If Someone Else Likes It, That's a Bonus

Dribbble’s Co-Founder Dan Cederholm joins us on this episode of Overtime! Meg and Dan chat all about life after Dribbble, the value of designers today, and creepy face masks. Plus, Dan encourages all designers to consider self-publishing—even if you’re not an expert.

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Subscribe to Overtime on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or download the episode via Simplecast.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Simplebits.com
• Advencher.co

Transcript

Meg: Oh, hi! Welcome back to Overtime, Dribbble’s weekly podcast that explores the most interesting design news and gives you the tips you need to create your best work. I’m your host Meg, “The Blob” Lewis and today we have a guest who you all know and love. I didn’t kill him off. He’s still alive. He’s the Jon Stewart to my Trevor Noah, Overtime’s BFF and former host, and new host of the Simple Bits show. It’s Dan Cederholm. Hi, Dan.

Dan: Hey Meg, how’re you doing? That was such an awesome intro. My goodness. I’m excited. I’m so happy to be back on Overtime.

Meg: Good, yes. So, you co-founded Dribbble and you were the host of the overtime podcast. What does it feel like to have left?

Dan: Well, it’s interesting. It was a mix of emotions when I left. I think it was time to try something new. So, when I actually retired from Dribbble, I realized, “Wow, I actually like podcasting. Maybe I should continue to do it.” And that’s where the new show came about. And then I mean, I was super happy when you came on board and took over. It’s just awesome because you’re like a podcasting powerhouse now and it’s so cool.

Meg: Thank you. Yeah, we’re doing it. So, I do imagine you do a lot, you have a lot of things. You have your design studio, Simple Bits, you have adventure supply company, you have the Simple Bits show, you have client work, you’ve got a lot going on, and I imagine that co-founding Dribbble and having this big, important job that was taking up most of your time was probably challenging for your brain because you’re like me, you seem to like to have a lot of things. So, I’m sure that this new life of yours, having all these things and bouncing around between one thing to the next, is really fulfilling for you. I hope. It looks like it is.

Dan: You nailed it. It’s totally true. Definitely, my attention span is limited. And so that was tough to focus on one thing for so long, or make it look like I was focusing on one thing for so long and yeah, it’s refreshing to be able to go back and actually attack different things all at once, and I love that. I think I thrive off of little shorter winds, right? It’s tough. I mean, maintaining a product, like one product for so long, it’s a marathon and it’s hard. So yeah, totally enjoying the new, like, pulling different interest all together again, two different things. You know, video, puppetry…

Meg: Oh, the puppet, yes. Explain the puppet for those of us who don’t know much about the puppetry. Please go on.

Dan: I love the puppets, and I love the Muppets. I feel like it’s part of my soul in a way, but I just happened to like, I was like, “I want to get a puppet made of myself.” I’m not sure why and I didn’t have a grand plan or anything. It’s just something I wanted to do and I found this company actually on Etsy I think that makes high quality Muppet-like puppets and you can send them a photo or video, I sent them a video actually. And they were really excited. Like, “Wow, we were really excited to get a video. It really lets us nail the look of the puppet.”

And then, I’m just trying to find uses, just trying to find places to actually use it. But it’s cool because it opens up like, “How do you shoot video?” Like, I’m not a videographer, I don’t know much about that. And so, learning how to shoot a puppet and like, I have mad respect for puppetry artists because it’s very physically draining. Like, I’m not even sure if I can do it much longer. I think my shoulder is giving out on me. It’s much more technical than I thought it would be. But I go into anything with puppet on TV or film or whatever with a newfound respect for how it’s done.

Meg: Yeah. My goodness. So, when it comes to podcasting, what year was it when you started podcasting? How many years ago was this?

Dan: Oh gosh, well whenever the first Overtime episode was, that was it. I mean that was probably three years ago or three or four years ago. Not long at all.

Meg: And with your new podcast, has anything changed with podcasting or with yourself that has influenced the way that you approach the new podcast? That maybe you didn’t get to do with Overtime back in the day?

Dan: That’s interesting. Technically, no. Here’s the thing is like; I selfishly just love talking to other creative people. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to start it with Overtime. It was almost like selfishly being able to learn from people and get them, you know, “Hey, I want to talk to this person for an hour about their work and their story and how they do it so that I can learn from it.” And then you know, the benefit there is that everyone can kind of listen and hopefully get something out of it too. I kind of missed that, I think, when I left Dribbble, and it was like, “I just want to have conversations again with people.” And I think it was a little bit freeing in that starting something new from scratch again was like, that could change the format if I want. It’s just a little bit looser I think maybe, and a little bit more casual, I guess you could say.

