"Every project needs to start with inspiration" - Hussain Almsosawi. In this episode, we had the pleasure to chat with Hussain Almsosawi. Hailing from Bahrain, 3D motion designer Hussain Almsosawi has since moved to Brooklyn, New York, and started his own studio – Mossawi Studios. Across his exciting career, which is equally striking as it is satisfying, Hussain has worked for huge brands, including Adidas Football, Adidas Basketball and EA. The strength of Hussain’s work lies in its confident simplicity, flourishing in intelligently reserved aesthetics and concept. Aside from some of these projects with the big brands in the industry, a massive part of his self-initiated projects has led him to gain a large following on social media, with followers captivated by his gratifying and eye-catching outcomes.In the episode, we jump into: What are common challenges in CGI projects? At what part of the process to bring in advanced visualization? (Early-phase vs final renderings) How will “designing in real-time rendering” change the design process? How will digital and physical be coming together in the world of design? What will the metaverse and "instant real-time visualization" mean for the future of design? and many more! Thanks a lot for your time and for your learning Hussain! ************* The Guest Hussain Almossawi is an international designer based in New York City who has worked on various products across different industries worldwide. Hussain began his career designing official websites and logos for NBA players such as Derrick Rose, Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady.  He also designed official websites for Adidas Basketball. Almossawi created Type Fluid, a 3-D typography experiment. He was named one of Fast Company'sCompany's ""10 Inspiring Type Designers From A New Generation"". In 2016 he designed a pair of sneakers based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with footwear designer Quintin Williams. That same year, Almossawi created Enfuse, a custom tea maker. A significant part of his work has been working with world-famous companies such as Nike, Adidas, EA Sports, Ogilvy & Mather, and other world-known brands. He currently works out of his Mossawi Studios in New York. Mossawi Studios is a multi-disciplinary studio specialized in creating memorable, iconic, and bold experiences, blurring the lines between CGI, VFX, and Product Design. From 2018 to 2019, Hussain Almossawi was an adjunct professor at The New School.  He taught Human factors and ergonomics and now serves as a member of the advisory panel for Pace University'sUniversity's Lubin School of Business in New York, Design Thinking Program. He is a frequent public speaker and has presented workshops and designs at Bike to the Future, Solidworks Conference in Bologna, Saudi Design Week, and -ING Creative Festival in Dubai. He frequently publishes design tutorials and articles in magazines and trade publications.  His designs have been featured in publications such as Wired UK, Motor1.com, Mashable, Auto Motor und Sport, Highsnobiety, Fast Company, Yanko Design, SoccerBible, Hypebeast, Gizmodo, and Adobe'sAdobe's Substance 3D Magazine.

“Failing is the first ingredient of design” — SAMUEL NORTHWAY In this episode, we had the pleasure to chat with Samuel Northway, Head of Product Design at Mason. In the past, he worked as VP of Brand Product Design at Goldman Sachs, worked as a lead designer on Deloitte and as Design Director at AT&T, among many other experiences. We talk about his mindset and motivation for working in the creative industry during the episode. And uncover many insights on approaching innovation projects or innovation in general without getting burned out and creating shared ownership, which is critical for innovation to move forward. We also talk about how he has grown in design maturity at Goldman Sachs and his learnings as a designer and leader. And what opportunities designers have when changing industries, and how to overcome the fear of leaving your company. Further, we also explore the intersection of physical and digital design and how new business models actually bring both aspects closer together. In the episode, we jump into: How to empower and manage design teams? What are the challenges when you are confronted with new environments/companies as a designer and how do you overcome them? What are the advantages and disadvantages of designers switching between industries? What impact can designers create in the future? What are the key challenges for designers to communicate the “value of design” to business stakeholders? and many more! Thanks a lot for your time and for your learning Samuel! ******** The Guest Samuel Nothway is an Executive Design Director with a broad background across industries in data-driven design systems, software/hardware development, and product/brand strategy. Samuel enjoys leading teams working closely with clients and internal partners to develop and execute user-centric products and branded experiences. Through understanding and empathizing with the needs of users/customers, his research and design work focuses on delivering experiences that elevate the brand and enhance the consumer's everyday lives. Samuel solves complex challenges for his clients and their brands using new technologies and age-old techniques. Talking about his career, which started in 2007 as an assistant photographer & art curator, by 2016, he was Design Director at AT&T for innovation planning. After the Lead Product Designer at Deloitte Digital and VP Product Design, Private Wealth Management, then VP Brand & Product Design, Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs now, he is serving as Head of Product Design at Mason.

