An Inside Look at Every’s Design Philosophy - Ep. 55 with Lucas Crespo

[00:00] Most newsletters look exactly the same. It's text on a white background, like how can we make ours feel special? I come from advertising, so all that I did for a while was just art direction for brands. You know, you can just now generate UIs. It's way more important to like be in tune with what you find beautiful about day-to-day things, you know, and like actually like start honing on that art direction of things. You log into Gmail or Outlook and it's just like... [00:27] a ton of text in chronological order and and it feels like you're in a hospital or like in a government building with a lot of like fluorescent lights and like everything is sterile and hygienic so we wanted to create this narrative of going from a stormy void type of like forsaken place into like a more sunshine spring trying to do like a little bit of symbolic storytelling while [00:57] the letter. You might not [00:59] explicitly notice it, but you'll feel it. I love those little details. Choosing or championing more efficiency over like the emotional aspects of things like the details that you might put on a doorknob or the manhole covers on the street or whatever, you know, like it just definitely feels like the world is in general or Panama, at least it's not minimalist at all. It's very maximalist. I think the internet deserves more maximalism. [01:29] Thank you.

[01:39] Lucas, welcome to the show. [01:41] What's up, man? Thank you for having me. Thanks for coming. I'm so excited to do this with you for many reasons. One, because you are the original producer of this show and you designed all of the visuals for it. Two, because I just love hanging out with you. And three, because you play such a critical role at every and you do such a good job that I'm just really excited to... [02:05] So bring everything you do to this podcast and let everyone see a little bit of a behind the scenes on how you work. [02:13] So for people who don't know, you are the creative lead at Every, which means that you're responsible for the vibe, basically, of Every and all of our products. And I feel like people, I mean, people really like the vibe and I love the vibe. And it's such a critical part of what it is that we do. And it's such a pleasure to get to work with you. And I'm just so happy to get to talk to you about how you do what you do. [02:38] Yeah, I mean, I think for me it's been a good journey so far. Thank you for reminding me that I actually used to produce this podcast. I have totally forgotten about that because Vivian has been doing a great job so far now that I totally forgot about it. And yeah, it's been a journey, but super happy to be able to vibe with you all. [03:01] and get to make us look as good as possible, you know. [03:04] Yep, totally. Yeah, I mean, [03:08] I've told you this before, but for people who are listening, you're kind of like the ideal –

[03:14] You're a founder's best friend. Because you've done pretty much every job at the company. You started doing ad sales. You just called DM me and was like, hey, I want to work with you. And I was like, cool, that sounds fun. I don't know what you should do, but maybe do... [03:33] you know, ad sales. [03:35] And you progressed from there to like, [03:39] uh, doing, uh, like helping us run courses to doing the, uh, like producing the podcast to, um, now doing all of the visual design and aesthetic and all of the UI design. So like basically everything that I throw at you, you're just like, yeah, I'll figure that out. And you do, um, which is really great. And it's, it's such a, it's so fun to get to work with you on this stuff. But I think, I think the place I want to start is, and this is very relevant to the audience is, um, [04:07] You're someone whose career I've seen transform by using AI. Like I remember when we first started working together – [04:17] I used to have you CC me on all the sales emails you were sending because, I mean, your English is great, but like your written English, when we first started working together, was like, every once in a while, there'd be a little thing, and I'm very sensitive to this stuff, where it was like, you know, it wasn't quite perfect. And I just remember when ChatGPT came out, your email suddenly became like, perfect, like overnight. And that might seem like a small thing, but it's really not because –

[04:46] That was the moment where I was like, [04:49] Uh, [04:51] you know, uh, now I can let, now I don't have to watch your emails and now I can give you more responsibility. I can like let you manage the courses that we're doing. And you could have done that before, but just like the communication is just so much easier that, uh, [05:04] Now I can give that to you without having to worry about it. And same thing for... [05:09] The image generation, like when Dolly and Midjourney started to come out, you started to be like, oh, I can like now I can do all the like art for like the site. [05:20] And so, you know, all the, all the, all the images that we do for all the stuff we publish, like it just started, you just started doing that stuff and it was like amazing. So every time there's a new AI tool or you remember you built that like AI summarizer for our Sunday digest, every time there's a new AI tool, you just like dive in and it has just like completely changed, I think the trajectory of your career. So I just wanted to like talk about that with you. Like what has, what's that experience been like? Yeah. [05:50] This big thing into everything that we do, write about, or even talk about in all of our meetings just makes me more inclined to jump into all of this sort of stuff. [06:01] Just so you know, not just my... [06:04] my emails in English are not perfect, but also my Spanish emails. I'm like a terrible typer in general. I speak way better than I express myself with my hands, I guess, using a keyboard or just writing by hand. I'm terrible. Grammar is the vein of my existence. And I think when we started

[06:34] that I knew [06:37] that the emails needed to be better. And I knew what I wanted to say. [06:41] But it was, like, so easy just to, like, grab, like, what I wanted to say and just say, like, fix it or make it at least sound coherent, you know? And then, like, grab that and it was, like, already, like... [06:52] perfect. I never thought of it as like, "Oh, the AI is writing the emails for me." It's like the AI is making sense out of me not making sense or at least out of my incoherentness. Translating, maybe. Yeah, it's like translating to the correctness. I've just always been more of a visual person that I've never really... [07:16] bothered so much into jumping on like, uh, writing so much, which is kind of like ironic because like now I've written two pieces, uh, for a media company here, even like text models, just like, because like a lot of the work that I do is very visual. So like, how do text models help in that way? But I do think like, [07:33] using 3.5 allowed me to sort of like [07:37] It unlocked this sort of feeling that I had in my head of everything is sort of figureoutable. Before it was like, oh, I don't know how to do that, so I can't help you. But there's this little thing that AI did that is like, everything is figureoutable now. So it just kind of allowed me to want to take more than I knew that I could do without it, if that makes sense. [07:59] Totally. I think a lot of people listening and watching, if they're already familiar with Every, then like one of the reasons they might be excited to listen to this episode is because they're just like, I love Every's aesthetic. Like, how do you even do that? I hope I hope people feel that way. I feel that way. Tell me about that. Like, how do you think about the aesthetic that we have? And how did you come to it? And how do you think about putting it out every day?