Meg: Exactly. And I think the nice thing is that you can mix in yourself a lot more with this new podcast. It can be hosted by a puppet now. And it can be a total reflection of who you are, which I love, and it totally is.

Dan: Aww, thanks, Meg. That’s awesome.

Meg: Let’s get into the news today. Okay, so the first news story that I want to talk to you about is one that maybe you’ll know more about than I do, hopefully. If we both don’t know about it, then we’ll just shrug and move on. So, a Medium article was published recently by writer Jamal Nichols, where he asks a very important question because he works on Facebook. He works at Facebook on a team and the engineers on his team talk to users about one time a week, and then they make changes based on what users want.

And so, Jamal’s asking a question of if engineers talk to users, do we still need designers at all? And that question blew my mind and I had an existential crisis. And Jamal kind of talks himself through it and gives some information throughout the article. And I’ll let everybody read that, but I just want to hear your thoughts from you on this topic, because my mind is blown and I’m confused.

Dan: Yeah, and the title alone is very intriguing, right? It’s like, I saw it when you sent it over, I’m like, “Oh, my God. Like, wait what? Are we out of jobs?”

Meg: “What does it all mean?”

Dan: “What’s happening here? What does it mean?” You know, he gets into some interesting things about the way building websites and web apps really are going and it’s gotten increasingly more complicated as we go on. And he’s talking about webmaster, the days of the webmaster where, you know, one person would be responsible for everything in a website. And I remember those days, I miss those days, actually. Well, one person was in charge of everything or responsible for everything. It just was so much less complex than it is now. And websites are no longer just websites, they’re literally software, complex pieces of software. And, that’s why we have teams that, you know, are very diverse with the different things that people have to worry about. I know I get overwhelmed with that. And I feel very behind on everything. I don’t even know how to make a website anymore.

Meg: [Laughing] Uh-oh, I don’t either.

Dan: Meg’s like, “Alright, next topic.”

Meg: No, I think I have this crisis in my head all the time. I’m always grappling with the fact that everything that essentially, we do as designers is a total construct. And what does it mean? Does it actually mean anything? And so, if somebody asked me a question like this, “Oh, if engineers are just directly communicating with users and users are requesting changes and engineers can make that change and users are satisfied, then what’s the point?” And I guess to me, the thing that helps me sleep at night is I’m making engineers job easier by helping them to know what to do and to visualize what that looks like. Because I think a lot of times their brains aren’t design focused and maybe they’re not thinking about design at all, or maybe it hurts their brains to think about design. And that’s really the part that they don’t want to have to focus on.

Dan: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And I think that in the end, that was the point he was making is that it really takes all kinds to make something usable, and you know, enjoyable to use. Not only like, visually enjoyable, but like, there’s always going to be a need for a designer to synthesize what the user is asking for. And it’s funny because the title of this article is scary, right, for a designer. “Whoa, I’m a designer. Crap, dude. Am I going to be out of a job?” But actually, it’s really, really well written as a defense for the fact that we do need designers.

Meg: It is. Absolutely. And I think it, you know, with the thought of design systems in general, the fact that my view of design systems, when I first heard about them was like, “Why would we do that?” Because then we don’t need to work anymore. We don’t need to design products anymore. And then I realized that no, design systems just free you up to have more time to work on the stuff you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to have time to do. And I think this argument is similar to where if engineers are talking to users and making changes, that just frees up your time from having to do those things and frees you up to be able to do other things that you wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise with the product.

Dan: Totally. Just one more thing about this, I just realized he says something about Dribbble. “The idea of designers creating machines that people enjoy using gets lost in all the Dribbble visual nonsense you see everywhere. Great designers have a deep understanding of psychology, behavior, science and human nature, years of accumulated knowledge about best practices in addition to knowing the visual stuff.”

Oh, see, I like all of that. I mean, the knock on Dribbble’s a little weird, but I think he’s right in that. It’s basically, design is not just about the visuals, right? It’s about all the other things that go into that. The good news is, designers are still, we’re still in it, we’ve still got a job.