“If it’s not Co-Created it will fundamentally fail ” — SCOTT ROBINSON In this episode, we had the pleasure to chat with Scott Robinson, Founder and CEO of FreshForm. A customer and UX agency based in San Diego. When it comes to design, Scott Robinson thinks Frank Lloyd Wright said it best: “Form follows function—that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.” Robinson takes that advice to heart, leveraging human-centred design principles to grow and differentiate brands in today's ever-changing digital landscape, including Acura, Honda, Ballast Point, Facebook, Intel, ExxonMobil, Qualcomm and the University of San Diego. Robinson has been in the field of design and marketing for nearly 20 years and at the helm of FreshForm since 2001 and remains intensely passionate about the intersection of marketing, design, technology, innovation and consumer behaviour in the digital age. We've got a chat about how human-centred design is changing as humans evolve but also the environment of humans becomes increasingly technological. We also dive into the difference and intersection of CX design and EX design, further Scott does play a key role in the context of design capital 2024, which will be a collaboration between San Diego and Tijuana in Mexico, in the episode we learn about what makes the region special and unique In the episode, we jump into: ✔️Designing for humans and technology in harmony. ✔️Why Co-Creation is critical for innovations to survive? ✔️Why great CX Design requires great EX (Employee Experience) Design? ✔️How technology is becoming an extension of the human body, and how to design for it? ✔️The mission and journey behind the Design Capital 2024 (San Diego and Tijuana) and many more! Thanks a lot for your time and for your learning Scott! **** The Guest Scott Robinson is the founder of FreshForm, an experience design consultancy that leverages a combination of design thinking, business thinking and customer experience principles to grow and differentiate companies. Scott has been in the field of design and digital experiences for over 20 years and at the helm of FreshForm since 2001. Scott is an advocate for the business value of design and was the Founding President of the Design Forward Alliance from 2016-2020, where he led the non-profit to bid and win the designation of World Design Capital 2024 for the San Diego/Tijuana region. Scott is intensely interested in the intersection of design, technology, business and human behavior in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

"The circular design is about really eliminating the concept of waste by designing it in a way that every material can be reused." - Karel J. Golta Circular design: the next step of design thinking? Circular design, by bringing the subject of resources to the forefront, also creates an opportunity to integrate increasingly more important strategic dimensions in an ever-changing world. Shifting to a circular mindset when it comes to design can prove to be delicate. Thrilled to launch our EP66 which is all about circular design thinking. In this episode, we had the pleasure to chat with Karel J. Golta, Founder and CEO of INDEED Innovation, about circular design, strategic innovation, and speculative design. His team had the chance to bring a strong perspective of circular design into recent projects and he shares the learnings on scaling from user-centric design to circular design. Where not just incorporate more data and more stakeholders into the project but also approach your design with a new mindset. Further, we also discussed the overlap between speculative design and circular design. We also talk about AI and how the tools and the processes actually going to change and influence the future job of the designer. In the episode, we jump into, How to design for circularity. The role of ESGs for designers. User-centered design vs circular design. Why sustainability requires system thinking. Creating frameworks for circularity. Importance of Co-Creation on designing a circular product. Why designers should be more focused on the circular design. Thanks a lot for your time and for your learning Karel! ******** The Guest A humane innovation advocate, Karel J. Golta is on a mission to reverse human impact on the planet by using the power of design to build a more livable future for all life on earth. With the undeniable effects of climate change and major planetary boundaries at tipping points, Karel demands for businesses and innovation to turn their focus from a human-centric model to a planet-centric one in order to preserve not only humanity, but our entire global ecosystem. A strong believer in boldness and courage, he never does things halfway. The declared business romantic thrives when he is contributing and sharing visionary ideas with others – whether as an entrepreneur, keynote speaker, lecturer or author. As founder of multiple companies and CEO of INDEED Innovation Karel loves to discuss big ideas, poke at rigid thinking, and ultimately unearth previously unrealized possibilities.

