290: Transitioning to Product Design

This week, we answer listener questions, including how to transition from engineering to product design, how to wrap up before moving to a new company, and what we think of apps that allow you to change the launch icon. In Follow-up, we read some listener feedback about last episode, and Marshall fills in a couple details on his file organization tips. In News, we lament the untimely death of AirPower (rip rip). And as always, we share a couple cool things like a sci-fi movie and a sci-fi book trilogy.

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• We had some good feedback from our last episode about design file hygiene:
• Cal Rowston noticed a few gems among all the babbling
• Tim Bendt could listen to layer organization tips forever (which is a totally normal thing btw)
• Katherine's heart was warmed by Marshall's obsessive compulsions
• Ryan Hayen wants to start a layer organization OCD support group
• Anthony Collurafici pointed us to a Medium article by Andy Detskas that explains how to organize your artboards with serialization
• Marshall adds a couple details to his file organization tips:
• Layer Tools has a couple especially useful renaming actions: "Find and Replace..." and "Prepend/Append to Selected Layer Names..."
• In addition to "thinking in divs," try to order the layers and groups in your Layer List just as they appear in the mock, from top-left to bottom-right
• Keyboard Maestro is a super-powered macro utility for Mac
• ICYMI, here's the Sketch file for Marshall's unsolicited NYT Crossword app redesign that he shared last episode as an example of maniacal file organizational

• AirPower has been cancelled:
• Video: Phil Schiller announces the AirPower charging mat
• Article: Apple cancels AirPower wireless charger
• Article: "Apple's Phil Schiller explains why the white iPhone 4 took so long"
• AirPower is pictured on the new AirPods packaging
• Video: "The Death of Airpower: Explained!"

>> If you'd like to ask us a question, we're @designdetailsfm on Twitter, or email us: [email protected] or [email protected]

• Sofia F asks what we think about apps like Streaks that offer different launch icons
• We love it! Here are some other apps we use that do this:
  • Bear is "a beautiful, flexible writing app for crafting notes and prose"
  • Tweetbot is "a Twitter client with personality"
  • Pocket Casts is "the world's most powerful podcast platform"
  • Apollo is "a beautiful Reddit app built for power and speed"
    • David Lanham is an illustrator with an endearing style
• Anonymous asks what we think about transitioning from Engineering to Product Design
• Do some side projects or case studies to beef up your portfolio and gain some experience
• Sit with your fellow product designers and offer to help wherever needed
• Anonymous asks about transitioning to a new company
• Leave your active projects in good shape, either finishing them yourself or handing them off to an informed successor
• If you've already gotten an offer, they're probably gonna be cool with you wrapping up your active projects before transitioning

• Brian shared Prospect, a sci-fi movie about "a teenage girl and her father who travel to a remote alien moon, aiming to strike it rich"
• Pedro Pascal
• Sophie Thatcher
• Andre Royo
• The Wire is a show about the Baltimore drug scene, seen through the eyes of drug dealers and law enforcement
• Marshall shared We Are Legion (We Are Bob), the first book in a sci-fi trilogy about a software engineer who unwittingly becomes an AI and humanity's last hope for survival
• Ready Player One has a similar tone but tries a little too hard

• We are @designdetailsfm
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  • Marshall is @marshallbock
  • @Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are
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BYEEEEE!