What does it take to make people feel something with design...? This week's guest is kind of an expert on the question. Sara Vienna ( https://x.com/sravienna?lang=en ) , the Chief Design Officer at Metalab, talks about the responsibility that designers have to shape this AI world that we're entering without losing the heartbeat of a brand. We don't hold back on the current state of the industry and what it feels like to be a designer today. Some highlights: - How to not get swept up in current design trends - How Metalab has adopted AI workflows internally - Strategies for leveraging AI to understand research data - What it takes to put meaning at the heart of a brand/product - How Metalab invests in the collective taste of the design org - Where Sara derives signals and how she filters out the noise - Being late on a trend is bad taste even more so than ugly design - + a lot more - Windsurf https://windsurf.com/ ) and [Suno]( https://suno.com/home?wpsrc=Google%20AdWords&wpcid=22042553892&wpscid=173890219393&wpcrid=726251362516&wpkwid=kwd-2827037661&wpkwn=suno&wpkmatch=e&wpsnetn=g&gad_campaignid=22042553892&gbraid=0AAAAA9pWpduFan7icL90FczgyQploCsYi ) rebrands - Jony Ive’s Stripe Sessions talk ( https://stripe.com/sessions/2025/a-conversation-with-sir-jony-ive ) - Erica Hall’s book “Just Enough Research” ( https://www.mulebooks.com/just-enough-research ) - Anthropic’s Machines of Loving Grace paper ( https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace ) - Blok for focus ( https://blok.so/ )
