Peter Antonelli

My colleague Anthony Sanchez and I had a conversation about good design vs. beautiful design on the latest episode of Currents on the Funsize Show Podcast by Funsize. I'm interested to hear your personal thoughts on the topic. #design

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Really looking forward to Product Design Week this year. I'm doing a talk - Why Talent & Culture Are Still Your Greatest Asset - on Day 1 of Design Leaders + (12:30-1:00 on November 11th). https://lnkd.in/gH_YVJR8 Anyone working in customer experience, design, product or strategy right now will know that we are living in - ahem - interesting times. The challenges facing leaders within brands, agencies and consultancies are more complex and fast-evolving than ever before. The experience design road has never been a smooth one, but it feels particularly rocky, potholed and full of hidden hairpins at the moment! Watching the conversations play out on LinkedIn you might safely assume that many are currently feeling pretty doom and gloom. But look at any disruptive cycle of technology-led adjustment in history and you will always see growth and positive progress right in there with the painful stuff. Personally I think that real opportunity can be found in the intersection between innovative, enabling technologies and the design of human-centred experiences - and after 30 years in the digital experience business I'm still convinced that's right where it's always lived. Teams who can combine the ability to deliver compelling customer experiences with the competencies to harness data, AI and genuine insight are going to be the real unlockers of value. And organisations that are able to access and attract those people - and provide the right environment and culture to empower and retain them - will achieve true competitive advantage and return on investment. My talk on the 11th is going to focus on those factors. Ultimately, technology comes and goes. It arrives all shiny and shouty, then it gets all habitual and legacy on you. What doesn't change is the importance of the skilled talent that can build magic from base metals - and making sure that that talent is supported by an environment in which it can create and deliver that magic. Hope to see you there! #PDW24 #Talent #Culture #Experience #Design #Leadership #Technology

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Designers care about different things than business leaders. Arguing for design’s own sake won’t cut it: to have an impact, designers must be aligned with business goals. While true in all businesses, it’s especially salient in venture-backed startups, which are under pressure to deliver quick growth. Design can help, but both designers and founders must think differently about design. 👨🏻‍💻 Andy Budd has written a wonderful book on how designers can help early-stage startups succeed. It’s called “The Growth Equation,” and I recommend it to all founders — and to all designers. To learn why, listen to the latest episode of my podcast, where Andy explains how design can help drive startup growth. 👇 https://lnkd.in/g9Nsy-hA #UxDesign #Startup #UxUi #ProductDesign

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Interested in the current state and potential futures of online culture? Check out Metalabel's new release, The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet. The setup is charming: an initial essay on “dark forests” from Yancey Strickler in 2017 inspired a response on the “cozy web” by Venkatesh Rao, which inspired an illustration by Maggie Appleton, and so on. This metaphor of a dark forest (inspired by Cixin Liu’s idea in The Three-Body Problem) — a non-indexed, non-optimized online gathering space where people have opted out of the unsafe and exploitative nature of the “clear net” — crystalized the detached, disillusioned feeling I’ve had toward the current SEO-optimized, corporate state of the web. I also loved Arthur Roing Baer and GVN908’s experiments with the idea of a “moving castle” (of course inspired by the Ghibli film) — mini-communities that are collective, modular, portable, and interoperable. This put an interesting focus on technical protocol as a key element in community design. And Yancey’s closing essay on the post-individual state. We do contain multitudes. Link in comments (for the algo, apparently it docks posts with links)

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Susanna Sadovski personifies Design Thinking in the work she has done for KRUTSCH. She is a tireless advocate for the customer and end-user of an app or service we are designing. The Design Thinking series our team is publishing addresses basic blocking-and-tackling issues that are crucial to crafting a design that serves people's needs. The whole series is linked in the article below. Quick reads and worth a minute of your time over coffee. What can we design for you to meet your own customer needs? Comment below and I will send you an outline of how we can breathe new life into your own app or service offering.

