Designer News
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Mikael Cho on psychology and design, and how side projects saved his startup
over 4 years agoView story
Welcome to the first episode of DN FM! Look forward to a new show every couple weeks. Through interviews, news and Office Hours community segments, DN FM aims to spark a meaningful conversation on design.
Notes from this episode
<p>We're joined by <a href="https://twitter.com/mikaelcho" rel="nofollow">Mikael Cho</a> to hear about his unique career path, the intersection of psychology and design, and chasing perfection; he also shares how side projects became his biggest success story. </p> <p>Mikael is the founder of <a href="https://crew.co/" rel="nofollow">Crew</a>, a site that connects freelance designers and developers to projects, and <a href="https://unsplash.com/" rel="nofollow">Unsplash</a>, a do-whatever-you-want photo sharing site boasting 6 million+... View full notes
We're joined by Mikael Cho to hear about his unique career path, the intersection of psychology and design, and chasing perfection; he also shares how side projects became his biggest success story.
Mikael is the founder of Crew, a site that connects freelance designers and developers to projects, and Unsplash, a do-whatever-you-want photo sharing site boasting 6 million+ photo downloads per month.
Sponsor
Our first show is proudly supported by Invision. InVision is a design platform to prototype and collaborate with your team - we use it internally and it makes things effortless. If you’re not familiar with them, go to invisionapp.com and check it out.
Episode Highlights
Interview
How Mikael used a psychology background to fuel his design career (1:40)
The philosophy behind Crew (4:00)
Why losing faith in himself pushed Mikael to develop his company (9:20)
“Is there a market for this? Is this a business? How do we make it sustainable?”- the first steps to building a business from an idea (11:10)
How and why Crew.co is unique from other freelance websites (12:30)
Crew’s utility-approach to marketing, and the best money Mikael ever spent (19:30)
'Quantity gets you to quality' and the the benefit of juggling multiple projects (25:00)
Letting go of perfection and changing perspective (27:20)
Mikael’s unique writing habits (30:00)
Job postings (34:30)
Top Stories (35:00)
Community Announcements
Our Job Board now supports development positions. We've also revamped the browsing experience with location, listing typeand job type toggles.
Jobs
Slack is looking for a Product Design Manager in San Francisco
Intercom is hiring a Design Lead in Dublin
ThoughtSpot is looking for a Brand Designer and a Product Designer in Palo Alto
Top Stories:
New Sketch Licensing Model: Sketch is moving to a new licensing model and will now charge for updates. If you purchased Sketch more than a year ago, you will receive six months of updates. If you purchased Sketch less than a year ago, you will receive one year of updates from the date of your purchase.
Dropbox - New Productivity Features: Dropbox has a few new productivity features. Designers will appreciate the ability to scan in documents by taking a picture and uploading it. Dropbox also now has MS Office co-authoring.
Ask DN: What side projects are you working on? Sam's favourite Projects: Devjojo by Tony Lea, PunBot by Pablo Stanley and Graphical Cooking by Johannes Ippen
Bookmarks are dead: Zeh Fernandes rethinks bookmarking by suggesting we use natural-language search to find what we're looking for.
Feedback
We love (read: need) hearing your feedback. Tweet Sam or Designer News, or email us hello[at]designernews[dot]co.
33 comments
Jon Darke, over 4 years ago (edited over 4 years ago )
DN FM: https://soundcloud.com/daily-nintendo ;)
Seriously though - can you get the RSS feed from Soundcloud? That way we can subscribe manually. Thanks
:( "failed to download podcast"
Kieran Rheaume, over 4 years ago
Hmm. Sorry about that. You could try
https://instead ofhttp://Nice, that works :) Subscribed.
On another note - would love to know how you installed/built the podcast miniplayer widget - it's really great!
Jody Heavener, over 4 years ago
Glad you like it! It's a fairly involved process, but I'd be happy to explain more if you wanted to shoot me an email.
