Hey everyone! Forgive the short notice, but we're having our AI & Design Systems Jam Session at 10AM this morning. You can register here.

We've excited we have a special guest: David Eisner! David wrote Product Design Engineering: A Designer's Guide to Building and Shipping Code with AI, out from Rosenfeld Media on Nov 19. I wrote the foreword, and I think it's a fantastic resource for designers getting comfortable building and shipping real code with AI. It's a great reinforcement of so many of the themes and topics we cover in the course!

In addition to catching up on the latest AI & Design Systems happenings, David will be talking about how designers can find their footing in this new world, so bring your questions! As always, no worries if you can't make it live; we'll post the recording after.

See ya soon! Brad (+ Ian + TJ)

Howdy, stranger!

Boy oh boy has it been a minute, but I'm pleased to say that I've returned to the land of the living!

After a year living as a hermit grinding away to finish our AI & Design Systems and Atomic Design courses, it was SO INCREDIBLY REFRESHING to connect with people and communities in real life. I was fortunate to travel to Valencia (thanks DNA!), Poland (thanks WaysConf!), Prague (thanks Projector!), and most recently Helsinki (thanks Grand One!) to run AI & Design Systems workshops and finally share what we've been so hard at work creating. In many respects, it feels like recording an album and finally getting to take it out on tour!

Hey there!
Just a friendly reminder that we'll be having our AI & Design Systems jam session tomorrow at 10AM ET. You can register here.

There are a bunch of topics that have popped up over the last few weeks in Slack that we could dig into, such as:

• Components as data, design system contracts, etc

• Figma to code and back: detecting drift between Figma components and code, and what Figma still can't express

• Web components: promise or detour, and why the real blocker is usually people, not tech

• Beyond the browser: AI and design systems for iOS, Android, and React Native

• Docs for humans AND agents: Storybook, Mintlify, Zeroheight, and more

And of course, we'd also welcome some show and tell! If you have some wins (or are stuck on things!) that you'd be willing to share, that would be awesome.

Also note: TJ is traveling this week, so we'll have him do a deeper Figma Console MCP walkthrough at a future session.

Thanks, and hope to see you tomorrow!

Forgive the sales-y email, but we’re at the finish line of the courses we’ve been pouring our entire selves into for the last two years. We’re really proud of this work, and we’re really excited to help people. With that out of the way, here we go. *cue infomercial voice*.

There’s only one week left to get our AI & Design Systems course for $995 before it flips to the final price of $1495 on September 30th.

The course contains over 20 hours of video lessons, agent skills we built to improve your design system & products, a vibrant Slack community (with hands-on support from me, Ian, TJ, and industry leaders), biweekly community jam sessions, rolling new lessons, and a heck of a lot more.

Hey friends!

What the course includes

• Over 20 hours of in-depth lessons across 200 videos covering core concepts, tools setup, techniques, and practical implementation of AI & design systems
• Installable agent SKILLS files that audit and improve your design system and products
• Actionable workflows and in-depth tutorials for setting up and wielding AI & design systems tools
• A vibrant community of AI & design systems practitioners and industry leaders
• Biweekly community jam sessions with TJ, Ian, and me. These sessions are part office hours, part show-and-tell, part latest-and-greatest developments in the world of AI & design systems
• A growing resource database of links, terminology, and other helpful AI & design systems resources
• A certificate of completion to share on LinkedIn and your resume
• New lessons and free updates for life as AI & design systems keep evolving

On my birthday, I appended to a long list of life lessons. The new lesson I shared: things take the time they take. Projects you think you’d tackle quickly? That important deadline? Things you’d think you’d have sorted out by now? Things take the time they take.

In that spirit, over the weekend I finally finished an artwork on a 5’x4’ canvas that I started ~13 years ago.

I’ve been reflecting on all that’s transpired between the time I started painting this canvas until I finished it this weekend. I’ve loaded this canvas into 4 U-Haul trucks, I’ve experienced some high highs and some low lows, I allowed myself to call myself an artist, I had a daughter…

Hey there!
Join our next AI & Design Systems jam session tomorrow Thursday, August 13 at 10:00 AM ET.

(Even if you are already registered, you should re-register because we had a duplicate jam session floating around that was causing confusion. Sorry about that!)

There's A LOT of great stuff to cover, and TJ and I are excited to hear what's on your mind with AI & Design Systems. Bring whatever you've got:

Howdy Stranger!
Holy crap, it's been nearly two months since I've published a newsletter or substantive blog post. To which I say, “No sir, I don't like it.”

I'm tired of saying I'm busy (it's unhealthy, not a badge of honor), but it continues to be the truth. Just how busy, you ask? Well, I had a fantastic conversation with Don Norman (one of my all-time heroes whom I owe my career to) and literally haven't talked about it at all. Oof.

I've had to learn the hard way that there's a reason why people seclude themselves in cabins to create big projects. So while I'm still hunkered down with my big projects, my alarm clock went off so I need to come up for air, say hey, and share some big updates.

Exciting news: my website looks like crap!

Hey there!

If this email looks different, it’s because I just migrated over to Buttondown. I’ll save that story for another day; for now I’ll just say, “hooray markdown!”

I also have a ton of really amazing conversations and ideas I’m desperate to share, but if it’s alright with you, today I’d like to put on the ol’ business hat and share some updates on the course work that’s feeding our families.

Chapters 1 & 2 of our AI & Design Systems Course are live! 🎉