Design Table Podcast

Has any of the following ever happened to you? Your product manager shows you ten screens they vibe coded over the weekend. Or, and this is probably even worse, your CEO wonders out loud why you need a product designer at all now. Situations like this is what makes designers quit. At the same time, others feel like they can suddenly build anything. Both sides have a point, which makes it hard to decide where you stand.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick sit down with Danny Hope, founder of UX Brighton...

Design school taught us you should explore before you settle on a solution. In reality, most designers sketch two or three options, pick one, and hope nobody asks about edge cases or anything outside of the 'happy flow'. Now that prototyping is so much more accessible, going wide has never been easier. With that in mind, why are so many designers still designing for that happy flow only?

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick talk about conceptual range and depth: going wide to find better design solutions before going deep one that...

Every designer wants sharper craft and better taste. But with the new tools generating close to all of your work, it's tempting to skip the design fundamentals entirely. I mean... who knows anything about gestalt or color theory anymore?!

Also, social media is full of hot takes claiming UX is dead and the double diamond is over. None of this or the above helps you to enjoy your job as a Product Designer. Luckily, there's a better way.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick continue their series on becoming a...

Junior product designers know what it is like. To get a job you need experience; and to get experience, you need a job. How do you break free of this annoying circle? The internet is full of generic suggestions that do not really get you anywhere. Luckily, there's a better way.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick tackle the experience-job circle mentioned above. They skip the tired advice of redesigning a famous website and focus on what gets you real clients, real work, and real proof.

Tyler makes the case...

Imagine you found a bug on your client's website. Back in the day, you'd have to get that issue on the agenda and agreed on before even starting to work on it. Today, Nick's website fix went live twelve seconds after he clicked 'sync', and the whole setup costs about twenty-five dollars a month.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick kick off a ten-episode series on how to become a modern, in-demand product designer. They start with the foundation: setting up an environment that helps you get an idea off the ground...

Nick's first freelance invoice was for six hundred euros, quoted with a straight face, even though he half expected the client to talk him down.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick dedicate the full conversation to the business side of freelancing, the part that never makes it into a portfolio case study. Nick walks through how he landed his first clients without ever doing cold outreach, why he said yes to everything for two years before niching down, and the pricing structures he actually uses: fifty-fifty splits, milestone billing, and prepaid hour...

Nick's biggest newsletter open rate was fifty percent when his list was small. Now that it's grown, he's happy with thirty, and neither of them can fully explain why.

In this quick-fire episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick answer a stack of rapid questions on product design and careers, each in under five minutes. They cover why email and newsletter design remains such an underrated skill, why designers keep leaving the field entirely to open restaurants and ninja warrior gyms, and how AI has shifted the job from pushing pixels to writing planning documents...

Nick's first freelance client paid him fifty dollars an hour. He said 'yes' before he  knew what the market rate was, and it turned out to be exactly the right way to find out.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick spend the whole episode on money, salaries, hourly rates, and how you should ask for more. Tyler walks through the salary research tool that showed him his entire possible career path and the forty thousand dollar salary he thought he would happily live on forever. Nick breaks down the raise that took h...

In 2015, Nick drove to an interview in his moms car. Three minutes in, the hiring manager told him he would never make it as a designer. 10 Years later, he loses his product design job over Christmas. And that's just the start...

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick share the worst moments of their careers so far. Nick gets torn apart in his first ever interview, prints a batch of flyers that come back the wrong color (because nobody told him about RGB and CMYK), and takes on a small favor for a...

You can master every product design AI tool that exists and still get overruled in the meeting that matters most. That's because tools matter way less than what you read online. There are way more important things to learn if you want to make it as a modern-day product designer.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick lay out the four skills they think actually separate strong product designers from everyone else. It's inspired partly by Josh Puckett's Interface Craft course, and partly by more than a decade of getting these wrong themselves...