Meg: We still have jobs… for now. Okay, so for this next news story, I want to talk about this funny product that I saw when somebody shared it on Twitter. So, we all know that respirator masks are important, whether you’re worried about air quality from fires in San Francisco or smog in LA and also, you know, if you’re just sick and you’re in a public space, it’s good to wear one. Okay, so, respirator masks are important, we know this. And, I guess that somebody at some point was like, “You know, I have to keep pulling up my respirator mask every time I need to use my face ID.” So, they developed a product where you can upload your photo and they’ll put that very specific section of your face onto your respirator mask so that you could wear it and you still look just like yourself, so your phone doesn’t know the difference. And I love this product so so much. It’s so dystopian.

Dan: It’s incredible.

Meg: Did you see what they look like?

Dan: Yeah. So, I clicked on the link initially, and I’m like, “Oh, cool.” I didn’t read anything. I just saw the mask. And I said, “Oh, cool.” If you’re going to wear a mask, for whatever reason, all the reasons you mentioned, why not make it look like the rest of your face? And I said, “That’s so cool.”

And then I dug in like, “Oh, it’s so you can use face ID while you’re still using it,” which I have two thoughts. Like, it’s a little frightening that we’ve gotten to this point where you’d have a reason to wear a mask a lot, and still need to unlock your phone or whatever. But I think it’s pretty awesome. The pictures are amazing. And I could see a real need for this, and it even says like, “Is this a joke?” And it’s like, “Yes, no, we’re not sure.”

Meg: Maybe. I’m hoping that someone does this with surgical masks because I would love to wake up from amnesia to see a kind surgeon wearing one. When I first looked at the website, they have examples of what the faces look like, not of what the masks look like not on a face. And I thought it was a joke product saying you can choose from either of these two faces and these are the two types of people that exist and you get to choose between one of them. So, in my head, I was like, oh, what would the funniest, what would I want to be the bottom half of my face? Yeah, so it doesn’t work for face ID so much. But, if the bottom half of my face could be some sort of crusty old white man with a goatee or something, I’d love it. So, would you do it? Would you actually get one or is it too embarrassing?

Dan: I think yeah, I think why not? If I’m going to wear one like I think that’s pretty cool. I wouldn’t worry about the face ID part so much but just being out in public and me being like, “Hey, I’m obscuring part of my face, but just so you know, this is kind of what’s under there.” I think it’s kind of interesting.

Meg: Yeah, you’re just going for transparency about what people can expect out of your whole face.

Dan: Yeah. And I might tweak little things I don’t like you know, because I could.

Meg: Yeah, get in there with Photoshop.

Dan: Yeah exactly.

Meg: An important question to ask is, for people that are doing this is, “Are you smiling? Are you not? Are you looking stern? What are you going to do with your mouth?”

Dan: Imagine if it was a permanent huge smile the whole time.

Meg: Horrifying!

Dan: Like, no matter what someone said like, “Hey Dan, I know you’re not feeling well.” You’re just like [smiles]. You can, and underneath that you could be in the worst mood you’ve ever been in, but no one would know that.

Meg: No one would ever know.

Dan: “He’s happy to be sick or, you know, afraid of a virus or something.” I think it’s brilliant. I love it.

Meg: I think it’s brilliant too. The link to purchase is definitely in the show notes. So, if anybody wants to, I don’t have a promo code for you, they’re not a sponsor.

Dan: They should be no, actually. And also, it’s called “Resting Risk Face,” which I think is amazing.

Meg: Okay, so we all have a lot to learn from Dan, because he does so much throughout his career, whether it’s working on massive client projects, whether it’s co-founding Dribbble, creating a line of physical goods, hosting podcasts, it’s so much. But Dan, I brought you on today because I’m really excited about your next project. You are self-publishing a book. And as someone who has also self-published a book, I have so many things I want to talk to you about. But I guess you’re giving us a little bit of a sneak peek. So, tell us as much as you can. What is the book about?

Dan: Yeah, so the book is about 20 things I learned about design, business and community. That’s the title and it’s a reflection of what I learned co-founding Dribbble and being a designer, and sort of going from solely just doing client work into co-founding this company that was a side project and then grew into this big company. And it was good because I retired from Dribbble, I was reflecting on what I learned. So, I wrote this article on medium about those topics and got a lot of good feedback on it. And it was like, quick hits, like 20 little things I’ve learned, which my attention span is perfect for that format. And decided to like, “Why not turn this into a book?” And honestly, like, it’s a hardcover book. I put a lot of time into the aesthetics. It’s almost like this midcentury zine.

