Hustle

We briefly met Ben, Owner and Creative Director of Elegant Seagulls at Epicurrence. These guys do some killer work. We wanted to hear how they were able to inject personality into each and every design they create and keep up with such a high-level of clients and projects. Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest Check out Funsize on Instagram

While in the midst of escaping a the sxsw madness, we set up in Anthony's home to record a couple of episodes! In this one, we are excited to have Nick Robalik, Creative Director and Johnnie Hamn (who recently joined the Funsize team!

Steven Ray and Anthony Armendariz go way back. They had a company together prior to Funsize and in addition to hearing Steve's experience at Dialexa, they also tell the story of starting up a distributed mobile design boutique years ago. Since the Funsize office was taken over by sxsw, we decided to hang out in Anthony's kitchen and lay down some thoughts about our experiences together. Including how Rick first met Anthony which was the same time he met Steven Ray. Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest Check out Funsize on Instagram

What do you love about being a designer? How does geography affect your career? What do you want to be doing in 5 years? What's your least-favorite design trend? Interviewees Mae Reed - Freelance @maebees Mike Townson - Project 202 @miketownson Mike Blakesley - Project 202 @mikeblakesley Joshua Bullock - vauto @blisster138 Dan Benjamin - 5by5 @danbenjamin Haddie Cooke - 5by5 @haddiebird Chris Meeks - Hatbox @chrismeeks Clark Wimberly - Invision @clarklab Brian Peterson - Daily Fantasy Sports @ironcobratv Ryan Weaver - Creative Market @ryantheweave Danh Hoang - Adonit @danhhoang Nick Robalik - Creative Director @nickrobalik Jonathan Howell - Microsoft @ItsJonHowell Steven Ray - Dialexa @stevenray Ethan Leon - Thoughtbot @ethangl Amanda Donaldson - Spreadfast @AMDesignlovin Carlos Arellano - vauto @carlosarellano Bryan Smith - vauto Riley Spiller - Atlassian @RileySpiller Jonathan Haver - Rocksauce @jhTHUNDERmaker Jim Jordan - Funsize @JimJJordan Rachael LaCoss - Media General @RachelLaCoss Anthony Sanchez -

It's great to push the boundaries of design to make interesting work, but is it ok to break normal design patterns to do so? How do we convince clients that something outside of the typical design trends is the right choice? Lovably Dylan's latest Album Claye Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest Check out Funsize on Instagram

How much research do you need before you can make some design decisions? Surely, this is different for each product, but at what point has their been enough research done for design to get started? Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest Check out Funsize on Instagram

We invited Sam Kapila, Director of Instruction at The Iron Yard to discuss the approach to the unique challenges involved in her role. The Iron Yard is the world’s largest code school with full-time immersive courses in 20 cities. Taking a non-traditional approach to education on subject matter that is both complex and volatile. Sam has a unique position and perspective on where design solutions are applied to more than just screens. We we're also joined by Jim Jordan, Product Designer at Funsize and one of Sam's former students. Some subjects discussed in this episode: Thoughts on today’s product design processes Design principles, design assumptions, user thinking and design approach instead of "design thinking" When is the right time to get research in? When is it too much? Applying Design to non-design things Learning What doesn’t work "Pixel Perfect Design Thinking" - ha Designing for the imperfect scenario What's behind the design decisions we make? Books mentioned in this episode: A

Design often needs a voice to communicate its intention. Tom Greever has recently published a book called "Articulating Design Decisions". Rick and Anthony sit down with Tom to talk through a critical skill that many designers lack. Tom Greever's book, published by O'Reilly: Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experience Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest Check out Funsize on Instagram

How important is motion in a product? At what stage should you start thinking about motion in the design process? Is it better to spend time on the the pixel details or on the subtle motion details? Ben Cline, Founder and designer at renown agency Rally Interactive, talks with Anthony and Rick from Funsize about the importance of motion design in modern digital products and Rally's unique approach to designing meaningful motion. Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest Check out Funsize on Instagram

Funsize is growing, and growing up. In this episode are some sincere thoughts around what's been going on in our little agency and what we want to do next. Here's a few topics we chat over: Getting new office space, designing for new platforms and for the input form of voice, interacting with robots, why we want to work with engineers, we want to do some UI for bowling alleys. What does it mean to be a design director? It's important to still design when you're working in a design leadership role. Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest Check out Funsize on Instagram

Rick and Anthony continue their conversation from the previous episode as the conversation shifts from how we work on projects with our clients to how those projects end. The project is over, but the relationship is not. Funsize has been evolving offboarding and come up with a few ideas that help soften the landing. Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest Check out Funsize on Instagram

Rick and Anthony discuss Funsize process. Keep project SOW's broad so it's easy to pivot. Track effort with velocity using pivotal tracker rather than fixed deliverable pricing. Price and design with complete transparency. Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest Check out Funsize on Instagram

Funsize has a unique process and there's no one-size-fits-all. Clients coming in have unique backgrounds and context so there's a lot of custom fitting. Rick and Anthony discuss Funsize's process of onboarding clients and compare it with the experiences we design for onboarding users. Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest Check out Funsize on Instagram

Hustle is back with season 2. Anthony recaps his experience at Epicurrence, Rick shares about speaking at Adobe MAX. Online streaming music services such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music are compared in light of Rdio's recent announcement that they are shutting their service down after being acquired by Pandora. Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest Check out Funsize on Instagram