Someone on your team just built a landing page with Claude and skipped you entirely. It used to be a product designer's nightmare, but now... it is called 'Tuesday'.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick get into the question lots of product designers are asking right now. Is AI actually coming for your job? Or is that all social media nonsense? They map out why the risk of losing your job has nothing to do with AI itself. Instead, it comes down to company size and UX maturity, and where you land...

Zero to one product design work. That's the main skill companies are hiring designers for right now. You'd expect Figma knowledge or being 'native' with the latest AI tools to be the main thing, but that's not the case.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick react point-by-point to a breakdown of what companies currently want from product designers according to Tom Scott, recruiter and owner at Verified. The list includes communication skills for designers, ownership, design systems, AI-native skills, and why both the take-home task and the old-school work trial are creeping...

Two seconds. That's how long you have before a hiring manager bounces off your portfolio. Most product design hero sections that time.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick roast real, anonymized hero sections pulled straight from product design portfolios. Examples include the generic portfolio, one that looks like a resume-dump, and the rare ones that work.

They break down why "I deliver thoughtful designs, seamless solutions, and creative experiences built for impact" tells a recruiter nothing, why your name doesn't need to be the headline, and how to turn a...

Four hours of unpaid work. Seven rounds of interviews. And then a generic rejection email that reads like it was written by a robot.

If you're hunting product design jobs right now, none of the above is news to you.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick have their opinions on the modern design hiring process; take-home challenges, endless interview rounds, and the red and green flags you should keep in mind to figure out if a company is worth your time.

They get into why take-home tests rarely...

One of our listeners wrote us while being stuck between two things: loving the product design craft and needing a job badly.

He likes doing the actual product design work by hand, because that's how he learns and how he gets better. That's how he finds solutions.

Yet, every job posting wants you to be "AI native" with a ton of "AI experience." So what do you do? Fake it? Give in? Hold the line and risk staying unemployed? Or something in between?

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and...

Every product. designer has had this thought at some point: "Someone's already built this. Am I even doing anything original?" It creeps in during a login screen, an onboarding flow, a pricing page, and it makes you second guess whether you're actually adding value or just repeating and copying something else.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick tackle a listener question: is it a problem if your designs look like things that already exist?

They dig into why copying isn't the same as stealing, why juniors should absolutely study and...

Every new product design AI tool feels like a deadline. You have to use it or you're left behind. That's what you read on social media at least.

In this episode, Tyler and Nick have perhaps their most important talk of the Design Table Podcast so far: the anxiety of constant updates, managers demanding you become a '10x product designer', and how the product design community's mental health under a lot of pressure.

They discuss what's causing burnout for product designers on the job hunt, comparison culture, the disappearing joy of problem-solving, and why "...

Product design is becoming more collaborative, more technical, and a lot harder to control.

In this episode, Tyler and Nick talk about what happens when your design work stops being “yours” and starts becoming a shared thing across designers, developers, PMs, stakeholders, AI tools, and codebases.

We get into the emotional side of design work too. Why product designers get protective, why feedback can feel personal, and why letting go might be one of the most important skills designers need to build.

What we cover in this episode:
🔸 Why designers get emotionally attache...

Product design workflows are changing fast and nobody has a clean answer for what to do about it.

In our first ever live episode, Tyler (in-house at a fintech SaaS company) and Nick (freelance product designer working with clients across the world) get honest about what modern design actually looks like right now.

Neither of us have touched a wireframe in months. We talked about why. And then we get a comment from a live viewer that made us thinking again about our choices.

What we cover in this episode:
🔸 Why wireframing is...

Everywhere we look, product designers are sick and tired of AI this, AI that.

It feels like every day, there is a new tool, a new workflow, a new “Figma is dead” post, a new vibe coding demo, and another person telling designers they are either 'cooked', obsolete, or about to become '10x'.

Reality is completely different. So try and relax!

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick talk about whether AI is making product design more fun, less fun, or just more overwhelming.

They get into...

Two episodes of telling their career stories, and Nick and Tyler kept noticing the same thing: the lessons that actually mattered came from the rejections, the steps backward, and the ego traps nobody warns you about.
 
