📰 3 THINGS TO CHECK OUT
ICYMI: Our Spring Sale is Live
- Our Spring Sale is on now. Through April 1st, experienced designers looking to level up their skills can take $150 off all 4-6 week courses—from AI for UX Design to Data-Driven Design, Advanced Figma, and more. If you want to sharpen a specific skill (or two!) and make a bigger impact, now is the perfect time. Use code SPRING26 at checkout to grab your discount.
- New designers and those looking to transition into UX or product design can also take $150 off UX Academy Foundations, our beginner-friendly course that prepares students for UX Academy. Click here to claim the discount or use code SPRING26 at checkout.
- Experienced designers ready to elevate their craft can get $500 off UI Mastery Certification, our most in-depth program. Learn the visual polish, systems thinking, and strategic judgment to deepen your expertise and advance your career. Apply by April 1st at 11:59pm PT to claim your discount.
AI Agents Can Now Design Directly in Figma
- Figma just opened its canvas to AI agents—meaning tools like Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor can now generate and modify design assets directly inside your Figma files, connected to your existing design system. The feature works via Figma's MCP server and a new use_figma tool, and it's currently free during the beta period.
- What makes this more than a novelty is the introduction of "skills"—markdown files that encode your team's conventions, component logic, and design standards, so agents don't just produce generic output but work in alignment with how your team actually builds.
- If you're interested in learning how to build smarter with AI and move more fluidly between design and code, check out our Vibe Coding Camp, launching May 9th.
What Anime Can Teach Us About Better Product Design
- Designer Alan Cohen compares how anime handles emotional storytelling versus how Marvel and DC films often fumble it—and what that gap means for product design. His central framework: Emotion in Flow (emotional shifts that feel earned and guide users through an experience) versus Emotion in Conflict (tonal clashes that break immersion and spike cognitive load).
- Cohen's checklist for designing Emotion in Flow is worth bookmarking: map your emotional beats before you design, align tone to task risk, and treat microinteractions as bridges between feelings rather than moments to show off.
- "Good emotional design clarifies experience; great emotional design doesn't need decoration to compensate for confusion."
💜 PORTFOLIO INSPIRATION
UX Academy graduate Kefan Shi is a product designer with a background in illustration, combining visual storytelling with systems thinking to design experiences that are both structured and human. In NameRead, a conceptual Zoom integration, Kefan tackled the problem of name mispronunciation in global meetings—designing a low-pressure system that lets people record pronunciations, practice before joining, and access phonetic cues during calls. In WalkFund, he designed a behavior-driven micro-savings platform that turns daily step counts into automatic transfers toward personal financial goals, pairing clean product thinking with original brand illustration. Across his work, Kefan brings a sharp eye for the small frictions that shape how people feel, and designs systems that resolve them without adding complexity.
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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The secret of getting ahead is getting started. — Mark Twain, author
🧪 FROM THE LAB
AI for Visual Design Launches April 3rd
Built for designers and creatives who are ready to move from experimentation to a real AI creative practice, AI for Visual Design cuts through the hype and gives you a real framework for putting the latest AI tools to work.
Over four weeks, you'll learn how to prompt leading image and video models to produce brand-consistent assets, scalable visual systems, and short-form video content. Through live demos, hands-on projects, and expert mentor guidance, you'll leave with a stronger understanding of how to direct creative output and a complete workflow you can take straight into your practice.
Join our live informational webinar Tuesday, March 31st at 1pm ET for more details. Or grab your seat now with $150 off.
