Design Notes

In this episode, Liam speaks with Rachel Been, SVP of Design for Expedia Group, about her journey from photography to design leadership and why she believes this is "the era of the generalist." The conversation unpacks the recent launch of Expedia's new app on ChatGPT and what it means to design for "non-deterministic flows" and "infinite inputs." Rachel explains how AI is breaking old, linear design paradigms and why, in an age of potential "design slop," deep curiosity and human-centered craft are more important than ever.   Read a transcript and check out more from me at interfacecafe.com   Episode Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:34 The Generalist Designer 11:22 Launching the Expedia App for ChatGPT 16:00 Beyond the Search Bar 25:44 Designing for Infinity 34:03 The Sandwich Theory 39:41 Avoiding Design Slop: Advice on Craft

11/25/25 • 43:17

In this episode, Liam speaks with Zürich-based architect and artist Fabian Bircher, whose work spans buildings, custom lighting, and interactive installations. Fabian discusses his unique creative process, where inspiration flows from both artistic concepts and the discovery of new technological possibilities. The conversation explores the materiality of light through his Buoy lamps and dichroic foil installations, the process of revealing hidden digital systems with his "Reporting Device," and the unexpected role of randomness in creating kinetic art. Find a full transcript and more at interfacecafe.com, and subscribe so you don't miss an episode.   Episode Chapters: 01:16 Intro and Background 03:52 The Exchange Between Tech and Creativity 06:04 Breaking Into the Unknown 07:52 Buoy Lamps and the Vermicelleria 12:58 The Materiality of Light 16:12 Bringing Light to a Brutalist Schoolhouse  19:15 The Reporting Device 24:02 Revealing the Unseen 25:49 Anthropomorphic Architecture 29:54 The Role of Randomness 31:54 Does it All Make Sense? 34:34 What Should We Be Focused On? 37:40 Outro

10/14/25 • 38:19

In this episode, I reconnect with my former instructor, type designer and design coach Troy Leinster. Troy shares his journey from graphic design to type design, and explains why learning to make letters makes you a better designer. We also dig into the importance of trusting the human eye over geometry, the productive friction of sketching by hand, and how understanding calligraphy builds a stronger perspective on type design. Troy discusses why, in the age of AI, the most important thing a designer can do is put their personal touch on the work.

9/9/25 • 45:07

Rob Giampietro, Head of Creative at Notion and former Design Director at MoMA, returns to the show to unpack the story behind Notion Faces, the popular tool that allows users to create their own illustrated avatar. Rob details the project's journey from a beloved internal tradition to a major public launch, including the pivotal decision to scale with human illustrators instead of AI to maintain the brand's unique, handcrafted quality. The conversation explores how the team shifted its focus from "likeness" to "expression," the power of modularity in design systems, and the research process that made the project a success. 📋 Read a transcript 📡 Subscribe

8/5/25 • 43:13

In this episode, designer, educator, and author David Reinfurt returns to the show to discuss his latest book, A *Co-* Program for Graphic Design. Born from a series of lectures delivered remotely, online, and together with collaborators and cooperators, the new book builds on his earlier "spoken" book, exploring some unexpected and intuitive overlaps between design and the rest of the world around us. In conversation, Liam and David cover the power of hands-on learning, the importance of going against expectations as a designer, and the positionality of design—its closeness to everyday life, how it affects those that encounter it, and how it's taught—and how individual perspective is the real driver of design as a practice. Read a full transcript.   Episode Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and Background 08:53 Teaching as Performance 14:34 The Role of Collaboration in Design 18:26 Diverse Perspectives in Design Education 21:55 Exploring Design Space and Topology 26:34 Hands-On Learning in Design Education 30:13 Art and Design 32:34 Creating Space for Reflection in Design 36:34 The Evolution of Design Conventions 39:38 The Bait and Switch 42:04 Individual Perspectives in Design

7/1/25 • 45:02

This special episode digs into the latest evolution of Google's design system: Material 3 Expressive. Liam talks with Material Design's Android Product Manager Aneesha Kommineni, UX Researcher Michael Gilbert, and Creative Director Andy Stewart about the team's latest emotion-driven UX update. They reveal how this system is grounded in user research and how it offers both developers and users more flexibility. The group also chats about making design more than objective, connecting to users' emotional landscapes, and driving business outcomes — all while considering tooling, usability, accessibility, and more. Stay tuned for upcoming episodes featuring guests like O-R-G's David Reinfurt, type designer Troy Leinster, and more! Read a full transcript.