“With Play, we just serve up all of these amazing things that Apple has created and give designers the ability to kind of play in the sandbox that Apple has created we layer our essentially our play UI on top o that and we give them the properties to manipulate.” — Dan LaCivita What if it were possible to design and build a mobile product all on your phone — and what if it were a better way of working?As designers, we are used to designing on our computer - which is often not the end-device of interaction. There are easy ways to transfer the content to phones but with our new guest Dan LaCivita we discuss a bold new idea:What if you could design directly on your phone and it would be even better then designing on a different device?Are a keyboard, mouse, and desktop the best tools for creating mobile products… or have they become barriers? That question started the journey of what came to be Play which Dan founded together with colleagues. Play is the first native iOS design tool built for creating mobile products. What does it mean for the future of design?Design, iterate, and collaborate directly from your phone, experiencing your design as you create it while taking full advantage of native iOS features to bring your product to life. We are thrilled to launch our EP65 with Dan LaCivita, Co-Founder of Play. In the episode, we chat about the role of mobile interactions for innovation. Also why innovation often starts by saying "NO" when it comes to product requirements. The approach of focus actually opens up the field for innovation. We also dig into cross-device interaction and his experience leading a major design agency in New York called Firstborn, which got later acquired where you can learn about how to run a large design business and grow it even further. Thanks a lot for your time and for your learnings Dan! ************* The Guest Dan LaCivita is an entrepreneur and servant leader who has built, grown and led successful teams and businesses in the digital space for over 15 years. His latest venture, Play, is transforming how teams create mobile products by empowering them to design, build and experience their product in real time—all on the medium they’re designing for—their phone. Previously, as CEO of award-winning agency Firstborn, Dan led teams to create powerful digital products and experiences for a client roster that includes PepsiCo, L’Oréal, Adidas, S&P Global, Supercell, Jet & NYU Langone. Under his guidance, Firstborn’s work has been recognized with numerous awards including Clios, Cannes Lions and One Show Pencils; the agency, itself, has been placed on prestigious rosters such as Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies (2x), Advertising Age’s Agency A List and Crain’s Best Places to Work in New York City (4x). A thoughtful commentator thanks to his diverse roles within the industry, Dan has penned his point of view for Fast Company, Forbes, Advertising Age and Adweek and has spoken at the Financial Times, Ad Age Digital, 99U and FITC conferences, to name a few. Dan was also named to the 4A’s “100 People Who Make Advertising Great” list, Direct Marketing News' 2016 '40 Under 40' list and sat on the Digital Board of Directors of the 4A's. Outside of work, Dan’s passions include participating in GORUCK Challenges, team-based endurance events that push your physical and mental limits. Inside and outside the office, Dan can often be found shuffling a deck of cards—a nod to his passion for the art of close-up magic.