[08:24] Yeah, well, I think it maybe makes sense to go a little bit back. I come from advertising, so like... [08:31] All that I did for like a while was just art direction for brands. [08:34] So, [08:36] Based on that, I noticed right away working at Every that there was really no art direction or there wasn't really anything super cohesive. So I always had that itch, which I never was able to scratch because I was doing ad sales or something else or whatever. [08:52] And for a while, we were just like, everybody, each writer was in charge of their own cover images. So that created a lot of inconsistencies. Everybody had different prompting styles. [09:06] But still, everybody was just prompting differently. [09:10] I just noticed that there was room for creating something that felt special or that felt interesting enough. And I remember we did a lot of iterations and back and forth to make sure that, oh, this feels at least aligned with what we're trying to do as a brand or as a company. [09:27] But I just, like, I knew that, like, we needed to... [09:31] to pop, you know, because I think like most newsletters look exactly the same. It's [09:37] Text on a white background. Like, how can we make ours feel special? And I guess, like, that's something that I... [09:44] try to look at a lot of the things that I work through. [09:49] or at least that's the lens that I put on for like a lot of the work that we do together. Just because like

[09:55] It's easy to kind of like fall into just keeping things looking the way that they are. But... [10:01] But I don't know, like there's really an opportunity to kind of like delight people just by like pouring your soul into like tiny little details and things like that. And I really enjoy that. [10:11] Definitely. And how do you describe like what it is, like what the aesthetic even is? [10:15] Yeah, so I would say the way that I usually talk about it is like neoclassical pop art. That's like the simplest way because it has like a lot of hints and symbols and elements that are like more reserved for like the Baroque period or like neoclassic or like Greek, Greco-Roman type of aesthetics, columns, architecture. Like statues and like stuff like that. [10:45] to like that classical aesthetic. But that's like so old school as well. You know, that's like something you would see in a museum. And like museums, I've never, at least me personally, I've never felt like a museum is particularly like [10:59] It's like, "Oh, I'm gonna go to a museum, I'm gonna learn, I'm gonna get inspired," and things like that. [11:06] Uh, we are... [11:07] a web company, you know, at the end of the day. And like, there's so much noise in the webs. How do we stand out? And like, I remember talking with you a lot about how [11:16] we are sort of like talking about the future, but from a lens from like the now and the past and like how the past tells the future and sort of like that. So a lot of

[11:26] those [11:27] like themes sort of like got translated into the designs where like, how can we make like all these things, [11:35] classical, super vintage type of aesthetics or like feel alive and feel electric and like add a little bit of like, you know, energy to it. And I think like that's where all the saturated like colors came from, like. [11:48] the crazy lines and all that sort of stuff while still keeping a lot of that classical vibe in there. [11:56] Yeah. Um, one of the things we talk about a lot is, um, [12:00] The idea of dynamic tensions, like playing with opposites. So you might think, [12:08] in order to create a brand, it's like, well, is it new or old? And I think for us, one thing that's really important to me is playing with the tension between new and old and bringing in elements of both to create something that feels new and a little bit more alive. Because, you know, [12:26] Something about Every is like we have – it's a future, hopefully future-focused company, future-forward company, but we have a lot of respect for and awareness of the history of, for example, great publishing companies and magazines and all that kind of stuff that – [12:43] like came before us. Uh, and I really love trying to take some of the glamour or aspiration of, um, [12:53] of those sorts of old style things. And then, uh,

[12:58] bringing them back in a new way that feels uh fresh and and about the future and all that kind of stuff and i think that produces something really really interesting there's a particular um art style called art deco uh the from like i think it's from like early 1900s that was also something that we we talked about a lot where it was really trying to be about the future but it's from the past and that's like a really cool like thing to me um and i'm like i'm like i'm like [13:24] And I think you're really good at playing with those kinds of tensions. Yeah, I think, like, there's – at least to me, that's what makes design interesting, you know, because, like, there's a lot of, like, low-hanging fruit in, like, design, you know, because you can easily look up for a swipe file or go to Pinterest and just kind of, like, replicate what kind of, like, resonates with you. But at the same time, that's not necessarily sort of, like, creating, like, a new provocation in, like, [13:54] whatever. And I think like [13:57] I mean, I'm not a writer, you know, like, by trade, but I know how, like, the choice of syntax, the choice of, like, where you put a coma or, like, whatever, it's all about, like, sort of, like, creating a rhythm, creating, like, a certain feeling and things like that. And I think, like, there's a lot of... [14:14] a lot of [14:15] ways that like visuals and designs sort of like work in a similar way, you know, like just like even adding very simple details, like a very slight grain texture, like automatically puts it a little bit in the past and like gives you a little bit of that pipe, you know, and depends on how you use it and things like that. But I do think like there is something really interesting about like,