In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Nick and Tyler sit down for a third session to digest their two previous story episodes and pull out what they actually learned. No new hero's journey. Just two designers comparing notes on the messy, non-linear reality of building a career that lasts.
 
They get into luck and whether you can cr...

Most product designers want to have the clean career story. First, you go to school. You build a portfolio and get hired. Then you get promoted and become a senior product designer. Post something painfully inspirational on LinkedIn about “the journey” and you're there.

Cute, but Tyler’s path was not that.

It started with trying to get into animation. He soon realised the job market did not care about his art school confidence, so he had to go back to learn graphic design, web design, and coding landing pages. After, he started mailing resumes like i...

Lots of product designers dream about going freelance. No boss. No performance reviews. And you decide where and when you work.

And then reality shows up.

No guaranteed paycheck. No HR department. No sales team. No legal department. No one magically handing you clients because you updated your LinkedIn headline to “freelance product designer.”

So… how do you actually become a fully booked freelance product designer making six figures without setting your career on fire?

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler interviews Nick about his full journey into produc...

Most product designers spend weeks (or even months) polishing their portfolio website. And then they get into the actual interview, open their mouth, and suddenly their clean case study turns into a 14-minute hostage situation.

Awkward questions and most likely no follow-up after the interview. Back to square one.

So… how do you actually present your design work without rambling, panicking, or over-explaining every single pixel?

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, we talk about the portfolio presentation stage of the product design interview process. The part where you’re no long...

Like many product designers, you’ve probably ran into one of the following challenges. One PM shows up with a prototype, an engineer suggests a user flow, or someone who has never opened Figma suddenly has strong opinions about spacing, UX, and “how the screen should work.”

So… is everyone a designer now?

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, we talk about why designers feel threatened when other people start doing pieces of design work, why that fear is understandable, and why the real value of a designer is not about the tools they use...

Like many product designers, you’re using AI. You get decent results by prompting and copy-pasting. Yet, you're still doing all the work. WHat if you didn't have to?

In this episode of the Design Table Podcast, we talk about how designers can move beyond prompting and start using AI to actually execute tasks.

Nick walks us through how he’s setting up simple workflows using Claude Skills to (more or less) automate small but meaningful pieces of work, from fixing things on his site to handling repetitive tasks.

We also talk about what...

You’re stuck building your portfolio. Should you use Webflow? Framer? WordPress?

Maybe you rebuild everything from scratch and start over? There are so many opinions on design social media that it is impossible to know what to do.

In this episode of the Design Table Podcast, we discuss why designers obsess over portfolio tools and why that’s (mostly) a waste of time.

We talk about what actually matters when someone reviews your work, why presentation beats platform, and how small details like having a custom domain has more impact than the tool...

You keep hearing that UX and product designers should build. Yet, most designers don’t.

Why is that? Are designers right? Is it just a case of social media nonsense?

To find out, we looked at what happens when someone actually does it.

Not a side project they’ll finish later (but never do) or another concept that never makes it out of Figma.

It is a real product and it is live. All in one weekend. And for Tyler, the designer who built it, it changes everything.

In this...

You lose your job. No warning. Or maybe you felt it coming. Either way… now you’re sitting there thinking:

“What the hell do I do next? How do I find a new product design role?!”

In this episode of the Design Table Podcast, we discuss what actually happens after getting laid off as a product designer and how to succeed at the job search that follows.

We talk about the emotional side of layoffs, what goes through your head in those first few days, and how quickly reality sets in when you realize...

You join a new company. First of all; congratulations!

You arrive on day one and what do you see? There are engineers, product managers, marketers, and a sales team. But there is no design team. Turns out you are the only product designer. Yikes!

In this episode of the Design Table Podcast, we discuss what it’s actually like to be the first or only designer at a company, how product designers can survive those early months without burning out, and how you can start to build real design influence.

We talk about th...

Designers can ship code now. That's what social media and your manager is telling you. AI tools, vibe coding, and new prototyping workflows mean designers are getting closer to production than ever before.

But just because we can ship faster doesn’t mean we should.