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Exciting news! 🎉 My book Design in Context: A Framework for Strategic Differentiation is now available on Audible! 🎧 If you’re a design driven company or a designer driving companies. This is the book for you ✌️ Design Thinking has evolved 🤔... meet Context-based Design 🚀 --- https://lnkd.in/eJqHAYVy #DesignInContext #Audible #BusinessStrategy #DesignThinking #Innovation #DesignInContext

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I had the pleasure of joining Michelle on her The UnStruktured Podcast. We talked about creative career, moving across the globe and build Bellroy and carryology and what's next. The episode is now live and I'm thrilled to share it with all of you! A huge thank you to Michelle for the wonderful conversation. I hope you find it as interesting and enjoyable as I did participating in it. Check it out and let me know your thoughts! #Podcast #CareerJourney #ThankYou #Leadership #Innovation #BrandBuilding #Entrepreneurship #CreativeLeadership #DesignThinking #StartupLife #BusinessStrategy #IndustryInsights #EducationInnovation

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“…design thinking is the methodology that we teach [The Stanford d.school], that’s the secret sauce … The result of that is if you take students, or companies, or anybody, and you get them to use design thinking as a tool, my belief is that builds their creative confidence.”   Quote by David Kelley, precursor of design thinking, founder of IDEO and The Stanford d.school, on interview with Maria Camacho. https://lnkd.in/emErXWwM As the old adage goes, ‘Practice makes perfect.’ The same applies to design thinking with its focus on creativity, empathy, and systems thinking. The more you engage in ideating 💡 , building, testing, evaluating, and learning from positive failures, the more confident you'll become. This process encourages you to push boundaries, challenge paradigms, embrace openness, and drive change 😊 #DesignThinking #CreativeConfidence #change #PositiveFailure #creativity #empathy #systemsThinking

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🚀 Exciting insights are here! We just wrapped up two dynamic panel discussions in the Ecosystem Leadership Report: Design 2024 series, and I’m excited to share some key takeaways. In these panels, we explored essential themes for today’s design leaders: Cross-Functional Collaboration and From Design to Business Leadership. Here’s a quick look at what we covered: 💡 Building Bridges Across Functions: Breaking down silos to foster stronger collaboration between design, product, and engineering teams. 💼 Design as a Strategic Partner: Practical steps for positioning design as a key player in achieving business goals. 🚀 Transitioning to Business Leadership: The mindset shifts and skills design leaders need to step into broader roles. 📈 Driving Organizational Impact: Aligning design efforts with business priorities to create measurable value. 👉 Want to dive deeper? Subscribers get exclusive insights straight from industry leaders on strengthening cross-functional teamwork and elevating design’s role in business. Gain access to the full panel recordings by joining the diegoNMTZ community here: https://lnkd.in/eHriBjSb At diegoNMTZ, we’re an agency dedicated to empowering leaders and building solutions for organizations, their customers, and teams. Our team is here to support your growth and impact through strategic consulting, thought leadership content, and customized leadership workshops. Thank you for being part of this forward-thinking community. We look forward to collaborating with you to navigate the evolving challenges in leadership!

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How do you use data in design? Here’s an interesting perspective: data can be a source of power. That's from Wendy Owen, who leads design for Facebook at Meta. Wendy describes using data (of all kinds) as a source of power to build her intuition and create better conversations across the team. I like the different ways she talks about data and the different sources she considers (observational, behavioral, etc). The variety reminds me of Tommy Geoco's “Shapes of Work” concept. Full interview in the comments. #design

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Hello fellow designers and creatives. I’ve decided to jump back into writing. Find me on Substack where my musings will focus on industrial design, design, strategy, sustainability, and systems thinking. Thanks for the sub. :) https://lnkd.in/e4Wpfbrp #industrialdesign #designstrategy #systemsthinking #sustainability

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Next week I'll be publising two new articles about design, leadership, and business impact. 1️⃣ A VP of Design Portfolio: Insights from an Industry Leader Discover what it takes to craft a compelling portfolio that showcases strategic leadership, team achievements, and business results. From understanding the pivotal role of a VP of Design to highlighting team outcomes and success metrics, this article offers valuable insights for design executives aiming to elevate their careers. 2️⃣  Design Research for Sales and Customer Enablement Explore how bridging the gap between design and sales can transform business outcomes. Learn from real-world examples and case studies on how integrating design research with sales and customer enablement can drive customer satisfaction and business success. Additionally, this week I published two more articles: • Ageism: A 1:1 Discussion with a Design Executive • Thought Leadership Programs for SaaS Companies All articles are available on my Substack, where I regularly share content about leadership. Don’t miss out on these valuable insights—subscribe now! https://lnkd.in/eb3iVnHZ #DesignLeadership #UXResearch #BusinessImpact #Leadership #DesignThinking #CustomerSuccess #SalesEnablement #Ageism #SaaS