[14:40] really taking things that like maybe shouldn't work together that you think like perhaps you don't normally see them together. And I think like that's what makes it interesting because it's more unexpected, you know. [14:52] Yeah. One of the things that I think is also unique about your, um, [14:57] your design taste and design vibe that's actually a little bit different for me is I'm a little bit more maybe minimalist and understated. [15:05] Um, visually I'm more of a verbal person than I am a visual person anyway, but if I'm doing visual stuff, I'm a little bit more minimalist. And I think you can do minimalism really well, but you also really like bright colors and saturated stuff and stuff that like pops. And what's really funny is actually, so we were, uh, you're, you're in Panama right now. You're from Panama. Um, and we spent some time together, uh, on Bocas del Toro for a month, uh, like last month, which is awesome. It's also where I flew off my motorcycle and my, my wrist, but, uh, [15:35] That's a story for another time. Um, [15:38] And when I was coming back from from focus, I was I spent some time in Panama City. I just like just a day and I ended up walking around and it's so colorful. [15:50] like all of the buildings are these beautiful like greens and pinks and reds and purples and like all this stuff that like the outsides of the buildings that you wouldn't really expect. And it just made me, I don't know if you've ever consciously connected that, but it made me connect to a lot of the, like the saturation in your, in, in what you do. Cause it just feels like a, to me, a reflection, a little bit of Panama city actually. Well, I've never thought about it that way. So it's really interesting what you're saying,

[16:20] think about like a story that I have no idea if it's true or, or if it's not. But basically like I heard that in Panama city, uh, a lot of how, or in Panama in general, a lot of houses and, and like small buildings and things like that are painted in like very sort of like, uh, [16:36] Not like normal colors or neutral colors like we would be used to, you know, like... [16:42] light beige or like white or whatever. And it's mostly because those are like the... [16:47] The colors that are most in demand. So they are the most expensive, you know, like buying white paint or buying like a slight light yellow. It's like more expensive than like buying lime green paint because who would paint their house? So it was like it kind of like came out of like a limitation, I guess. [17:05] but it trickled into like a visual sort of aesthetic that like, it's really kind of interesting and tropical and very representative of the region. Uh, [17:13] The difference, obviously, is that pixels are free and the colors that you choose from the color picker are really free. But I do think... [17:23] Maybe there is something towards like... [17:27] like Panama City and like the tropicality of it and like the sort of the architecture and how picturesque like a lot of the landscapes are that maybe like has trickling into like some of design because... [17:42] I do notice that I'm not a super minimalist person in general, but I also think it's like [17:49] Like the...

[17:50] Like if you, for example, look at a... [17:53] the portfolio of a designer from like Norway or like Sweden, it's probably going to look like an Ikea super like minimally super slick. And like mine is totally the opposite of that, you know? Yeah. And it's, and I think it's mainly just because like, [18:08] I respect minimalism and I think like it's great but at the same time I have like a love-hate relationship with it because like [18:15] Minimalism. [18:17] Kind of like... [18:17] came up in the tech world thanks to Brown and Apple that were really championing [18:26] only having the bare essentials in like the final sort of like composition or final thing, which is all about like getting rid of excess and like whatever you don't need and things like that, which I think it's great. But like... [18:40] that our world is each time more and more full of technology and technology is becoming like such an important part of our life that like, it sort of seems like we're kind of like, [18:50] choosing or championing more like efficiency and like these types of things over like the emotional aspects of things like the details that you might put on a doorknob or the details that you might like put into like the... [19:04] manhole covers on the street or whatever, you know, like it just definitely feels like the world is in general or Panama, at least it's not minimalist at all. It's very maximalist. And I think like, [19:16] the web has sort of like been following the same pattern of like, Hey, let's minimize everything. But yeah,

[19:23] I don't know. I think the internet deserves more maximalism, more attention, more stuff. Especially now because everybody can just generate a UI or generate something, and since it's trained on patterns and everybody loves minimalism, it's just spitting out more minimalism, and the web is just going to... [19:42] get get frenched in minimalism. [19:45] Yeah, I sort of see it as like things come in waves. Like, I don't know how you feel about early Apple stuff, but like a lot of the not early, early, but like early as in, I don't know, probably to the 2000s to like early 2010s, probably really the 2000s. Like they had those like really bright clamshell MacBooks or like the early, a lot of the early iPhone UI was very skeuomorphic and it had all these like details, like grained leather of like, I can't remember what it was, like your address book had like the sewing pattern on it. [20:15] and stuff like that. And then over the next 10 years, it became much, much, much more minimal. And then now I feel like we're blossoming back into a lot of what we talk about is like maximalism and nostalgia. [20:28] as like two of the [20:30] maybe hallmarks of whatever this new AI aesthetic is. Talk about that. What do you see as like being the kind of the aesthetic that's coming up? What I'm noticing more is like designers feeling more empowered to spend more time on art direction because like that's usually been like a very separate role or it's been something that like maybe comes after you're thinking about functionality and things like that. So it always sort of like takes like a backseat. Um, but,

[20:55] But I do think, like, now I feel it in the air, you know, like, this feeling of, like, people wanting to bring in more things that you wouldn't see normally on the web, you know, like, more organic things. So, like... [21:10] Clouds are, like, the perfect example of something that is super, like, overly used now. But, like, adding, like, landscapes, adding, like, textures, adding, like, very things that feel like there was, like, a human hand involved in it are really sort of, like, starting to appear more in my timeline. And I see it, like, more often in, like, in... [21:30] designs that I see around. I think a lot of that is probably [21:34] coming from a similar feeling that I'm having, that if we are all regressing into that mean of minimalism, we're not going to stand out. So I feel... [21:47] that there is definitely like a trend for people to [21:51] Try to [21:54] I push the limits, I guess, of what like is expectable to happen in like a screen or a frame or things like that, you know, or like what is expected to be inside of a frame. So like I see people using like paper textures now more than before, or like specific, like, um, uh, components and things like that. And also like, [22:14] more interesting animations that feel a little bit more organic. And I'm using the word organic a lot just because you can, even if it might or might not be AI generated, it definitely feels more organic.