Meg: Yes, you splurged on that hardcover.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. It’s hardcover, we’ve got cloth, and it’s two color offset printed and there’s a little bookmark in it. And then, you know, it was a learning experience, I love seeing something in your mind and then figuring out how to get there. And I think self-publishing was another thing that I had not done before. I had worked with other publishers in the past about really, you know, mostly technical books. And this was a chance to be like, and having nobody really have input except for myself. And so, I decided to do the little doodles in it, which was new for me because I’m not much of an illustrator. But I said, “Hell I’m just going to start scratching stuff and see what happens.”

And I’m really happy with the way it turned out because it was less an academic exercise for me like I think books can be a little intimidating in a way. Like, “I can’t write a book because I don’t know. I’m not an expert on this topic,” where I think you don’t have to be an expert. You can share your particular experience about something, and people can get stuff out of that.

Meg: Yep. Exactly. And you’re an expert on you, and you know what you’ve experienced. So, I think that that’s a great sort of angle to come at that from for sure. So, whenever you decided to self-publish, did you use an editor at all? Or did you edit your it yourself?

Dan: So, I used a copy editor at the very end. I kind of kind of did the whole thing, found a great copy editor, Sally Kerrigan, she was recommended from my friends at A Book Apart, who, we have worked with in the past, and she was fantastic. And she combed through the entire thing and found all sorts of things wrong. And that’s something I remember from writing books in the past is that editors are incredible. And they make you sound better than you really are. And it’s important to have, you know, that feedback and someone to put extra eyes on it and all that. But other than that, yeah, I just sort of did the rest of it myself. So, there could be other things wrong with it, I’m sure.

Meg: You know, the nice thing about the internet is that they’ll tell you.

Dan: Right, and then it’s printed. So that’s scary, right? And you’ve self-published books too, which, jeez, I have all sorts of things I could ask you about.

Meg: Yeah, I’m a huge fan of self-publishing, because again, I didn’t have to wait for somebody else’s permission. I didn’t work with somebody or a publisher with an editor that needed me to skew my voice to target their audience or their voice, which I loved. I was able to write it in my own style, which I really enjoyed and had fun doing, it made writing fun.

But I also loved the fact that it was all in my control. And when it came to financials, I was able to work it out in a way where I had all the design files ready and I picked a publisher that was ready to print and they would be able to turn the books around in like three or four days. And so, what I did is I put the book up on my website, made a mockup so it looked like it was real, and I just said that the books would ship out on a very specific date. That was the next week. And so, I took all those pre-orders and used that to pay for the publishing of the actual books.

Dan: That’s brilliant.

Meg: Yeah, and so it cost no money for me, except for my time, which I really enjoyed. And that was all thanks to self-publishing, but also, I got to keep all the money which I enjoyed and still enjoy to this day.

Dan: Absolutely, and see, that’s brilliant about the pre-orders and being able to turn them around that quick. That’s, it’s amazing. But you’re right. I mean, the money is a huge part. Look, I mean, the first few books I wrote years and years ago, you know, typical royalty situation with the publisher, you know, you’re talking like 11% or something. I mean, it’s ridiculous. You don’t do it to make money obviously, but it’s really sad.

Meg: I struggled with the idea because I really wanted a publisher because I wanted somebody to tell me that I was valid, that my idea was good, and they believed in me, and they wanted to make it real. And I liked that idea about having a publisher. So, I pitched it to a few, and no one even responded. So that was enough rejection for me. I have this, whenever I get rejected, I have this wonderful attitude that I think works in my favor where I’m like, I’m going to do it by myself, I’m going to show them and that was really helpful because I did, I published it myself, I made it happen on my own, and then I probably, certainly, have made a lot more money off of it than if I had worked with a publisher. But I still, you know, in the back of my head wish that someone would just believe in my ideas and allow themselves to make it for me, but maybe that’ll happen someday. Not with this book, though.

Dan: I love that though. You’re right. I hope that that’s eroding, you know, as we go on here, and you’re seeing more and more people self-publishing. I think one of the things that I always thought about when I first started writing, I think a publisher can help if you don’t have an audience already, right?