“There’s such a business aspect to design that doesn’t exist in the creative artistic world, and we got to remember that when we are doing design it’s artistic by nature but it’s a lot different than art” — MICHAEL JANDA So you are planning to launch your own creative business or you’ve already launched, and you’re starting to grow. That’s great! But good growth won’t just happen. Just like a junior designer starts with small projects and slowly builds skills, a new business needs time to mature, test new ideas, and prepare itself, too. We are happy to tell you that this episode is packed with tips and strategies that can help you with your business. In EP64 we chat with Michael Janda on the intersection of business and design. We talk about how you set up a design agency so you can actually sell the business at some point and also how you scale the design business and drive sales. That means how you get clients or get better ones and how you can convince them to spend more money with you. We also drive into some of the biggest mistakes designers are doing, and how you can communicate the value of design towards business and marketing in the most powerful way. Mike is running one of our absolute favorite Instagram channels where he inspires and shares his insights on business aspects of design. So we are really honored to have him on the show. With Mike, we jump into; Why systemising the business is key. How to design your business as a system. How to communicate design deliveries when negotiating with clients. Communicating the positive business impact of design. Disadvantages of value-based pricing. How to find new customers and boost sales. How to convince price-sensitive customers to invest into design. Thanks a lot for your time and for learning Mike! ***** The Guest Michael Janda is an award-winning creative director, designer, and agency veteran. In 2002, he founded the creative agency Riser, which provided design and development services for clients that included Disney, Google, Warner Bros., Fox, NBC, ABC, National Geographic and many other high-profile brands. Michael sold his agency in 2015 and now spends his time speaking, developing books, courses, and social media content to help creatives level up. He is the author of “Burn Your Portfolio” and “The Psychology of Graphic Design Pricing”

"Unfortunately or fortunately UX design is now being the hot topic everybody wants to give you suggestions. So how not get irritated but understand that why people are showcasing so much of interest is because our discipline matters and take it constructively and take that opportunity to educate people about not being a pretty picture but how it is driving strategy is important." - Kadambari Sahu. We are super excited to launch another episode of Designdrives where we explore why, how, and what design drives forward. In EP63 We chat with Kadambari Sahu SVP Design at ValueLabs, about her learnings working as a design leader for many years. Recently she has been winning many global design awards and building up her design competence at Value Labs India. Kadambari creates design cultures by infusing design thinking within organizations and businesses to create a holistic strategy and marketing experience. We learn how she positioned up and build design within the company from scratch and grow raw responsibilities of design and value of design within the organization. We also have a super interesting chat on one of her most awarded projects called "Sniffing out the differences" where we not only learn about the challenges and opportunities designing with smell as a creative medium but also the business value considering it in a commercial setup and what it could be if brands would invest into the design with sniffing. With Kad, we jump into; What were the key challenges that she had to face in the “Sniffing out the differences” project. How can interaction designers and companies incorporate the sense of smell more into their projects. What are the positive outcomes when designing with the “smell in mind”. How does she grow and position design within the company. What strategies she uses to communicate the business value to design. Thanks a lot for your time and for learning Kad! ***** The Guest Kadambari Sahu is a Design Leader, working as SVP Design at ValueLabs. She founded the award-winning design team, User Experience Group at ValueLabs, and is currently leading 50+ designers to create world-class and award-winning products and services to have a positive impact on businesses. Kad is the founder of Sniffing out the differences collective, that started with the grant received from Prince Claus Fund and British Council to explore storytelling through multisensory installation with a focus on smell interactions. Her forte lies in building, growing, coaching and mentoring high performance design teams from scratch. She creates design culture by infusing design thinking within organizations and businesses to create a holistic strategy and customer experience. Her practice in design allows her to work on intangible and tangible aspects of design breaking the boundaries between physical, digital, and service design and creating a seamless experience across media, devices, touchpoints, cultures, and geographies. She has worked for clients across geographies spanning, North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. She has won many awards for her work. The latest includes Red Dot awards 2020, Vega Digital Award, DNA Paris 20 awards for Interactivity and Graphics, India’s Best Design Project 2019, India’s Best in-house design team, and many others. She has been part of many national and international fellowships such as BMW Doathon, VR storytelling