So, you’re a great designer - but do you know how to listen, drive a conversation, and build consensus with your clients, company, or teams? Ryan Rumsey, the Director of Experience Design at Electronic Arts IT, hops in the Funsize studio to share his knowledge and experiences in persuasion and building consensus with stakeholders in the enterprise world. 1:00 Ryan discussing his role as Director of Experience Design at Electronic Arts IT and his expertise in Enterprise User Experience Design. He also gives us an overview of some of the things he did in his previous role at Apple. 3:15 Apple’s hush hush culture. It’s easy designing software for Apple employees because everyone at Apple only uses Apple products. 5:40 Rick talks about his experience working on enterprise design projects. Ryan discusses some of the dynamics of working in an enterprise environment and the art of selling your design work to your internal stakeholders. 7:00 We discuss Ryan’s new article “Influence and Design Success - The art of let

Brandon Breitenbach is the Co-Founder and CEO of Pare Booking, a kick ass digital product that’s changing the way musicians and artists book shows and get paid. Recently, Brandon stopped by the studio while visiting Funsize to discuss the history of our working relationship, how we made decisions, the process and tools we used and what the ideal client and design agency relationship can look and feel like. 2:00 Introduction to the Pare Booking's product and user experience. Pare Booking modernizes the process for musicians and artists to book shows, manage contracts, and get paid. 4:00 Brandon’s share's his music and music booking industry background. 4:47 How Funsize met Pare Booking. Brandon and Anthony talk about the history of how Pare Booking and Funsize found each other and how quickly we were able to get started. 6:25 Why Pare Booking chose to work with Funsize. Brandon talks about what it feels like to hire a design and development vendors. Joel Beukelman recommended they work with Funsize and Brando

Show Notes: 0:55 Rick is back from paternity leave. His new son is awesome. 1:11 Joining us on this episode is the Senior Director of Design at Jawbone, friend of Funsize, and a hugely inspirational designer, Mr. Peter Merholz. 1:30 Anthony chronicles Peter's background with the international consulting firm, Adaptive Path, which is perhaps best known for championing "User Experience." 1:50 Fun Peter Merholz facts: Peter hired Funsize while at Groupon and was Funsize's first client. Thanks, Peter! He also coined the term 'blog'. 3:44 Fun fact about the new Up4 from Jawbone is that it can do NFC payments! 4:00 The theme for this episode was conceived following Peter's blog post "There's no such thing as UX design." 5:20 Don Norman, credited with the coining the term User Experience in the early 90s, created the User Experience Architect's office at Apple. 6:25 Initially, Adaptive Path considered themselves a user experience consultancy because no one else was talking about user experience

It’s a wonderful time to be a product designer. There's more design and prototyping tools available to us than ever before (and more and more keep popping up). It’s safe to say we’ll all be using these tools in various ways to achieve the specific results we need. Keynote is a fantastic low-barrier-of-entry tool that allows product managers, designers, and marketing professionals to achieve product success while maximizing time In this special SXSW '15 Hustle/Balance Podcast cross-over episode, Joel Beukelman and Ted Boda talk about how Keynote has allowed cross discipline teams at Google, Nest, and Netflix to work quickly and efficiently together to craft great products. Show Notes: 0:45 Drinking bourbon and opening up the show 1:30 Joel talks about his new job at Google working on Android Auto, how he and Ted started working with Keynote for prototyping at Netflix, and the inspiration of the Balance Podcast. 3:30 Ted introduces himself and his experience working on the Keynote team at Apple, Nest, and his

It's SXSW '15 and we had the awesome opportunity to hang out with Photoshop product designers before our epic high-five hour party. Anthony and Danielle set out to tackle a controversial topic. The dilemma is that there is a lot of great-looking design on the web at sites like Behance and Dribbble and also in a great many designers portfolios. Sometimes you see something that looks incredible aesthetically on the screen but then you find out that it was either unsolicited by the “client” (example: how many times have see someone redesign Instagram on Behance?) or that carries the footnote something like “rejected concept.” It might look amazing, but why didn’t it ship? Show Notes 00:00 Introductions 05:30 It’s important to play, but there’s serious constraints with a 25 year old project 07:45 It’s fun to be wrong 09:18 It discounts the hard work a product team has put in 11:05 Let’s you think big and you need that to live! 10:20 A benefit is the “What if” which pushes the design 12:00 Project Recess, a new p

Do you know your product and how to get exposure for it? Jordan Menashy VP of Marketing and Co-Founder of Bench.co talks to us about marketing a product. Rick and Danielle from Funsize ask questions from a non-expert perspective. Show Notes 00:00 Introductions 05:41 Activating a marketing engine 08:00 Determining product market fit can only be accomplished by launching 09:25 Launching: Store up some "big reveals" when rolling out to keep the momentum going for the first few months 15:10 Approach a mentor and don't waste their time, have questions ready! 19:00 Use google analytics, there is no secret tool, just hard-work and good analysis 23:29 R&D vs Engine 25:30 Good marketing is about good methodology not false promises 27:00 You need to allow for failure so you can learn how to make it work 28:00 Getting started: Get a target customer acquisition cost (CAC) and find a channel that works for you. That channel can be converted into an engine, then you want to refine that engine with R&D 35