[22:26] like there was a human, uh, like pushing the things versus like a computer cursor or something like that. Um, and I see a lot of people also bringing back a lot of like this cue morphism that you were talking about, uh, but more related to like buttons and like more tactile surfaces and like interactive components and things like that, which is also like really, really interesting. Um, [22:50] And I do think it's [22:52] It's like a... [22:55] In Spanish, we have this phrase, which is para los gustos, los colores, which means for the tastes, the colors. So like you basically like everybody likes something different. Everybody has like a different taste or a different idea of like what's good. [23:10] but it, [23:11] Kind of like how you were saying, there's like waves of like what's the most popular sort of like design right now. And I think you're spot on that. Like as soon as like ChatGPT released the new image generation model, people started experimenting to see if like they could create their own UI kits in Ghibli mode or things like that, which is interesting. I don't know how long that will last before like it starts feeling boring or repetitive. But that's what's exciting, you know, because like who knows what's next? [23:39] Yeah. Another really interesting thing that you've been kind of tracking is, um, [23:44] is it's not necessarily just an aesthetic, but it's how – [23:51] AI might change what a website even is. [23:54] You know, tell me about that. Yeah, that's an interesting question because, like, I think we were talking about it in Boca's a little bit, too.

[24:07] Thank you. [24:08] So like a website is basically... [24:11] like a building, right? Like it has like its own architecture and like somebody built it thinking about like, how are people going to like be inside of that space? Uh, so it's like, I think like I tend to look at, uh, [24:23] building products or building websites and things like that a little bit more akin to like digital architecture, right? Like you're building sort of like spaces for people on the web. And I, [24:33] Um... [24:34] But... [24:35] But everybody's house sort of looks the same. Everybody's house, you're, like, taking the same hallway and, like, taking the right in the same sort of way because we've fallen into the same sort of, like, UI patterns or, like, what is the most accessible flow or whatever. [24:51] usability is great and like you want to make the the life of your users better of course but isn't it amazing when you're like lost in a museum and you don't know like where you want to like turn next and you can just sort of like explore and get lost like and like dive into it or like in like or on a haunted house or like when you are like in a beautiful park you know and like you can you can just sort of like stroll around and like spend some time and I think like [25:17] we're spending... [25:19] more and more time inside of our screens and inside of our laptops. And, like, it seems like that's just going to be more and more. So, like, why don't we... [25:28] Bring a little bit of that, like, serendipity or, like, that type of... [25:33] I don't know, like randomness that exists in architecture that's being sort of like thought out for like specific purposes into the way that like we interact with our products.

[25:44] I don't know how that translates to a SaaS product where you just want to do something very specific, but I think... [25:51] uh, it, it opens up the question, you know, to like, at least think about it before like just following the pattern, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Do you have examples? Like, I want to look at one together of, of something that you're inspired by right now and just talk about it. Yeah. I mean, I think like, uh, a really cool example, um, is the website, uh, that I saw recently for, uh, mainframe, uh, Jordan Singer's new company mainframe. They have like a [26:21] and I've spent a lot of time in it just trying to figure out how they did some of the things they did, because I have no idea specifically how some textures or some SVGs were rendered in a way that looks so responsive and great. Show me. Share your screen. [26:36] Yeah, yeah. Let me share my screen. Awesome. Okay. So there is this website that I really, really like, which is the landing page for Mainframe. And what I... [26:49] I have no idea how they made this border texture. It looks like it could be a picture. You can zoom in and really notice the intricate details. But what's interesting is that this is super responsive. [27:06] And like, I have no idea how even to like approach something like that. So I just thought like that was interesting. That's interesting. Oh, let me stop you there. So for people who are listening and not watching, basically what mainframe has is it looks almost like you're looking at a terminal.

[27:22] and like a black terminal, like DOS terminal type thing. [27:27] So that's sort of back to the like retro nostalgia stuff that we were talking about. But what they have around that is this like, it's almost like a beige, maybe sort of metallic-y border. What it looks like to me is like one of those really old monitors from like the 90s. So it's like the border. It's a border that looks like it's a monitor. And as you resize it, the monitor resizes too, which is pretty cool. It's like a sort of CRT kind of monitor, I think. [27:57] Yeah, and it has shadows, and it looks like it has depth. It looks like the screen is even further away than what it is. That's super skeuomorphic, and it's something that you're not seeing in... [28:11] in day-to-day design, in like a random website you come in and visit, you know. [28:17] What I think is also really cool is that the entire experience happens inside of this terminal. The type of art direction that they choose is also super reminiscent of older type of UI from the older days. [28:33] I don't know, like, before... Even before that, who knows, you know, like, it's, like, really, really interesting how, like, [28:40] the art direction and the storytelling throughout the entire thing. Because this landing page is sort of like their manifesto, in a way. They are kind of like telling the story of their company and what they believe in design. But they are using sort of like...

[28:54] very simple basic elements that are from [28:57] you know, like, that you could find, like, in a terminal, just, like, lines and things like that, or dots, for example, to make something that feels, like, truly unique. [29:07] Thank you. [29:08] And yeah, I just see this as an example of a website that I would love to maybe build something like this for us someday. Not exactly this, but just something that feels like, oh, I'm in an experience, like a website. [29:22] should feel more like you had an experience versus like a flyer, you know? And I think like a lot of... [29:29] Design tends to look like a digital version of a flyer. [29:33] But I think there is a lot of room to play with things to make them feel like [29:38] I don't know, like really unique and like wanted to share a little bit of podcast. I agree. I like one, one of the, um, one of the, uh, other ways I think this could come out is like, I'm an investor in this company called Portola and they have, they do these, um, [29:54] AI characters called Toland's. Oh yeah. Um, and we'll, we'll have, uh, Quentin who's the founder will be on the show in a couple of weeks. And, um, [30:03] Uh, that's another thing where you're interacting with a piece of software, but it's a personality, [30:09] And everyone's talking about like, you know, agentic AI and blah, blah, whatever. But, [30:15] And Toland is a consumer thing, but I actually think that that's also going to happen for like – [30:21] you know, uh, the marketer agent that you use is going to, Devin's going to have a personality, you know, and you're going to like a particular Devin cause it like has a specific voice and, and way of interacting. And, and that is, that is an experience as a way of having experience with technology that wasn't really possible before. And it, there's all these other, there's all these new design constraints there that are not just, you know, it's about the prompt and the information it has, the knowledge it has and whatever, but it's also about how do you

