funsize

Ten years ago, Funsize launched the Hustle Podcast. Since then, we have had nearly one hundred conversations with exciting people in the design industry.

Today, we're excited to announce and discuss the next generation of the Funsize podcasting, The Funsize Show!

This podcast, now rebranded as The Funsize Show, is a variety show with many exciting segments hosted by many brilliant people at Funsize. The content will span the gamut of design leadership to design expertise, conversations with our clients about our relationship and our work, taking risks and trying new things, fun and inspiring conversations with our team,  and more.

We're about to launch a new website for the show and will be making that announcement on our social media and on future podcast episodes. Please stay tuned. We think you'll like it.

Check out more exciting episodes on the Funsize Show Website.

Web: www.funsize.co. |  Instagram: @funsizeco  |  X: @funsize 

For the last episode recorded in 2020, we flip the spotlight onto our founders, Anthony and Natalie Armendariz, to walk us through the challenging, chaotic and — at times — exciting journey that was 2020. In a year that provided surprises and obstacles for just about every human being on the planet, we wanted to tell our agency's part of the story. We hope you enjoy.

We cover:

• Our mindset going into 2020
• Business and culture goals entering 2020
• Q1 happenings at the beginning of the pandemic
• Surprising new client relationships in 2020
• How/why did Funsize actually grow in 2020?
• The "staff augmentation" niche during the pandemic
• The pandemic's effect on team culture
• Team perspectives during the pandemic
• Expectations when starting Funsize years ago
• The launch of Funsize Ventures and what it means
• Work differences between designers and developers
• What will 2021 bring? 

Visit the Funsize website
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Mike Trozzo is the EVP at Tide University Laundry, a service business disrupting the laundry-norm on campuses around the country. His career trajectory took him from dreams of being an astronaut and doctor, to studying finance in college, pursuing acting in LA and eventually leading design and engineering teams in Waco, Texas.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Connecting the dots between design and P&L
• Budgeting for design
• Staffing projects
• Design roles and responsibilities
• Balancing the skillsets and goals of team members
• The shifting need for generalists and specialists
• Childhood career dreams vs. adult career reality
• Personal values and work values
• How Funsize's values emerged

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Esteban Marquez is a Product Designer on the Funsize team. He's also a very talented graphic designer and artist. Esteban and I discuss his experience in the various design fields that led to his recent transition to digital product design, the importance of personal branding and differentiating yourself, and much more.

On this episode we discuss:

• Esteban's design career experience and journey
• Art direction vs. product design
• The value of both deep focus and variety
• Onboarding designers and what it feels like joining a new design team
• What it's like hustling when you're first getting started
• Creating a personal brand, a persona, and a story that differentiates yourself
• The value of working in a team setting
• Managing ego and empathy
• Designing your life

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“Until designers can speak the language of business (and to some
degree talk their talk), we’re just going to be the people that make
things look good."

An apology: I had some unknown issues with my gear during this recording so the quality suffered a bit. However, it was such a great conversation I just had to post it!

Greg Storey is an Executive Director of Design at USAA, captain of industry, and an all around badass designer and leader of designers. It’s been a while since Greg and I caught up and so we covered a bunch of important design business topics in this extra long episode of Hustle. I hope you enjoy it.

Also check out Greg's podcast Sprints and Milestones where he and Brett Harned share war stories, tips, tactics, and anecdotes on navigating the sometimes rough waters of getting digital projects done.

