shape.

Apple Notes should have sticky table headers.

April was pretty great.

May this month be even better.

The X account drawer is... not awesome.

I'd like to avoid the drawer altogether with a long press to switch between accounts.

When the drawer is needed, a few small tweaks would make it more obvious which account you've selected, instead of using the same UI as the notifications indicator.

Threads' logo is lackluster. I understand the continuous line is supposed to represent a thread of text, but the execution is uninspired. If it pioneered using the @ symbol to tag a person/business, it would make sense, but it didn't so it doesn't.

As such, I redesigned the logo, blending the 🧵 emoji and "T".

Showing all UserEvidence assets without confusing users or removing critical information was a challenge.

I set a consistent height for cards, vertically-justified content, and hid actions by default. This made different chart types, variable length testimonials, and case studies easier to parse.

Settings are often neglected; an after-thought of product design.

I made custom icons, employed ample whitespace, and distinctly separated sections in Contentstack's settings experience.

Upgrading the typical wall of bland forms with clear options made it easy for users to tailor their preferences.

While at UserEvidence, the founders and I explored the idea of creating a sub-brand called B2B Research Lab, which would showcase customer insights.

I created a few different logo and wordmark concepts for the company. The aim was to match the bold UserEvidence style, while creating a distinct voice.

Design. Refine. Align. Repeat.

Packing details into Home Plate Deals’ wordmark.

No rounded corners. No gradients. No problem.

I wish Apple Notes tables had sticky columns.

Managing SaaS user seats should be easy and clear.

Make it obvious which team members are free and which are paid.

Tuesday typography tinkering

In addition to movie search and details concepts, I've re-imagined X's search dropdown experience.

Despite Sinners' #1 spot at the US box office this weekend, X fails to assign it any relevancy.

My experience places relevant results first and highlights featured media.

Challenged myself to draw a bunny in 30 minutes. No reference images, AI, tracing, etc.

Happy Easter, everyone 🐰

For the TRX virtual trainer app, I mocked up a series of mid-fidelity wireframes to demonstrate how the experience might appear for different class sizes.

I designed the trainer video as an image with translucency to show how much of the other content (if any) the video would occupy.

"What are you creating today?"

Made before ChatGPT was introduced, this was a simpler, friendlier front-end to AI experiences I designed while at copy.ai. I'm biased, but I think it holds up pretty well 2.5 years later.

The inspiration section offered one-click solutions to begin creating content.

Some of the most rewarding design work is the kind you don't notice until you zoom all the way in.

A few years back, I created a concept of how Workflows would enable copy.ai users to chain together a variety of tasks. Had a lot of fun creating the UI and enhancing it with subtle details.

In re-designing Contentstack's CMS search experience, an area sorely needing improvement was context of results.

Users could have thousands of results for a query. Sometimes the query appeared in the result's title, other times in a folder or tag.

My solution? Literally highlighting the context.

78 years ago, on April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson made his regular season major league debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

He became the first Black major league player since 1884, and paved the way for diversity in MLB and other leagues.

Happy Jackie Robinson Day ❤️ 💙

Designing for mobile can feel like solving a 400-piece puzzle on a nightstand; only some content will fit the allotted space, so you better make sure it's the most relevant.

A few years back, I designed and co-developed this mobile trading experience. Prices are higher today. Knock on wood 😬

I was adjusting the stroke width of a component-based pattern I'm creating in Figma for Home Plate Deals and ran into this fun effect.

Hypnotizing. Especially with the recording reversed and looped.

Updating case study header images to better highlight the key experience and/or features of the work.

First up, Preview SMS.

Working on refining a wordmark.

I'd describe the style as a blend of retro-future, block-letter, grayscale, and low-fidelity gradients.

Same hue, same saturation (both of 0), only lightness value changes.

A few years back, I designed several share modals for UserEvidence.

This modal allows users to preview the available themes for the selected data visualization (referred to as "Content Assets"), as well as select the file type.

It’s easy for an interface to become a chaotic rainbow when displaying multiple color palettes.