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🤹‍♂️ “I had no idea you could do that” As we attempt to scale and white-label our design systems, we've run into providing some options that leave our team a bit stumped and scratching our heads. After doing some research, I’m appreciating all the efficiency gains you can pull off with just a few Figma tricks and tutorials. → Small components are easy, but as components get more complex or resemble layouts, tracking all the possible nested variations is impossible. → Sometimes components have optional elements that show and hide depending on the needs of a specific client or context. → “You get a logo, you get a logo, everyone gets a logo“ Everyone has their own branding, which means toggling between multiple logos and lockups. With some digging, we found resources to help with all of these use cases: 🖼 Building flexible components with "slots" by Luis Ouriach is a super useful walkthrough for experimenting with the concept of slots in Figma. “Slots” allow you to create a placeholder component inside a more complex “container” component allowing you to build more flexible and context-specific layouts. https://lnkd.in/gp2JEFFU 🙈 An Introduction to Boolean Variables in Figma by UI Collective offers a simple overview of how to apply use the hidden gem of variables options. Boolean variables allow you to show and hide elements not just in prototypes but in component variants. This was useful when we wanted to toggle elements within components for various themes. https://lnkd.in/gWt8QRit 🎭 Modes: Changing a Branded Header by Nate Greenwall was exactly the solution I was looking for when I needed to offer multiple logo options from a centralized library. The playground file maps out how you can pull this off with string variables and modes. https://lnkd.in/gJhcemcm 💎 I hope some of the resources that we've leveraged at Exygy can be helpful for you and your teams working in Figma. → Leverage slots for nesting smaller components within larger container layouts. → Utilize boolean variables to show and hide elements across variants. → Experiment with using string variables to switch elements like logos for different brands. #figma #ui #design #DesignSystems #variables

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EP01: How Airbnb is bringing soul back to their design I chatted with Airbnb's VP of Design (Teo Connor) and prototyping extraordinaire Janum Trivedi... From those convos it's quite clear that Airbnb is making a concerted effort to introduce: → more haptic feedback → more motion interactions → (a lot) more 3D And these investments are changing the way that Teo is thinking about hiring and even how the team explores new ideas. So this first episode goes deep into how Airbnb is elevating their product and "empowering designers to be designers again" My bet is their recent shift inspires a whole wave of products to push past "good enough" and truly innovate with design (YT link in the comments if you'd rather watch there)

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📢 Upcoming Release: The Future of Design Operations! On October 31st, we’re excited to release a new episode of the DesignOps Aligned Podcast, featuring two leading voices in Design Operations: Rachel Posman and John Calhoun authors of “The Design Conductor” 📖✨. Join me we navigate a dynamic conversation on the transformative power of DesignOps in driving team growth, product development, and operational strategy. 🎙️ In This Episode, You’ll Discover: • How Design Ops bridges design and operations, creating streamlined, values-driven workflows. • The importance of inclusion and values in building products that resonate. • Strategies for navigating both growth and contraction within design teams, with a focus on the impact of change management. • The evolving role of AI in automating routine tasks, freeing teams to focus on innovation and strategy. • Insights and expert advice from their groundbreaking new book—the first of its kind focused on Design Ops! 👉 This episode is packed with essential frameworks and strategies for both seasoned professionals and newcomers to design strategy. Learn how to lead with purpose, adapt to diverse team needs, and foster a culture of growth and collaboration. 🔑 Key Takeaway: Design Ops is about more than processes—it’s about creating real value through collaboration, leadership, and inclusion. 📅 Mark your calendars for October 31st, and get ready for an episode that redefines Design Operations! #DesignOps #DesignOperations #TheDesignConductor #Leadership #Collaboration #DesignTeamGrowth #AI

