Portfolio Insights & Inspo

📰 3 THINGS TO CHECK OUT

The Future of Product Design: From Creators to Curators in an AI-First World

• Design leader Krunal Patel describes how AI tools are moving beyond basic automation, producing full design drafts, UX flows, and real-time insights—redefining designers' roles as curators who refine, guide, and humanize AI-generated outputs.
  
  
• The article stresses that while AI optimizes efficiency and performance, designers must ensure empathy, creativity, and user context remain central by critically shaping AI’s suggestions.
  
  
• “The future of design isn’t just AI-driven — it’s human-refined.”

Seven Good Tips to Keep in Mind

• As seen on Linkedin... click to see them all.

Dylan Field and Garry Tan on Design, AI, and the Power of “Locking In”

• Dylan Field, CEO of Figma, and Garry Tan, CEO of tech start-up Y Combinator, discuss how AI is reshaping design workflows—enhancing rapid ideation and collaboration, but highlighting that designers' craft and decision-making remain essential.
  
  
• They explore how speeding up the feedback loop (via tools like Figma) creates “flow states” for designers, balancing playfulness with high-quality outcomes, and touch on the enduring value of design in an AI-driven landscape.
  
  
• “As people are able to make stuff faster, it’s how it works that actually matters.”

💜 PORTFOLIO INSPIRATION

Lucy Zhang, a UX Academy graduate, couples playful branding with accessible design choices to her design work. One example is in the making of app Cooked, an app that seeks to streamline recipe building and making cooking more approachable for users. She employs a similar ideology with Crafte, a visually inviting app geared towards motivating Gen Z users to turn their screen time into learning a new skill.

Got a portfolio you love that you’d like to share with our audience? Email your suggestions to hello@designlab.com.

💡 INTERESTING STUFF...

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People don’t use a product because of the great design; great design helps them use the product. — Viran Anuradha Dayaratne (designer)

🧪 FROM THE LAB

👀 Something Big Is Coming Monday…

You’ve been asking, and we’ve been listening. Next week, we’re unveiling a new Advanced Course—our most requested course topic to date. If you’re an experienced UX or product designer, stay tuned... you won’t want to miss this.

🌸 Spring Sale Ends Soon! 🌸

There’s still time to level up your skills at a discount—our Spring Sale wraps up Sunday, March 23rd at 11:59pm PT! Save $150 on any of our 4-6 week courses or our beginner-friendly UX Academy Foundations program. Use promo code SPRING150 at checkout to claim your discount.