With enough interest I'd also totally consider open-sourcing it :)
Emanuel S., over 4 years ago
I usually can't listen to podcasts if they are over Skype. It's something in the audio quality that makes me listen to something or not, so if there is noise, or echo, I'm pretty much out. I hope this will be fixed in the next episodes.
Also, don't stick to the usual interview and find some design topics to debate on. Have some q&a's or something.
Duke Cavinski, over 4 years ago
agreed. can't listen to podcasts, despite how interesting, that sound like they're being conducted through two tin cans and a string.
Aren't you just an audio connoisseur!
This is the mvp. It's going to improve
Art Vandelay, over 4 years ago
Try the double-ender technique. Usually results in better quality and overall more control. We use it for The Start
You da man. I'll run it by Sam.
Oh man, I haven't even listened to this one yet. I just meant in general, please don't take personal offense.
Oh no sweat. I misinterpreted that :-)
Philip Amour, over 4 years ago
Does anybody have the iTunes URL for this podcast?
Miguel Solorio, over 4 years ago +1. Would love to add this to my podcast app.
It's still in the iTunes approval process - should be live shortly. Thanks!
Sam Solomon, over 4 years ago
Looks like it has been approved by Apple. Here's the link! https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/designer-news/id1139346989
Thanks, Sam!
Surjith S M, over 4 years ago (edited over 4 years ago )
Who is talking from the ECHO room ? Ehh.. You Know? :P
(PS: it takes a lot of time to load. esp it does not load in Firefox Win 8.1)
Yeah, I plan on buying a sound box to record in—hopefully that helps. My new place has concrete floors, which makes recording tough.
Ryan R., over 4 years ago
One of my co-workers built this https://medium.com/@allanwhite/diy-podcasting-microphone-box-64668e6eb540#.khxqj6t87
This is exactly what I was looking for! Thanks Ryan.
Tim Kjær Lange, over 4 years ago (edited over 4 years ago )
Do you use headphones? It almost sounds like there's some speakers in play here.
That said the voice-of-god vibe is not too bad ;)
Alex Camp, over 4 years ago
Could buy a portable sound shield too that might help - http://www.monoprice.com/Product?p_id=602650&gclid=CNfyy42Koc4CFZSIfgodcpwD_w
Johannes Ippen, over 4 years ago
Thanks for the mention, Sam! Really enjoyed the first Podcast, nice surprise to hear my name/project being featured :)
For those of you who missed it, check out http://graphicalcooking.co:
Rohan Sanap, over 4 years ago This is awesome. I really liked it
Ollie Barker, over 4 years ago (edited over 4 years ago )
Can't wait to listen to this.
After a brief listen though, I would suggest you get a proper audio setup seriously soon. I'd even hold of a second episode until you do. I listen to a lot of podcasts and there's some crazy echo in this that makes it really hard to listen to.
Sorry if that sounds super negative. I'm super psyched to listen to this all later :)
We hear you (pun intended) and we're striving for a lot more clarity + audio ducking in the next episode. Thanks Ollie
Dana (dmxt), over 4 years ago (edited over 4 years ago )
Could you give us ETA when you'll remove the 'NEW' badge? I keep thinking that I have new message/notification because of the green badge on navbar.
Haha, #UXdarkpatterns. Uhh, next week?
Hey Designer News!
As the community continues to grow, we’re always exploring new ways to encourage a meaningful design discourse. A podcast feels like a natural next step, so today we’re excited to bring you the first episode of DN FM.
Longtime DN’er Sam Solomon is at the helm, and he’ll be bringing you a bi-weekly show that’s part interview, part news. Each episode we're joined by an exciting guest to talk shop, then Sam covers the latest happenings in the DN community (top stories, behind-the-scenes announcements and extra goodies.)
We really want community involvement to become a consistent part of the show. Using Anchor.fm we’re experimenting with an Office Hours segment; the point being to open up a new channel to engage with DN, with other members, and to share the diversity of perspective you bring to the community. If you’d like to opt in to this segment and get featured on the show, follow us on Anchor and stay tuned.
Finally, please suggest improvements and guest recommendations while we’re still working out the kinks. Thanks!