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We secured $770k in design salaries in our first month operating in the US 🎉 We placed exceptional: • Product Design Director in California • Two Senior Product Designers in Oregon and North Carolina • Senior Product Designer in London Some of these searches started before July, but last month was when all the offers were finally signed. I could not be more excited with the results! Shoutout to the most design-savvy and caring recruitment team at Hirey | Design Recruiters 🖤 Looking back all I can say is that: Last year was D-E-V-A-S-T-A-T-I-N-G. I believe many of you experienced the same. I was full of self-doubt and nagging thoughts: "Will what I do ever be needed again?" “Maybe it’s time to shut down and go back in-house?” “Am I just a good IC, but not a business owner?” Now, everyone says the market is picking up, and autumn should be fruitful in hiring. Fingers crossed! But we’re ready to face any challenges that come our way. To all small business owners who’ve made it through hard times without losing the team: I believe now we can do anything! #hiring #recruitment #entrepreneurship #motivation #community #design

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❓ What makes designers great leaders ⁉ Well...designers possess unique qualities including empathy, active listening, storytelling, and systems thinking (dot connectors). Learn more from Evan English, VP of Design & User Research at American Express on Episode 8 of Season 2 of UX Leadership By Design. Other takeaways from the episode: * Leadership behaviors, such as communication, collaboration, and empathy, are crucial for UX leaders. * Shared goals with product partners and design maturity goals are important for driving business value. * Information architecture and design systems play a critical role in supporting the evolving business needs. * Measuring metrics and setting goals are essential for tracking the impact of design efforts and improving customer satisfaction. ____________________________________ Full episode details: Watch on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/en3GJYNu Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/dRZ6xeXv Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/dNGHihRw All Episodes of UX Leadership by Design Podcast: https://lnkd.in/dVe2fggN #UXLeadership, #DesignLeaders, #ProductManagement, #BusinessValue, #DesignSystem, #InformationArchitecture, #TeamAlignment, #LeadershipDevelopment, #DesignOps, #StrategicDesign

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Overview of a conversation on how designers can create value in early-stage startups.

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2 years with Nectar! 🤘🔥 My favorite highlights: → Our team’s growth from 23 employees to 90 employees. Product alone grew from 6 of us to 21 strong now 🙌🏼, and we’re a sleek, efficient, resilient team under Brian Cressall and Nate Tingey. → Established Nectar’s Design System and built our component library, significantly improving speed, consistency, and quality of design and implementation. → Completed a massive UI design refresh for the existing product (bless the devs still building it 🫡 ). → Launched Nominations, the largest and most impactful new feature we’ve built at Nectar yet. → Completely scrapped a project, because it was the right thing to do. Grateful to work on a team that’s hyper-focused on our ultimate goals, and is sincerely willing to let sunk costs be irrelevant. → Ideated, designed, and launched our new product Internal Communications in 8 weeks with a small, mighty team 🤯 I’m still amazed we managed it. → $40M Series B funding in April 2024 with PeakSpan Capital. → Saw our efforts, motivation, and passion pay off when Nectar was recognized as the 2nd Fastest Growing Company in Utah County, 1st fastest growing software company in Utah, 8th fastest growing software company in the U.S., and 87th fastest growing company in the U.S. (across all industries). → 300% increase in revenue in Q3 2023 vs Q3 2024 (Q3 was also 50% above our revenue Q2 2024). → Saw every department at Nectar grow in excellence. I’m in awe of the caliber of Engineering, CS, Marketing, Sales, and what they accomplish. → Relished the challenge and variety of asks in the beginning as Nectar’s sole designer, including working on print design (looking at you, 28’ tradebooth) and animations for the first time. That animation announcing Nectar’s new logo a year ago? That was my first animation, and I’m still proud of myself for figuring it out enough to make that 😂. → Spent way too much on Holiday gas station runs (RIP old office). This is a long list, but for the record I cut it in half from what it was 😅. I’m grateful Nate reached out on LinkedIn right at the perfect time when I was looking to switch things up, and that we’ve made a great team ever since. Getting to work closely with our little product design team—Nate, Mason, Tyler, and Maya—and many, many others keeps me growing and keeps me motivated on the daily. Nectar’s mission and way of working resonated with me from the beginning. It’s rewarding to see our company continue to gain momentum and maturity, all while seeing how much room we still have to grow. Very, very grateful to be part of the journey. As we say, it’s still Day 1 at Nectar. 🚀

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