Design Notes

This season's special series celebrating ten years since the launch of Material Design [https://design.google/m10] 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.

This season's special series celebrating ten years since the launch of Material Design [https://design.google/m10] 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.

This season's special series celebrating ten years [https://design.google/library/celebrating-ten-years-of-material-design] 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.”

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 [https://pod.link/designnotes]

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 [https://interfacecafe.com/facing-our-interfaces-design-notes-matias-duarte/] 📻 Subscribe to Design Notes [https://pod.link/designnotes]