[30:51] visually so that you can you get the sense that there's someone there that you're talking to yeah that's really interesting i think like even like with uh like voice you know uh that's like an entire like new paradigm that i really have never even like ventured to design for or like audio in general you know and i think like it's definitely becoming more more important i played with uh with the tollens recently and it was like awesome like the whole onboarding experience is [31:21] um [31:21] But yeah, I think that's exactly what I'm talking about. Obviously, that feels super amazing and fresh because they are targeting [31:28] like the specific like end users which might be kids might not be but like at the end of the day like it feels like like oh you're like in inside of a show or like you're inside of a movie and like and that that's sort of like exactly what i'm talking about like yeah you might have like [31:44] design limitations, but that doesn't mean that you have to follow the same patterns or things like that. You might still have the same problems, but [31:54] still like, are you trying to have fun or are you trying to just like follow the wave, you know, instead of like making it, I guess? [32:04] And those are fun. [32:05] Yeah, definitely. My first business was a B2B software company, and the bane of my existence was compliance, specifically certifications like SOC2, ISO, and HIPAA, which we needed in order to sell it to enterprises. I spent hours and hours on those certifications, but if I was building that company today, I would use Vanta. Vanta automates up to 90% of the tedious compliance tasks involved in achieving SOC2, ISO, and

[32:30] HIPAA and more [32:31] By simplifying compliance, Vanta frees your team to focus on what truly matters: innovation, strategic thinking, and real growth. It's trusted by over 10,000 ambitious companies, including Atlassian, Quora, and Ramp, to streamline risk management and effortlessly demonstrate security to customers. [32:46] Curious? Every listeners can get $1,000 off of Vanta at vanta.com slash every. That's Vanta, V-A-N-T-A dot com slash every for $1,000 off. And now back to the show. I want you to show us some stuff. I know you have a couple of things you want to show us. Where should we start? Yeah. I think something cool that we could start with [33:16] on how we make a lot of our images, things like that. I'd love that. Let's do that. Yeah, totally. I'll share my screen again. Please. So obviously the new ChatGPT model is great for images, and I've been playing with it, but so far, most of our images have been being generated inside of MidJourney. [33:40] and you can see sort of like a lot of the type of prompting that we use here. But so basically, Meet Journey is like the place where [33:51] I tend to start with like super simple prompts, you know, like, for example, like a black and white vintage Greco-Roman sculpture of two hands shaking in a white studio background. And like this is the origin of the idea. Like, oh, I might want to have these two hands for a specific design that we need to do. And in this case, this is for the consulting side.

[34:21] of like a deviation variation of that. And like that's sort of like where we started in a very different place. [34:28] of where we ended up to. And if you want, I can sort of like describe what we're looking at. Let's do that. Yeah. Please describe our people who are listening. Yeah, totally. So like a lot of our style is very, as I said, Greco-Roman or classical. So like we use a lot of statues and like marble sculptures and like vintage illustrations. And like for the consulting website, we wanted to kind of like show the collaboration or between like you and AI or [34:58] you can basically do more because of the collaboration. So I kind of like wanted to start exploring that in mid-journey here. [35:09] Yeah. So like, for example, this is sort of like how you can see how it kind of like was evolving between like robot hands only and then like also human hands. [35:28] kind of like described as engraving or like line drawings. Let me stop you there and just describe a little bit about what I'm seeing from people who are listening. So did you start with that first hands you showed? Is that what you started with? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. If we go to the very bottom of this, like we should start seeing some of that. [35:48] So basically like that first thing that we saw, um, was two human hands that looked almost like a little bit like statues ish, like Greek statues that were doing fist bumps. Um,

[36:02] And I can't... Can you bring that up again? Can you find that? Let me see. Sorry about that. I don't have them organized in here. No worries. That's totally fine. [36:13] So you started with two human hands that look like statues that are... [36:21] uh, like Greek, Greek, Greco Roman statues that are shaking hands. And, and that idea for you, like, [36:27] You were working on the consulting site and you were like, I want to show humans and AIs collaborating. [36:33] That's where it came from? Yeah, and especially like kind of like following like our same aesthetic and like our own visual style it this kind of like laid the [36:43] at least the [36:45] the layout or the composition, because I knew like I wanted something coming from like both ends of the screen. So I knew I needed like a super horizontal image and like a handshake or a fist bump just kind of like felt like extremely natural for that type of position, if that makes sense. And the prompt to use is black and white vintage Greco-Roman sculpture of two hands shaking in a white studio background. Why white studio background and why black and white? [37:15] to finish everything up in Photoshop. So for example, something that I would normally do is that like I would upscale this and then like I would just download it and put it inside of Photoshop. And once that happens, when you have white backgrounds or when you have like black and white assets, it becomes a cleaner image in general or the outputs are cleaner or like are usually like less noisy. And that means that it's easier to isolate assets when you're using like

[37:45] So for example, like Photoshop, now that they have like a lot of like AI image, like selection tools, you can just do really simple things like select subject. And because the image is just so simple. [37:58] clean in the way that it's presented because of the white studio background and like that sort of stuff. It's like really easy to just like isolate exactly what you need. Right. And what you just did for people who are, what you just did for people who are listening, um, like you open up Photoshop, you put, you put it in there and you just press that select subject button and it just highlighted all of the, the two hands basically and not the background. Okay. Yeah, exactly. And, and then, and, and like basically because it's like that, I can just like select the subject and I can just [38:28] the background like automatically and I can start playing with our style faster and things like that. [38:34] That makes sense. Okay, so let's go back. So... Um... [38:38] Okay, so then tell me a little bit. So then we sort of fast forward and you've got, like, now it's like you're going through different iterations of it where it's sort of started to turn into, like, machine hands, basically. Let's find the first one of those. Yeah, here it's, like, the human versions of them. And then I think, I don't know if these ones are ordered chronologically or if, like, the oldest ones are, like, the first ones, right? [39:05] I'm not sure really how these ones get ordered, but basically here you can sort of like see the whole progression between like the different elements and me just like playing with a lot of like separate elements because like...

