Sara Vienna - Taste, Meaning, and How to Stand Out in an AI world

What does it take to make people *feel* something with design...? This week's guest is kind of an expert on the question. Sara Vienna lang=en), the Chief Design Officer at Metalab, talks about the responsibility that designers have to shape this AI world that we're entering without losing the heartbeat of a brand. We don't hold back on the current state of the industry and what it feels like to be a designer today. Some highlights: - How to not get swept up in current design trends - How Metalab has adopted AI workflows internally - Strategies for leveraging AI to understand research data - What it takes to put meaning at the heart of a brand/product - How Metalab invests in the collective taste of the design org - Where Sara derives signals and how she filters out the noise - Being late on a trend is bad taste even more so than ugly design - + a *lot* more - Windsurf

com/) and wpsrc=Google%20AdWords&wpcid=22042553892&wpscid=173890219393&wpcrid=726251362516&wpkwid=kwd-[redacted phone]&wpkwn=suno&wpkmatch=e&wpsnetn=g&gad_campaignid=22042553892&gbraid=0AAAAA9pWpduFan7icL90FczgyQploCsYi) rebrands - Jony Ive’s Stripe Sessions talk com/sessions/2025/a-conversation-with-sir-jony-ive) - Erica Hall’s book “Just Enough Research” com/just-enough-research) - Anthropic’s Machines of Loving Grace paper com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace) - Blok for focus so/) Chapters 0:00 Intro 5:00 Finding meaning when creating a brand 10:21 How to not get swept up by design trends 14:49 How to deal with the desire for novelty in design 19:50 How Metalab has adopted AI internally 25:27 How Sara invests in the collective taste at Metalab 28:47 The power of curiosity 37:13 How designers can maintain the human touch 39:43 How Metalab arrives at the human truth 57:17 Misconceptions about AI 58:51 Sara's message to the design community Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿 🌐

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