Design & Code Inspiration Links
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A Few Design Peers
Frances Soong
Frances Soong was a Bay Area visual UX designer, product consultant, and live sketchnotes artist. A Carnegie Mellon Communication Design graduate and Presidential Scholar, she worked across interaction, brand, and front-end prototyping. She led mobile web and style guide work at Credit Sesame, designed key Android releases at Cisco WebEx, and delivered digital concepts for Fortune 500 clients at Roundarch Isobar. Alongside her roles, she quietly advised stealth and seed-stage founders, offering thoughtful, supportive UX guidance. She described herself simply: "designer. artist. thinker. dreamer. person. I like to make connections." RIP Frances Soong.
Maxim Leyzerovich
Maxim Leyzerovich (@round) is a Brooklyn-based designer, educator, and writer with 20+ years across startups, agencies, and major companies. Currently at FLORA building a new paradigm for creative practice, he previously worked at Amtrak Innovation and Capital One, and was principal designer at nclud and the first designer at Rosetta Stone. He teaches at GWU, MICA, and SVA, speaks widely on design and AI, and is known for sharp cultural commentary online. We never actually met, but he invited me to speak at a UX conference in 2019 and I always love his writing style.
Hanna Xu
Hanna Xu is a Senior Product Designer at Apple, where she's been since December 2019, serving as Design DRI for tentpole projects within Business Connect and Ad Platforms. Before Apple, she was Product Design Lead at Gfycat (2016–2019). She co-founded FortyWings and designed Buzz, a messaging app that landed a TechCrunch feature, hit #12 on Apple's Top Free Social Networking Apps, and was named an Apple Best New App. Earlier in her career she was lead designer at Locket (acquired by Wish) and a product designer at Tango. A Washington University in St. Louis grad with 12+ years of experience, Hanna specializes in messaging, video, brand management, and advertising. She's also an illustrator who loves corgis. I liked working with her at Gfycat.
My Work Focus Soundtracks
Severance — Music To Refine To feat. ODESZA | Apple TV
🍓 strawberry kiwi — frutiger aero x y2k nostalgic futurism - jungle tech DnB mix 🥝