[39:17] You might not know this, but the one that we have here, [39:22] It's like literally... [39:23] I didn't get that in a one-shot. It's like I got one hand that worked well in one output, and I got a robot hand in another output that worked well, and then I merged them in Photoshop and got the final output in that way. But you'll see here that, for example, I think this hand actually is the one that we have. [39:43] No, that's not it. But it's like some specific hand from one of these ones. I think it might have been this one. I think it's this one, actually, the one on the right. I think it got flipped and put in here. And then like another robot hand from another output looked good enough in that sense. So like it's all about sort of like exploring a lot and just like having a lot of outputs because like, [40:05] Unfortunately, it's a lot like a slot machine when you're prompting images, you know? So it's just like looking at the whole options space and having a little bit of a vision for what you want to do. Because if you're prompting without a vision, then everything works, right? [40:21] Yeah. Well, tell me about like how you're doing these different, like, what are you adding? Are you just, are you just pressing go, like pressing, pressing generate again and again and again? Or how are you like iterating through these different options to find something that you like? [40:34] Yeah, so you'll see that a lot of the things we might do are sometimes like the prompt might change just very slightly. Like, for example, black and white vintage Greco-Roman illustration of a human hand fist bumping in a white background. And then I might just change that to a human hand and a robot hand and see how that changes things. And then in some other prompts, it might just be just one human hand. And I just want to see like how one looks itself by itself.

[41:04] Something else that I tend to do a lot is vary. So, for example, there is this feature inside of Meet Journey that they let you like. For example, if I really like this image, but it's not quite right just yet, I can just vary it subtly, and it'll just generate something that is super close to the image. [41:24] I don't know if it's the seed token or the specific parameters that they use to generate this one in a very similar way. And that way I get closer if I need to. And what I also do, [41:37] is that, for example, I might want to keep trying the same prompt because I think there is something important in this prompt, but I want... [41:45] this image here to do a little bit more driving or have a little bit more weight. So you can literally go in here and use the image. So it adds the image as a parameter here on the top, and it adds more weight to that image specifically. And then that way, I'm like driving the results closer in this specific direction. And that's at least the way that I use, that I drive with mid-journey, kind of like slightly adjusting the prompt here and there, [42:15] and feeding the images back that I like to kind of like keep steering it in one particular direction until like something feels good enough as an asset so that I can bring it into Photoshop and finalize. [42:28] How are you thinking about... And how is your usage breaking down between 4.0 native image generation and MidJourney now? Because...

[42:38] That just, 4.0 Native Image Generation just came out. It's like the big hot thing. We actually had access to it for a couple weeks before. I think all of us internally were like, wow, this is actually really great. Are you still using MidJourney? Like, what's your usage breakdown? Yeah, so I think like, it's, [42:56] So far in the last week or so, two weeks, I don't know how long it's been since it came out, but I've been using it more. Specifically, let me see if we can pinpoint it and actually in the wild here. And for people who are listening, you're on the Every website and you're looking through all of our cover images. Exactly. Which you designed this whole thing front to back, so people should know that, which is pretty cool. [43:26] what we can do when we work together. But for example, I don't think I would have ever been able to do something like this in mid-journey. [43:35] This is like OpenAI logo as a statue on a white background. Exactly. Because the new image gen model in ChatGPT is extremely good at prompt adherence, and it has a very good sense of the world and logos and people's faces and things like that, just because of its training set. So I can literally ask it to generate a marble statue of the OpenAI logo, [44:05] that looks kind of like it, but when you're working with logos, it's like it's either it or it isn't, right? Like there's no in between, really. So for that one specifically, we used it. Also, like for some images that we want to kind of like...

[44:21] sketch out real people. We also used it there because it's really good at sort of like translating or retexturizing at least something specific. [44:32] But, oh, and then this is the first time we did a GPT-40 image for here that was completely done 100% without Photoshop at all. And it's a statue of a woman holding up, it looks like maybe an iPad or, you know, like a tablet of some kind with a picture on it. Yeah, exactly. And I think, like, the way that I made this was, like, really, really interesting because, like, [44:59] what I did was [45:00] I don't know if I can find the chat. Maybe I can. But basically, I fed it our entire like... That's cool. Oh, yeah. Sorry for the... [45:13] uh, [45:14] distraction here. Um, that was really cool. Is this a Quora, a Quora 404 page? Yeah. I was just like trying to get some ideas and things like that. Um, like what it could be. Um, obviously like we can't just use an image cause it's not the most responsive element, but it kind of like serves as a lot of, uh, creative inspiration around what it could be. Right. Um, but, uh, [45:44] of a lot of images that we have done before. [45:48] Uh... [45:49] Let me see if this works.