On this episode, we discuss:

• The team that Greg leads at USAA, which focuses on investment
  products
• What it was like using Iomega zips and Jaz drives
• The biggest challenges that design organizations at large companies face
• Design has it’s seat at the table but we don’t realize that we have to push the campaign further
• Why designers should look to the IT industry for inspiration for communicating our value, how we impact business, and how to engage
• The impact of modeling your team and pace after the Bay Area “move fast” culture and failing cheap vs. failing fast
• Why designers needs to be good at business and be put on the hook and share responsibility for the performance of the things we make
• How agencies can be more involved in all of the hard design work that's needed after the initial design is delivered
• Why organizational empathy is just as important as user empathy
• Developing the skill of asking and understanding the “Why, What, and How”
• The book “Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win”

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So, you’re a great designer - but do you know how to listen, drive a conversation, and build consensus with your clients, company, or teams? Ryan Rumsey, the Director of Experience Design at Electronic Arts IT, hops in the Funsize studio to share his knowledge and experiences in persuasion and building consensus with stakeholders in the enterprise world.

1:00
Ryan discussing his role as Director of Experience Design at Electronic Arts IT and his expertise in Enterprise User Experience Design. He also gives us an overview of some of the things he did in his previous role at Apple.

3:15
Apple’s hush hush culture. It’s easy designing software for Apple employees because everyone at Apple only uses Apple products.

5:40
Rick talks about his experience working on enterprise design projects. Ryan discusses some of the dynamics of working in an enterprise environment and the art of selling your design work to your internal stakeholders.

7:00
We discuss Ryan’s new article “Influence and Design Success - The art of letting others have your way”. As a design leader, it’s rare to be able to take credit for the pixel level work. Your job is to motivate and inspire your team to push the envelope and produce great outcomes. Sometimes when you know you have the right answer you just can’t push it. You have to be the muse and let other believe the idea was theirs. Ryan gives us an example about a project where he struggled with the stakeholder. It’s hard to tell a client no or that they are wrong, especially when there’s data to support it.

9:10
Ryan teaches us an old improv technique from his former life as a professional actor called “Yes, and?”. The scenario is that you accept what anyone said and simply add to it so you can help drive a conversation. When a stakeholder provides a comment in the heat of the moment that you don’t agree with or know is wrong, it’s always best to let them know that you heard them and that you will take some time to consider it. When you come back to the table, remind them of the conversation they brought up and elaborate on how it inspired you to think about the problem deeper and in devising the solution to meet the need. “With your inspiration I was able to create this!”

12:00
It’s not a design exercise, it’s about understanding your team or stakeholders personality or character so you can can build consensus and get designs approved.

14:30
We aren’t using these tactics for bad or for personal best interests. It’s for the good of helping our clients and stakeholders achieve desired business outcomes and ultimately success with products people love.

“Knowing the users and having empathy for them isn’t always going to
resonate with them.”

16:00
Defending your work properly. Many of the people that tell you “no” or that you're wrong are highly successful individuals that get shit done. If you can help them get a win, then all of a sudden they will become a massive advocate. Your gut reaction is many times right but don’t just react or build. Take time to process. Learn to shut up and let things go. Let people know you heard and listened and that you’ll consider it. Instead of design lingo learn to use persuasive business words that business people understand.

18:30
How design teams can leverage these principles to build vision, consensus, plans, and designs that everyone can believe in. Use design thinking practices! Use principles and values to ensure you’re on the same page. If you don’t have any structure or framework it can be hard to know where to apply your creativity, and that makes for very dispersed shotgun approaches - and can end up focusing on things that actually might not need creativity. Hence, design language and UI frameworks. Creativity lives within structure. When things stop working, it’s time to look at your principles.

“Principles are uncovered, not necessarily developed.”

23:00
Rick and Anthony discuss how we onboard new clients to introduce our new Client Partners to Funsize, our principles, process, and our company culture.

28:00
We couldn’t find that Staind video so please tweet us if you find it!

29:00
A sidebar conversation reminiscing about a punk rock era.

31:00
Hustle Podcast Season 1 conclusion and announcement of Season 2.

Links

• Ryan Rumsey's Website
• Ryan Rumsey's Twitter

Visit the Funsize website
Subscribe to The Funsize Digest
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Brandon Breitenbach is the Co-Founder and CEO of Pare Booking, a kick ass digital product that’s changing the way musicians and artists book shows and get paid. Recently, Brandon stopped by the studio while visiting Funsize to discuss the history of our working relationship, how we made decisions, the process and tools we used and what the ideal client and design agency relationship can look and feel like.