6/10/25 • 55:26

This season's special series celebrating ten years since the launch of Material Design closes out with Rich Fulcher, former Google UX director and Material design lead. Fulcher remembers the career-defining journey of creating Material, what it was like to make beauty a UX priority, how to pressure test a system, and what he's learned about world-building across disciplines. Today, he's creating board games, continuing to apply the design-thinking and problem-solving skills developed during his time at Google. Leave us a rating, and subscribe so you don't miss new episodes with creative practitioners across disciplines. 📻

1/14/25 • 52:07

This season's special series celebrating ten years since the launch of Material Design continues with Adrian Secord, who describes himself as a "roving engineer." Adrian has over a decade of experience building systems and tools that transform design into robust product engineering at scale. Plus, a PhD in Computer Graphics. Here, he reflects on the evolution of Material Design and the (potentially) exciting possibilities for AI-driven UI. He shares insights on the complexities of large-scale design systems and highlights the need for designers and engineers to find common ground.

12/9/24 • 53:43

This season's special series celebrating ten years since the launch of Material Design continues with Software Engineering Manager and Musical Theater Writer Will Larche, who talks about his path to become an engineering manager at Google. Larche, a self-proclaimed "design fan," describes engineering as "creativity with constraints." Here, he explains how the development of Material over the years has led to closer collaboration between design and engineering, and imagines how new AI experiments might open up a new era of "Star Trek design."

10/21/24 • 43:57

This episode is part of a special series celebrating ten years of Material Design. In the episode, Liam speaks with Bethany Fong, a Design Director at Meta who was a pivotal figure in the creation of Material Design. During her time at Google, Fong was responsible for designing the first set of Material components (including Material's signature Floating Action Button), and went on to become a design Lead on the team. In their conversation, Liam and Bethany talk about the tactile nature of design, the importance of keeping a notebook, and how the heady early days of Material unfolded. 👉 Read a full transcript 📻 Subscribe to Design Notes

9/9/24 • 45:19

This season begins with a special series celebrating ten years since the launch of Material Design, which will explore the inception, evolution, and future of Google's design approach. The first episode features the founder of Material Design and Design VP Matías Duarte, whose work on the system has pushed design forward at Google and across devices everywhere. In their conversation, Liam and Matías unpack how interfaces are made, used, and understood—and identify opportunities to move them further into the future via a highly crafted, individualized design approach. 👉 Read a full transcript 📻 Subscribe to Design Notes

5/15/24 • 44:42

Liam speaks with Googlers Connie Shi, a software engineer on Material Design, and Matvei Malkov, a software engineer on Jetpack Compose, and the trio unpack what makes coding a creative practice, and which creative choices are required when you build a design system for other developers around the world. The wide-ranging conversation turns from complex problem solving and technical logic to the concept of creativity as the question-provoking quality of a thought. 📝 Read a full transcript 📻 Subscribe to Design Notes

3/14/23 • 42:08

Liam and Google Fonts Specialist Dave Crossland explore what digital type can teach us about digital production, emotional expression, and where we fit in the world as designers; and how – with a little imagination – we might unlock new possibilities. 📑 Read a full transcript 📻 Subscribe to Design Notes

1/31/23 • 36:57

In this episode, Liam speaks with Judith Donath, the founder of MIT's Sociable Media Lab, inventor of e-cards, and author of The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online. Donath's work offers crucial insights into the sociality of digital products and platforms, and the opportunities we have as digital producers to make things that truly meet sociable ends. In the episode, Donath unpacks some of this work, exploring potential futures for life online and the joy of learning (and sharing) something new. 📑 Read a full transcript 📻 Subscribe to Design Notes