guild, etc. She is an international speaker on design and has given talks on many design conferences such as Interaction 20, Interaction 18, organized by IxDA, UXindia, and many others. She is on the international committee of World interaction design day and organizes and hosts the same in Hyderabad. She is an alumna of the National Institute of Design, India, where she did her Post-graduation in New Media Design, which has led her to examine the impact that technologies have on human interactions and culture. She has been curious about the role of design in everyday life and the ways in which human interactions can be mediated, shaped, enhanced, or augmented by technologies. We are super excited to kick off 2022 with a fresh episode of Designdrives. In EP62 we had the chance to chat with Darshan Gajara Head of Design at GraphCMS a growing startup based in Berlin. He is also the creator of Product Disrupt.com which is a popular newsletter and website for design resources linked towards the best design blocks, the best podcasts, the best resources, and also a great newsletter for young designers to advance themselves as a designer. With Darshan, we jump into; What it means to join an early-stage startup as a designer as he joined GraphCMS as the founding designer. What it means to grow together with the team and the company as a designer. What kind of challenges come ahead as you work in such an environment. We also talk about why and how you can use the power of online education and inspirations to advance yourself as a designer using good resources and online programs. During the episode, he also shares his insights on: As a designer how you can find fresh materials online. What to expect and how to adapt to your job role after joining a startup. How to stay agile and structure the design projects? How to set up projects and design teams? Thanks a lot for your time and for learning Darshan! ****** The Guest Darshan Gajara is a Product Designer driven by the passion for making products and helping others do the same, or even better. He is Head of Design at GraphCMS and runs ProductDisrupt.com where he shares his insights and curated list of resources to learn product design for young designers and wannabees. The reason why he created this side-project ProductDisrupt.com is he is an internet-made designer and strongly believe in giving back to the internet. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Mumbai. Darshan experienced in delivering end-to-end product solutions for India’s top ticketing portal BookMyShow and building a crowdfunding platform for creatives – Wishberry. He also worked towards building a community of design enthusiasts for Panda Network. His key skills included business requirement mapping, product specification, user experience by user research, user interface and interaction design and studying the user feedback on an iterative basis. He has been working as an independent Product Design Consultant for 6+ years now. His clients include startups and established businesses from US, UK, UAE, Canada and India.

“We can take a lot of inspiration from our engineering friends in this department. I think engineering is always at least a few years ahead in any company because they are usually the first people to start working at a startup”. — DARSHAN GAJARA. We are super excited to kick off 2022 with a fresh episode of Designdrives. In EP62 we had the chance to chat with Darshan Gajara Head of Design at GraphCMS a growing startup based in Berlin. He is also the creator of Product Disrupt.com which is a popular newsletter and website for design resources linked towards the best design blocks, the best podcasts, the best resources, and also a great newsletter for young designers to advance themselves as a designer. With Darshan, we jump into; What it means to join an early-stage startup as a designer as he joined GraphCMS as the founding designer. What it means to grow together with the team and the company as a designer. What kind of challenges come ahead as you work in such an environment. We also talk about why and how you can use the power of online education and inspirations to advance yourself as a designer using good resources and online programs. During the episode, he also shares his insights on: As a designer how you can find fresh materials online. What to expect and how to adapt to your job role after joining a startup. How to stay agile and structure the design projects? How to set up projects and design teams? Thanks a lot for your time and for learning Darshan! ****** The Guest Darshan Gajara is a Product Designer driven by the passion for making products and helping others do the same, or even better. He is Head of Design at GraphCMS and runs ProductDisrupt.com where he shares his insights and curated list of resources to learn product design for young designers and wannabees. The reason why he created this side-project ProductDisrupt.com is he is an internet-made designer and strongly believe in giving back to the internet. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Mumbai. Darshan experienced in delivering end-to-end product solutions for India’s top ticketing portal BookMyShow and building a crowdfunding platform for creatives – Wishberry. He also worked towards building a community of design enthusiasts for Panda Network. His key skills included business requirement mapping, product specification, user experience by user research, user interface and interaction design and studying the user feedback on an iterative basis. He has been working as an independent Product Design Consultant for 6+ years now. His clients include startups and established businesses from US, UK, UAE, Canada and India.

