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

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

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.

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.

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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.

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Episode Chapters:

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!

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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.

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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.