2:00
Introduction to the Pare Booking's product and user experience. Pare Booking modernizes the process for musicians and artists to book shows, manage contracts, and get paid.

4:00
Brandon’s share's his music and music booking industry background.

4:47
How Funsize met Pare Booking. Brandon and Anthony talk about the history of how Pare Booking and Funsize found each other and how quickly we were able to get started.

6:25
Why Pare Booking chose to work with Funsize. Brandon talks about what it feels like to hire a design and development vendors. Joel Beukelman recommended they work with Funsize and Brandon trusted his friend and moved forward. You can usually tell at the first conversation if there’s a match between a client and an agency. You gotta follow your gut!

8:20
Phi talks about how awesome it is to be held accountable but also to have the breathing room and trust to move forward in making design decisions.

9:00
Brandon discusses his experience working relationship with Funsize. Phi shares how we used Sketch and Marvel, two completely new tools on this project, to maximize our effort and time, and how we crafted a unique design process to be able to design the MVP app in a very short period of time.

10:50
Clients are subject matter experts. Sometimes designers don’t always know “what’s best”.

11:40
A dream client is one that that has good taste.

12:30
We discuss conceptual design, atomic design, and how they were applied in the Pare Booking project. For Pare Booking, Funsize presented multiple concepts as screen designs supplemented with mood boards/style tiles to expand on the concepts voice, feel, and visual language. This is a good way to explore and create the personality of the brand or product, outside of just focusing on what it can look like. For Pare, this lets them see the scope of the “why” behind each concept.

15:19
“We didn’t have a brand or identity when we started this project...”

16:09
Brandon mentioned that 3 concepts was just the right amount. If we had delivered any more it would have been overwhelming for him. Brandon was playing golf (and left at the 16th hole!) when he reviewed our concepts for the first time.

17:10
Brandon and Anthony talk about what’s it’s like working together in an agile design engagement. What worked was the amount of communication and transparency Pare and Funsize had throughout the project. This resulted in a high amount of trust. Both companies did their part in getting each other what the other needed to be successful.

19:45
How Funsize uses [Pivotal Tracker to manage design sprints and transparency with our team, clients, and stakeholders. Keeping your team's best interest in mind while estimating design sprint stories will help create the best work possible. Pare has now adopted Pivotal Tracker as their internal product management tool. We recall [Hustle Season 1, Episode 7: "Death to Time Tracking", where we talked about how Funsize stopped time tracking and how Pivotal Tracker has been critical in allowing the client and agency relationship to flourish.

22:50
Pare Booking was the first project in which Funsize used Sketch 100% through the duration of the project from wireframes to finished design. Phi talks about the advantages of Sketch and how it helped meet our project objectives and save time.

25:00
Whether you use Photoshop or Sketch, having a system in place to dynamically design empowers the designer to make a change in the overall design without having to worry about accumulating unnecessary design debt.

26:19
“I will use Funsize as long as I possibly can.”

26:30
Pare’s iPhone app is launching in the Apple App store between August and September 2015. If you’re a touring musician, artist, or speaker, please check out www.parebooking.com and sign up for early access!

27:00
Check out Funsize's Pare Booking Dribble Collection to see what the Pare Booking design will look like. Also feel free to demo the Pare Marvel Prototype for a hands-on experience with the app's design and user experience.

27:40
Rick announces the wrap-up of Season 1 of the Hustle Podcast and what to expect in the upcoming second season of the podcast.

Links

• Pare Booking's Web Site
• Pare Booking's Twitter
• Funsize's Pare Booking Dribbble Collection
• Funsize's Clickable Marvel Prototype
• Sketch for Screen Designers
• Photoshop now has multiple canvases!
• Marvel App for Prototyping
• Pivotal Tracker
• Thanks Joel Beukelman!