[45:54] Yeah, so for example, I could technically give it a mood board, and right now we're looking at a mood board of just a bunch of images that we've used for certain articles in the past. [46:07] I think for this one specifically, I was just trying to test. So like it didn't work in this sense, but I was trying to test for a specific article that we ran recently in super organizers. I just tried fitting in the article and see what it would do with it for like a thumbnail. And it just kind of did it all right. You know, it's definitely like similar to our style, but it's just kind of like boring and like not it. So I kind of like gave up here in this conversation. [46:37] that you could just like feed in a mood board and get an output. And that's exactly how we generated this other image out of like just asking for another image for an article where we're talking about like OpenAI's new image. [46:51] image generation model. That's interesting. Yeah, I bet that might have worked a little bit better if it wasn't just a mood board, but it had some sense of what the articles were about. [47:02] You know, it's like, okay, article, maybe headline in first paragraph, plus this is the image that came out of that. And you did that a couple times and had it build a little style guide for itself. And then do style guide, visual mood board, draw something, something like that. Maybe it could work.

[47:32] this model is really good at like, like picking up on like a lot of the extensiveness of your prompt. But if I keep my prompts like really, really basic, it'll just always sort of like go to the background color of the first image, for example. And like, it'll just output it. I don't know why, but it just kind of like keeps happening or that's at least something that I find at least from my own experience. So I, I kind of like feel when I was using mid journey just for image generation and to create like the, [48:01] the basic, uh, [48:02] element assets. It'd be kind of like, "Oh, I get to pick the background, I get to pick all of these sort of things." But then, [48:10] In chat GPT, I have to sort of like pick a background color and ask it to like do it correctly. [48:17] But if I want to change it, then I got to like wait five minutes, you know, versus versus like just doing it in Photoshop. So there's like pros and cons. And I think like eventually like the the way that this is going to like end up working is that like this is all going to be like layers and you're going to be able to like. [48:34] control every little aspect of it. But until then, like there's still a lot of prompt work that needs to be done to get to like the right place. Yeah, that makes sense. What else? Anything, anything else you wanted to show? [48:50] Thank you. [48:50] Yeah, like for example here, I was just trying to see if it could create four new images in our style. But as you see, the first image was in that same color, and it was a similar woman as that other first image. So I kind of felt like, oh, it's basing itself too much from that first image. But I thought that was interesting.

[49:10] Something else that I think could be cool to maybe share could be like the Quora website. Yeah, let's talk about Quora. [49:17] Yeah. Awesome. I think this is some of your best work and you've done a lot of really great work, but I think this is some of your best work. Oh, thank you so much. Let me log out so that we get to see the whole thing. [49:28] And this work took a village. There was a lot of people involved in this and a lot of revisions. And it took a village for sure. It did. So we're looking at a landing page. The landing page says it's for Quora, which it manages your email with AI. We can go into exactly what it is. We have an episode with Kieran, who's the GM of Quora, a couple episodes ago. And the top says, we all dread email. It's an endless list written by everyone else all at once. And as you scroll, the email is kind of like, there's a bunch of emails on the page. [49:58] into this little envelope. [50:00] And then the envelope closes and there's like a really cool every stamp on the envelope. And then a little letter pops out and, you know, it's a little letter about like what, you know, why email sucks, but like how it could actually be really great. [50:17] And and the background is really cool here. It's turning from like dark to like brightness, like a beautiful field instead of like a stormy night. [50:30] then we finally get to Quora, your inbox is a story delivered twice a day, get delivered from, you know, which I think is a great line. Um, and yeah, that's, that's the page. So tell us about that. Tell us about, um, how you thought about it, how it came together, what, what you, what your favorite parts are, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I think like the, like this ended up, uh, looking very differently than we were originally thinking about it, which is really cool. Uh, it kind of like shows you how like the creative process can,

[50:57] just take you in very different places. But I think it just had a lot to do with the story that we wanted to tell. From all of our meetings and everything that we were talking about Quora and why we were doing it, why we were even spending so much time and effort to build a new email tool. And it was basically all around the fact that Quora, [51:20] The general email experience is not pretty. You log into Gmail or Outlook, and it's just like... [51:27] A ton of text in chronological order, endless forever. And it just feels like you're in a hospital or in a government building with a lot of fluorescent lights and everything is sterile and hygienic. And it's like, oh, everything is like you don't, I don't know. It's definitely not like... [51:45] uh, [51:47] like a place where I want to spend all my day. And we are a newsletter company, so we do lots of emails. So how can we make the email experience at least feel better, or at least the story that we want to tell on this landing page? [52:02] We kind of wanted to create this narrative of going from, I don't know, like a stormy void type of forsaken place into a more sunshine, spring type of vibe where the birds are singing and everybody's having a good time. And that's possible thanks to this new tool. Kind of like trying to do a little bit of symbolic storytelling while we're actually also telling that same story.

[52:32] in here, inside the text of the letter. It's one of those things where you might not explicitly notice it, but you'll feel it. I love those little details. Yeah, and it's something that you might not notice it, but maybe you notice it the second time or the third time. And then it's that little nice surprise that all these people really cared. And that's at least something that I want to... [52:57] Anybody that sees our work to feel like that we care, you know, that we really care about like what they're, [53:04] playing with or like touching. So we kind of like put a lot of attention to like, oh, let's add a paper texture to this and like a little stamp that like we kind of keep using those same elements for all this. And then like all the little like blue elements that we use for the different like product features and things like that. But it was just like, how can we sort of like reveal Cora at [53:34] to land on a landing page. But we kind of wanted to do a grand reveal by starting with the problem and just talking about the problem. And for those that feel like they can relate to that problem, which I feel like a lot of people do, then you might want to keep reading and see what is this all about. [53:50] Eventually, what's really cool about this design is that the page is sort of overlaying on top of the product and the actual big takeaway, which is this. And it's like we're actually revealing it at a thinner, which I actually really love a lot.