12/20/22 • 36:46

Liam speaks with Aline Borges, a Zürich-based floral designer who's made the leap from fashion coordination for magazines like Vogue and Harper's Bazaar to independent floral design and installations. The conversation covers what it's like to move between different creative fields (and countries), how to think about composition to tackle almost any creative challenge, and the courage and community it takes to start on a new venture. 📑 Read a full transcript 📻 Subscribe to Design Notes

11/22/22 • 28:36

In this episode, we revisit a conversation from Season 1 with new media artist Harvey Moon, recorded in his San Francisco studio. Liam and Harvey discuss how Moon's work reveals unseen properties of the world around us, the process of creating one's own creative tools, and the kind of art that's only made possible through collaboration with machines. The conversation expands on ideas about the way the world around us is designed and redesigned, and where that places us as designers. Read the full transcript: https://www.iamli.am/design-notes-podcast/harvey-moon-new-media-artist  Subscribe to Design Notes: 👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

10/25/22 • 30:59

Liam speaks with streetscape and public space designer Ignacio Ciocchini, who's created much of the public furniture that New Yorkers encounter every single day – from benches that provide personal space, to entire built landscapes for Bryant Park, to chargers for electric vehicles and more. The conversation ranges from the materiality of the built environment, to the ways in which it expands, constrains, and informs our experiences of life and socialization in a city, with a look toward the more human-focused future that Ciocchini envisions. Read the full transcript: https://www.iamli.am/design-notes-podcast/ignacio-ciocchini-nyc-public-furniture Subscribe to Design Notes: 👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

10/11/22 • 44:44

In this episode, we revisit a conversation from Season 1 with Kerry Murphy, co-founder of digital fashion house The Fabricant. We uncover how data are spun into virtual threads, and how virtual embodiment can foster self-actualization. In designing couture that doesn't—or can't—exist in physical space, The Fabricant also explores ideas of embodiment and self-actualization. Murphy pushes these concepts even further, by interacting with his own "virtual twin," composed from 3D-scans of his body. Read the full transcript: https://www.iamli.am/design-notes-podcast/kerry-murphy-founder-the-fabricant  Subscribe to Design Notes: 👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

9/27/22 • 23:03

Liam speaks to Tom Boellstorff, Anthropologist and UCI Professor, whose ethnographic work in Second Life (documented in his book, Coming of Age in Second Life) provides important insights into how virtual space – and our interface with it – informs and interacts with our lives in actual space. In virtual worlds like Second Life, inhabitants exist only through their own acts of creation, which also serve as a primary mode of experiencing life in virtual space. Full transcript + images: https://www.iamli.am/design-notes-podcast/tom-boellstorff-virtual-anthropology    Subscribe to Design Notes: 👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

9/13/22 • 33:47

It's been a while, but Design Notes is coming back for Season 2 uncovering even more of what inspires and unites us in our work. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss new interviews with practitioners working on public furniture, the culture of virtual space, and more. Follow @DesignNotespod on Twitter for updates!   Subscribe to Design Notes  👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

8/30/22 • 01:33

In this episode, part of San Francisco Design Week's Digital Edition, Liam speaks with Julian Zigerli, a designer in Zürich, Switzerland creating clothing that allows everyone to decide how what they wear expresses who they are. In the interview, Zigerli describes how the rich culture of Switzerland impacts his work, what it means when someone asks for "straight" clothes, and how his creative practice adapted in a time of pandemic. Content warning: In this episode, the word "queer" is used in a reclaimed manner.   Find out more about SF Design Week at sfdesignweek.com   Subscribe to Design Notes  👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