“It doesn’t necessarily take advanced technology to have a great impactful project. I think sometimes as technologists we forget that” — JOSH CLARK We are thrilled to launch our EP61 featuring Josh Clark founder of Big Medium in New York. Josh is a vivid speaker, a brilliant author, and an expert on UX design for AI. With Josh, we jump into how AI could influence creative decision-making and how it’s already influencing our day-to-day activities and decision-making. We also discuss what’s his perspective on why AI as a complementary aspect to human decision making should give, signals, recommendations but also what level of confidence the AI actually has in the signal to make it transparent to humans. He also shares his experiences working with AI projects, making it a super inspiring conversation on the future of AI. During the episode we explore: The impact of technology on human decision-making One of the biggest challenges in designing AI experiences Why questions are more important than answers when designing for AI What are the challenges in “probabilistic design”? How much "AI/Data" do you need to prototype an experience? How can design foster development in AI? The Dark side of AI (Optimism and Practical Skeptmism) Thanks a lot for your time and for learning Josh! ——— The Guest Josh Clark is a UX design leader who helps organizations to build products for what's next. He is the founder of Big Medium, a New York based design studio specializing in future-friendly interfaces for artificial intelligence, connected devices, and responsive websites. His client's list includes Samsung, Time Inc, ExxonMobil, About.com, TechCrunch, Entertainment Weekly, eBay, O’Reilly Media, and many others. Josh has written several books, including "Designing for Touch" and "Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps." He is also an Editorial Board Member at Rosenfeld Media and an Advisory Board Member at Third Wave Fashion. In 1996, he created the popular “Couch-to-5K” (C25K) running schedule, which has helped millions of skeptical would-be exercisers take up jogging. (His motto is the same for fitness as it is for software user experience: no pain, no pain.) He speaks around the world about what’s next for digital interfaces.

The goal is to be in line with the vision and then the way in which you align with the vision that's where you get to creative. - Brittany Arthur ——— We are excited to announce our EP60 featuring Brittany Arthur, Co-founder & Director of Design Thinking Japan & Business Karaoke Podcast. With Brittany, we dive into the connection between culture and innovation. We learn how design as facilitation can foster business innovation and growth and where Brittany saw people's life change to create problem-solving. Further, we dig into how design thinking can break company structure hierarchies and bridge cultural differences. She also shares how to measure the impact of design facilitation and how to leverage the digital layer on a hybrid world of digital-physical facilitation.
 During the episode we explore: * How do you evaluate if a workshop or design thinking session was a success?
 * How do you ensure your projects have an impact and not get "lost in the transition to implementation".
 * How do you ensure facilitation has a long-term impact on your work/workshops.
 * The design and innovation culture in Japan and how it differs to other regions in the world?
 * How the right facilitation can bridges cultures and bring people together.
 * Best practices in design facilitation
 * How to keep the alignment with the business vision and strategy, but still foster positive transformation
 * How to navigate design facilitation in a hybrid world of physical and digital sessions
 Thanks a lot for your time and for learning Brittany! ——— ABOUT THE GUEST Brittany Arthur supports companies in Japan to bring their business aspirations to life and to ignite creative confidence at the Japanese workplace by equipping people with tools for innovation. She specializes in innovation, Design Thinking and Design Sprints in Japan and in Japanese. She is the Co-founder Director of Design Thinking Japan & Business Karaoke Podcast, the only English-Japanese, , innovation podcast because innovation is driven by the power of storytelling. She also founded the ToYoko Design Thinking Network, the only English-Japanese, , innovation MeetUp because innovation requires robust ecosystems of community and partnership. She has a equal passion for Rotary. Brittany is a member of the Rotary Club of Berlin-International, Past Rotary Foundation Scholar, Past President of Rotaract Club Berlin and Past Vice-Chair of the Rotary International Joint Committee for Young Leaders and Alumni Engagement. She also a member of the Australian and New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in Japan. She’s continued to contribute to the creation of new industry knowledge and exchange ideas around the new world of work.