To combat this on Home Plate Deals, I’m de-emphasizing full-color presentation of team palettes until a user interacts with the team cards.

Work is still in progress but it’s feeling nice.

It only took over a dozen years to add client logos to my site.

For logos I didn't already have in SVG format, I image traced bitmap versions into vectors. I then optically aligned all logos, grouping based on general symbol themes (circular, outline, letterforms, etc.)

Side navbar details are coming together for Subtle UI.

Dark and light modes are getting equal attention.

For the initial version of Daily Posts, I used a very basic HTML structure of <li>'s inside of <ul> with a few <span> and <div>'s.

I recently updated the structure to accurately reflect the content using <article> with <header> and <footer> as well as <time> and <figure>.

It's great when passion aligns with purpose. Several years ago, I did a bit of design work for a nonprofit organization.

Of that work, I'm particularly proud of this logo redesign. I kept the core concept the same as the original but redrew and repositioned the elements to be more balanced.

Closeup of cards in an API Dashboard.

Hope everyone has a great weekend ❤️.

Updating the way I present company logos on Home Plate Deals.

A little depth goes a long way.

Initial versions of a UI can be sparse and final versions garish. This work falls somewhere in between.

From the archives, here's an early, more minimal version of a medical dashboard. Not too bad, but doesn't have enough detail either.

Sharing the process can be as helpful as the end results.

I've been steadily updating Home Plate Deals. The MLB regular season is the prescribed timeframe and a daily rhythm of visitors has me striving to upgrade the "good" to "great".

My latest focus has been refining the wordmark. Bold lines are contrasted by subdued details to create a nice balance.

Here are some of my favorite designs from this past month. Onward to April 🙌

In updating my personal site, I've created "Daily Posts". Version 1 is a feed where posts contain:

- Image/Video
- Title
- Date/Time
- Caption
- Social platform links where the content was also shared
- Optional: relevant blog post/Figma Community links.

Next, I'll add gallery features to the post media.

The best loading state is no loading state.

But, since users will usually have to wait for some data to load, at least I can give them a fun animation to help pass the time.

Crafted by hand using SVG and CSS keyframes for Home Plate Deals.

Dark mode dashboard details from a recent project.

Working on a series of devices for an upcoming Figma Community file.

Screen content and bezels are made using a single frame. The devices are created using vectors instead of bitmap images, which means you can export UI mockups at any resolution, and still maintain details.

Here's how the cards are coming along for this year's UI refresh.

On hover, lots of little changes occur: pseudo-elements, scaling logos, changing saturation level, shifting opacity, rotating background gradient angles, and more.

Deals shown are from 2024. Not all 2025 deals have been publicized.

Upgrade modals don't have to be boring. In fact, they should be visually enticing.

If you're asking users for money, at least give them a nice experience while doing so.

I'm biased, but I believe the Preview SMS upgrade modal does just that.

Several instances of subtle depth + warm gradients = happy eyeballs.

For the final installment in my GitHub contributions concept series, I designed a year vs year view.

Maybe I’m just slinging more code these days, but I’d really like to easily visualize how my years stack up.

P.S. Figma outline view has me feeling like I’m designing Scantron sheets.

Goal: I'd like to embed content from X within posts on my personal site.

Problem: If I use X's embed code, it'll track users on my site, force its formatting, and can be changed/deleted anytime without my knowledge or permission.

Solution: I'll just code my own post container.

See the Live Version

Sometimes, you just need a nice table. From the archives, here's one of the many tables I designed for UserEvidence a few years back.

Data-heavy experiences don't have to feel like a slog.

Mitigate text volume by decreasing visual weight, only emphasizing the absolutely most important items.

Happy Friday!

I added an iOS example to Stacky - a free Figma Community file that demonstrates how you can create stacked, sticky headers in Figma.

Get the Figma File

Here's the grid spacing I used to create copy.ai's updated navigation bar component a few years back.

The collapsed state (shown on the left side of the image) keeps icon labels persistent to improve UX.