6/8/21 • 33:34

This episode is part of a special series of three interviews, recorded remotely with the winners of the 2020 Material Design Awards, exploring what goes into creating an award-winning app. Moooi, winning the award for Material Theming, focuses on aesthetic fundamentals like type, color, and imagery to create an immersive and expressive experience for their digital flagship. In the interview, Liam is joined by Margot Gabel and Rémy Barthez taking an in-depth look at how Moooi implemented an award-winning themed experience. 👉 PDF Transcript   Subscribe to Design Notes  👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

4/20/21 • 21:02

This episode is part of a special series of three interviews, recorded remotely with the winners of the 2020 Material Design Awards, exploring what goes into creating an award-winning app. KAYAK has taken their comprehensive price comparison and travel booking experience to the next level by translating their brand into a dark theme. In the interview, Liam learns from Aleksandra Safarova and Mike Scopino how building a dark theme revolutionized KAYAK's entire approach to color. 👉 PDF Transcript   Subscribe to Design Notes  👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

4/20/21 • 21:16

This episode is part of a special series of three interviews, recorded remotely with the winners of the 2020 Material Design Awards, exploring what goes into creating an award-winning app. Epsy uses motion meaningfully, guiding users living with Epilepsy through critical tasks to better their quality of life. In the interview, Liam is joined by Jennifer Stott and Marco Peluso to break down Epsy's approach to designing - and prioritizing - motion. 👉 PDF Transcript   Subscribe to Design Notes  👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

4/20/21 • 20:15

In this episode, Liam speaks with BJ Best, a poet who teaches computers to do what humans can't in the name of art. His network of ArtyBots is part of a vibrant scene of robots creating, sharing, and collaborating with one another on virtual art. In the interview, Best describes the reflective opportunities and editorial impact created by a bot-created body of work numbering in the tens of thousands.   Subscribe to Design Notes  👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

4/21/20 • 32:23

Design Notes is a show about creative work and what it teaches us. In this episode, Liam speaks with illustrator, editorial designer, and author Laurie Rosenwald about how she's managed to cultivate an aesthetic—and a career—around "making mistakes on purpose." Learn how chaos and collage can come together to reveal unexpected creative potential, and let Rosenwald help make sure you're never alone with a blank page. Subscribe to Design Notes  👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

3/17/20 • 30:13

In this episode, Liam speaks with Kerry Murphy, co-founder of digital fashion house The Fabricant, to learn how ones and zeros are spun, woven, and stitched into virtual couture. In designing couture that doesn't—or can't—exist in physical space, The Fabricant also explores ideas of embodiment and self-actualization. Murphy pushes these concepts even further, by interacting with his own "virtual twin," composed from 3D-scans of his body.   Subscribe to Design Notes  👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

2/18/20 • 22:17

Design Notes is a show about creative work and what it teaches us. For the first episode of 2020, Liam speaks with David Reinfurt, founder of O-R-G, half of Dexter Sinister, and author of A *New* Program for Graphic Design. Together they explore the fluid notions of personal, corporate, and graphic identity throughout Reinfurt's career, the importance of learning through practice, and the relationship between design and art.   Subscribe to Design Notes  👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

1/21/20 • 35:26

This episode is part of a special series of four interviews with the winners of this year's Material Design Awards, exploring what goes into creating an award-winning app. Reflectly, a unique journaling app, won this year's award for innovation by pushing the boundaries of Material Design and bringing it to life with fluid animations, a novel elevation model, and custom componentry. In the interview, cofounder Jacob Kristensen digs into the foundations of Reflectly and how its experience—from philosophy to specific interactions—came to life. Listen and subscribe to Design Notes  👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

11/26/19 • 13:39

This episode is part of a special series of four interviews with the winners of this year's Material Design Awards, exploring what goes into creating an award-winning app. Ruff is a focused note-taking app that won this year's award for theming, building an expressive identity through the consistent application of color, typography, and shape. In the interview, Liam and developer/designer Bardi Golriz talk about what it's like to add new features without losing focus, and how Material Theming impacts the process of developing an app. Listen and subscribe to Design Notes  👉Google Podcasts 👉iTunes 👉Spotify 👉Pocket Casts 👉RSS

11/26/19 • 15:59