In this episode of the Design Table Podcast, we discuss the growing pressure for designers to ship quickly, why the “just ship it” mindset can backfire, and how teams should think about quality in a world where building things fast seems more important than building things well.

We talk a...

AI won’t replace designers. But designers who don’t know how to use AI properly are already falling behind. That's what you see a thousand times a day on social media. It is maddening.

In this episode, we counter that and go deep on how two product designers actually use AI in real design projects. No LinkedIn hype. No “just vibe code bro.” Instead, we talk about prompting, context building, early-stage exploration, and where AI genuinely saves time versus where it doesn't.

We discuss how AI fits into modern product teams, how designers are replacin...

Should you specialize or become a generalist as a product designer?

Everyone has an opinion. Social media says pick a niche. Job listings say “end-to-end.” Who's right?! Designers are stuck wondering which path actually leads to getting hired and staying hired.

In this episode, we solve the generalist vs. specialist debate from the reality of today’s product teams. We talk about why pure specialists are becoming risky outside of massive enterprises, why generalists are quietly back in demand, and how the best designers are combining deep industry knowledge with end-to-end execution.

This episod...

Your stakeholders say research is a waste of time. Just ship it. We’ll figure it out later. But later never comes. The product misses the mark, teams scramble, and you end up doing twice the work fixing mistakes you saw coming weeks ago. Relatable? For many designers it is...

In this episode, we’re joined by Sara Fortier, CEO of Outwitly and author of Design Research Mastery, to talk about just that, what design research really looks like today, and why it’s becoming more important as AI becomes bigger and bigger.

We talk about...

Users say one thing. Then they do something completely different. Nick, co-host at the Design Table Podcast, just found out the hard way.

In this episode of the Design Table Podcast, we discuss why user feedback can be misleading, why badly framed research creates false confidence, and how designers should really think about data and user research.

We talk about research methods that fail in practice, why people lie during tests, and how relying on a single data point can completely derail your product design decision making.

This episode is about moving beyond...

Your stakeholders tell you to skip research and just ship it. We'll test later is what they say, but later never comes. The design misses the mark. And now you're doing twice the work to fix what could have been done right the first time. That's the cycle we're discussing in this episode of the Design Table Podcast.

In this episode, we talk about what designers are really hired to do and why your job is closer to being an insurance policy than a pixel pusher.

We dig into how to handle stakeholders who think...

Everyone tells you design is about making things look good. But it is not. Design is about saving time, reducing risk, and creating leverage inside a business. That's what we're talking about in this episode of the Design Table Podcast.

This is part 2 and we cover the overlooked reasons designers get hired and how to turn your work into measurable impact.

We go beyond revenue and look into time savings, operational efficiency, risk reduction, compliance, and long-term brand impact. We share real examples from different industries (construction, pharma, SaaS, and product design) to show you...

While most designers talk about “crafting delightful experiences", companies hire designers for something else entirely. And that's a problem... for designers looking to get hired.

In this episode, Tyler and Nick share the real business reasons designers get hired and how to position your case studies to prove your value.

This episode introduces a framework from business thinking applied to UX and product design careers. They discuss why companies hire designers to make money and save money, and how most portfolios completely miss this. You’ll learn how to connect UX work to revenue, conversion, adop...

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick discuss a shift that most SaaS and startups are not ready for: internal tools are getting real investment in 2026. That's because their customers are realizing they can build exactly what they need on their own.

This changes how SaaS operates. Instead of buying another one-size-fits-all product, more buyers will ask: why don’t we just build this ourselves? Tyler and Nick figure out how SaaS products can survive this shift and why being integration-ready is about more than just “having Zapier.”

If you are buildi...

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick break down what product design will look like in 2026 and why this year will feel like a shock to a lot of designers. Tyler calls it the year of the builder, where titles start collapsing and the market rewards people who can actually ship.

They discuss why design has been misunderstood for years, how that misunderstanding is costing you still today, and why design is slowly getting eaten by product and engineering departments.

This is not AI fear and it is not a rant...