[54:06] Totally. And why don't you log in? Because I think you did another amazing job, too, on the actual UX of the application. And what I think people may not know is this is one of your first forays into designing web applications at all, which is kind of crazy. So you just logged in. We're looking at the Quora page. [54:30] And, uh, basically what you're looking at or looking at is what we call a brief. So the way Quora works is when emails come into your inbox, it decides whether or not you need to respond. If you need to respond, it makes it your inbox. If not, we automatically archive them and then send you a beautiful brief twice, twice a day that summarizes everything you need to know. Um, and so this is your brief and it's still got that kind of like same sort of like sunny, uh, background. It's got like nice little summaries. Tell us about visually, like what, [55:00] seeing how you thought about this? - Well, this already looks so much different than Gmail, right? - Yeah. - This already feels like, oh, I'm in the middle of spring, and I'm outside at the park, you know? So I think a lot of those decisions, [55:18] from a design point of view sort of like came out from like this vision of like, let's make it delightful, you know, and we really want to like lean on those old sort of like impressionist type of oil canvas, like paintings and things like that. So you'll see like, like you'll see like the brushstrokes in the back if you log in and things like that, which I think like I find that like super awesome. And I love to see that even like on an actual

[55:48] when I see it in the real world, being able to see those tiny details. And what's actually really cool is that like... [55:55] In the future, we're planning on actually being able to have a lot of different backgrounds. It could change depending on the time of day or the seasons or where even you are in the world. But what's kind of cool, too, is that if you shift to the afternoon, you'll get to see another enlarged, upscaled painting that is more akin to the nighttime or the afternoon time. [56:25] story, you know? And I think that's something that we didn't touch upon that I think is also driving a lot of these decisions, is that we're... [56:34] We're talking about Quora as sort of like this way to [56:39] read email as a story, uh, or at least like, uh, as, as a narrative for that there is like some cohesiveness with it. Um, [56:47] And we really, even for like the video, the launch video and all of that, like we... [56:53] took a lot of inspiration of stories and storytelling. And like, we want to like make it as visual as possible and like how stories are visual. And like, you can like pass the pages and like absorb a lot. I think like, that's a lot of what, what we wanted to do here that like, this is a website that you look forward to open just because it looks pretty, you know, [57:12] Beautiful. I feel it. I love looking at it every day. It's the best. And it's so fun to get to work on it together because I feel like every time we get on the phone, we're going to come up with something really cool. And I don't know where it's going to go, but it often, sometimes it sucks, but it's often pretty delightful.

[57:42] So I was mostly doing like brand and stuff like that for a while. But I think like that, uh, [57:48] I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I think it has given me, like, a difference, which is, like, oh, I come at it from, like, more of an art direction perspective first, which I don't know if it's, like, the right way or if there's even a right way. Who knows? But, like, I try to come at least to these things or each project as to, like, what is the general vibe, right, versus... [58:12] Versus start with rectangles, you know what I mean? We start first with vibe and then the vibe slowly becomes the rectangles versus the rectangles later in getting accent colors or whatever. [58:25] Yeah. But it's not just vibe. I think vibe encapsulates it, but I really like the word art direction. Like I haven't actually even thought about that, but I think art direction goes with the sort of maximalist vibe. Like you don't need an art director for a minimalist website. [58:42] You just need to make rectangles. [58:46] Um, maybe, maybe, I don't know. Art direction, it just feels to me like for magazines or like, you know, something that has a lot of visual components. Um, and I really like that as a way of thinking about what you, what designers may need to incorporate into their practice more going forward, given the new tools like that make art direction accessible,

[59:16] I think like, uh, [59:18] I think this even goes back to, like, you wrote a piece about, like, how we're moving into the allocation economy and how we're all becoming managers. And, like, at the end of the day, like an art director, you're, like, directing the art. You're, like, managing it now. You're not just pushing the pixels, but you're sort of, like, putting the hat of a creative director and, like... [59:36] Trying to, like, push a vision through, you know? And I think, like, that's a lot of what we're trying to do here as well. Just see how... [59:45] we can kind of like stand out, but in a way like guide them, guide the process in this way. And I think like our direction will become more important as we, as it becomes easier to just like generate UI go, you know, when that just happens, the world, like you've heard of like AI slop and like the, the web is just going to be more filled with like things that were just generated on the fly and not refined. [1:00:13] But I'm not super excited about a world without refinement. I am very excited about the collaboration with the tools and the models and things like that. [1:00:26] being able to have a vision [1:00:28] or at least a direction that you want to guide the work that you're doing, that you know you want to go to, it's everything you need for the map for whatever decision you're making. I think if you're a designer and you notice that and you get scared because you can just now generate UIs and things like that,

[1:00:52] I think it's way more important to like... [1:00:57] the [1:00:58] in tune with what you find beautiful about day-to-day things, you know, and actually start honing on that art direction of things. [1:01:07] Because then you'll see the entire thing as a breathing, living thing. [1:01:11] that can sort of like change and get adapted depending on like what type of vibe you're feeling to kind of like represent with your design. So I do think like there is something really special about like... [1:01:24] putting more attention into like what is the art direction of something, which is something, as you said, is normally more reserved for like advertising purposes, you know, like when you're making an ad or when you're making like [1:01:35] something for print or like a TV commercial, you're thinking about like, oh, what clothes are they going to be wearing? Or like, what's the back, the background or things like that, you know? But I think like in the same way, like all of these elements have to like work together in a way that feels cohesive and feels art directed. [1:01:53] I love that. I could not have said it better myself. And I think that is actually a great place to leave people. Lucas, this is awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. If people want to follow you and find you on the Internet, where can they find you? [1:02:20] Awesome. Well, thank you, sir. I would love to have you back soon. Yeah, hopefully we have a lot of new designs to talk about soon.

[1:02:27] I'm sure we will. [1:02:57] that will leave you on the edge of your seat. [1:02:59] craving for more. It's not just a show. It's a journey into the future with Dan Shipper as the captain of the spaceship. [1:03:07] So do yourself a favor. Hit like, smash subscribe and strap in for the ride of your life. [1:03:12] And now, without any further ado, let me just say, Dan, I'm absolutely hopelessly in love with you.