Visit the Funsize website
Subscribe to The Funsize Digest
Check out Funsize on Instagram

Show Notes:

• 0:55 Rick is back from paternity leave. His new son is awesome.
• 1:11 Joining us on this episode is the Senior Director of Design at Jawbone, friend of Funsize, and a hugely inspirational designer, Mr. Peter Merholz.
• 1:30 Anthony chronicles Peter's background with the international consulting firm, Adaptive Path, which is perhaps best known for championing "User Experience."
• 1:50 Fun Peter Merholz facts: Peter hired Funsize while at Groupon and was Funsize's first client. Thanks, Peter! He also coined the term 'blog'.
• 3:44 Fun fact about the new Up4 from Jawbone is that it can do NFC payments!
• 4:00 The theme for this episode was conceived following Peter's blog post "There's no such thing as UX design."
• 5:20 Don Norman, credited with the coining the term User Experience in the early 90s, created the User Experience Architect's office at Apple.
• 6:25 Initially, Adaptive Path considered themselves a user experience consultancy because no one else was talking about user experience at the time. The term "design" was an avoided term because designers were not involved in product strategy, often reduced to pixel pushers and production workers.
• 8:40 "User experience is an outcome, not a practice." - Peter Merholz. There are many contributing factors to good or bad user experience, but design is only one part of the whole.
• 9:32 User experience designers were actually interaction designers, information architects, or other designers cloaking themselves with the phrase because it sounded good.
• 11:11 Picking apart the concept of the "User Experience Designer." A litmus test for the viability of the "User Experience Designer" career path: How would one grow as a UX designer? What's that path or evolution look like?
• 14:20 The thing that we call "User Experience design" may fit in two buckets: 1) Product Management & 2) Design Execution.
• 15:00 A historic lapse in balanced Product Management may have generated "User Experience Design."
• 17:00 Product designers began to create a set of user research & persona development practices in order to ensure product strategy would not forget to acknowledge the user.
• 18:20 Strategically-minded designers can lead products as well as strategically-minded engineers or business persons.
• 21:55 If we do call "User Experience Designer" a profession, it would be best compared to a film director.
• 25:00 Anyone who tells you they've figured out how the formula for the perfect product team is lying to you.
• 25:50 Peter eventually left consulting because he found the relationship they had with clients wasn't leveraging his agency enough impact on final products. Peter effortlessly flips the interview around on Funsize to discuss how we ensure impact with clients and products.
• 28:00 Funsize discusses our team structures and project pacing.
• 29:25 We share about a tactical program we run called Special Ops, in which designers may do work that can help steer the product in the direction we believe it should go. Special Ops often strengthens our impact within the client organization.
• 32:00 We discuss pairing design teams with clients and the importance spreading out designer's velocity across more than one project at a time. No designer works alone!
• 33:45 We talk about the problems with in-house designers at product companies and how to avoid driving designers insane.
• 35:00 Peter discusses tactical hiring decisions and team formation at Groupon, to which he gives credit for stronger impact of designers and decisions.
• 38:30 We recall our discussion with our friends at Adobe, where we learned that there's two designers to 60+ engineers at Photoshop.
• 39:00 Peter recalls hiring outside design support while at Groupon.
• 42:15 We note how, for consultancies, it's becoming just as important to help the people and companies you work with hiring internal teams as it is to help them with needed design work.
• 43:00 Design teams in an organization are very different from other types of teams, and they shouldn't be structured or managed as though they were just another flavor of engineer, lest you want frustrated designers.
• 45:45 We're excited to meet up at Front Conference in Utah, coming up this summer.

###Links:

• There's no such thing as UX design" by Peter Merholz
• Peter on Twitter
• Peter's Blog

Visit the Funsize website
Subscribe to The Funsize Digest
Check out Funsize on Instagram