The expanded state (right side) has a popover menu, activated by clicking on the user's current Workspace, to quickly switch between Workspaces, create a new Workspace, access User Profile, access Experiments, or log out.

All icons were drawn on a 16px grid, custom made by yours truly.

I wrote about how the pink basketball site has become yet another walled garden.

2,000+ words. Many of them spelled correctly.

Read the Blog Post

Woke up at 3am PT today to watch the Dodgers vs Cubs MLB 2025 season opening day game, which took place at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. The Dodgers went on to win 4-1 over the Cubs.

While watching, I drew this illustration, using Home Plate Deals diamond grid.

Happy Opening Day to those who celebrate 🎊.

Hope you have an enjoyable holiday!

Stay safe and wear green 🍀.

If you take screenshots on an iOS device and work with those screenshots in Figma, you're likely losing the Display P3 color profile and original screenshot image quality along the way.

Here are the steps I take to ensure that the final exported image retains all of the high quality aspects of the screenshot(s) used.

Read the Blog Post

Adding a subtle background pattern to the header and shadows to the wordmark for the 2025 MLB season refresh of Home Plate Deals.

Live in less than 2 weeks 🚀

In the meantime, see the countdown.

The process behind the Preview SMS logo.

Dialing in the details for the upcoming launch of the Home Plate Deals iOS app.

Having fun with scaleEffect and horizontal offsets on scroll in SwiftUI.

P.S. The deals shown here are from the 2024 season. Still compiling the 2025 MLB season deals.

Mocked the GitHub contributions comparison concept as an iOS widget as well.

A little depth goes a long way.

I recently created a free Figma Community file to help you add offset sticky headers your UI work. The project deserved a better name, so I gave it one: Stacky.

And, then, I created an app icon cover for the project.

Check out the file and let me know any feedback you have!

I absolutely love Internet Archive. It's one of the most important online resources and keeps the timeline of the web intact.

I redesigned its logo and wordmark with a refined grid and better overall balance, especially when viewed at smaller sizes.

For this redesign, it was important to keep the spirit of the original logo but update the depiction.

I redrew the logo with more consistency and weight. Subtle negative space creates the shadow from the building cast down on the columns.

For the wordmark, I used the typeface "Young Serif" by Bastien Sozeau.

Made these chunky icons for a project a few years back but never got around to sharing them.

Here are a few blog post illustration drafts that didn't make the final cut.

Love stacking blend modes and blurs in Figma 💚.

Read the Blog Post

Claude is really good - by far the AI tool I use most frequently. Anthropic has been crushing it.

The Claude logo, however, leaves a bit to be desired. I decided to make a quick redesign.

Here's my thought process behind this exercise.

I appreciate the hand-drawn aesthetic of the Claude brand within Anthropic's ecosystem, but the Claude logo just seems sloppy. I understand the "no rounded corners" design, and it seems like it is trying to represent neural pathways.

In GitHub, I'd love to be able to compare contributions between years based on the current day.

Also, it'd be cool to see how many days I've consistently contributed code, similar to how Duolingo, Reddit, Apple Fitness, and others surface these streaks.

Stats in concept are real (contributions might be higher by the time you see this) 😃

Coming soon...

Created a version of the Home Plate Deals logo using the custom grid I made for the 2025 MLB season countdown.

#MadeWithSketch

Wrote a few words on what "quality" means to me.

The topic for this post is inspired by a question that Karri Saarinen posed on X a few days ago. Karri's CEO of Linear - an app that demonstrates "quality" as I define it.

Read the Blog Post

Sunday swirls for an upcoming blog post hero illustration

Was a fun February in Figma.

The March continues 🌼 ☘️

When updating my Dribbble masthead image, I thought of it as an OpenGraph <meta> preview image – similar to how Spotify dynamically creates album art for a playlist.

Thinking of changing it up every few months to showcase my latest/favorite work.

Updated the Home Plate Deals logo for the 2025 MLB season.

Simple, with just enough depth.

I wish YouTube allowed me to save my preferred playback speed as a default setting.

Hopefully, some day 🤞