Meg: Absolutely.

Dan: So, you know, if you’re self-publishing, it’s a little bit of a risk. But I think, as the web and personal brands have evolved, self-publishing becomes even more and more viable. And also, I think the formats of books have evolved as well. And we’re seeing more self-publishing with, like, zines, you know, and it doesn’t have to be, like, a book doesn’t have to be something that you know, it’s not like a college course, it can be much more than that. And they always have been, but I mean, within the design, sort of education space or whatever, I feel like there’s so much more room for creativity there with books, that it’s exciting. It’s cool. It’s different if you’re used to creating stuff digitally. With a little less risk, it’s kind of exciting to be like, “Alright, I’m going to make this thing, it’s going to be done. And then that’s it if there’s mistakes in it, well, oh well.”

Meg: Exactly. I did mine without an editor or a copywriter at all.

Meg: Oh, nice. Oh my gosh.

Meg: I showed it to a bunch of friends. I had a friend that is an editor and I was like, “Can you look this over? I’m trying to print it by Monday.” And she was like, “I’ll try.” She got like, maybe an 11th through the book by Monday. And so that first part is beautifully edited. And then I was just like, “Well, the internet will tell me where my mistakes are.” And then no one said anything, which was very unhelpful, but that’s not on them anyway.

So then, after, I was just so embarrassed about the potential typos. I couldn’t find any, but I knew they were in there. I just knew there were mistakes. And so eventually I got a copywriting editor and came out with an edition 2 and there was, thank God, there was nothing major that I was really embarrassed about. So that’s good.

Dan: Amazing.

Meg: But you do it. You can because at the beginning, I didn’t have the money to afford an editor. I couldn’t pay for it. So, I just needed to make this book happen on zero dollars. And I did it, it worked.

Dan: You did it. That’s amazing though, and that’s so inspiring. I hope people understand that you can do it yourself.

Meg: You totally can. And as designers, it’s nice because we have the necessary skill set of being able to lay out the book and choose all the things and that’s really fun too. And so, we have a lot of the tools that we need as designers. We have to do so much writing anyway, just as part of our jobs. So, we really are set up for success more so than most people.

Dan: Yeah, totally right. If you think about it, like yeah, writing is a huge part of design typography, layout, the marketing of it, you know?

Meg: Absolutely.

Dan: All of that is in our toolbox. So, like, get up make books.

Meg: Yes. Well, Dan, can you say, is your book out? When does it come out?

Dan: Yeah. So, I’ve got a few advanced copies here so it’s going to be out probably like in three or four weeks. Literally all the books are on a boat from Europe, coming over here so it takes like three or four weeks.

Meg: Wow, that was so nice for them. It was really nice for you to pay for them to be on a boat.

Dan: So, hopefully, let’s see, it’s February. I say the end of March would be official release for it. And I’m excited.

Meg: It’s exciting.

Dan: Yeah, it’s fun. It’s like, also, I just like making this stuff and if someone else likes it, that’s bonus. And that’s kind of been my M.O. for a long time now. Just try not to overthink how it’s going to be received and just kind of go with your gut and make it and see what people think and move on to the next thing.

Meg: That’s beautiful and so true. Thank you so much, Dan, for being here today. We love you so much and you’re welcome back anytime. Is there anything else you’d like to promote?

Dan: Oh, gosh, I’d like to promote voting.

Meg: That’s good.

Dan: Yeah. And, you know, thank you so much for having me back. And I’m so happy that you’re hosting Overtime and it lives on and you’re, I just love it. I love the new format. I don’t know how you do it on that schedule. But I love it. It’s so good.

Meg: Thank you. Where can we find you on the internet these days?

Dan: Yeah. So, on the internet, Simplebits.com is my website that’s rarely updated but so @SimpleBits on Twitter and @SimpleBits on Instagram and then a lot of my time now is Advencher Supply Company, which is advencher.co, misspelled. So, hopefully, the show notes will help there. But yeah, I’ve just been making physical products and sort of giving that a whirl too and learning a bunch of things about manufacturing and shipping and just trying some new things and seeing how it works. But that’s where you can find me. And then the Simple Bits show, which is conversations with other creative people. And a little bit of puppet.

Meg: Yes, a little bit of puppet is all you need.

Dan: It’s all you need.

Meg: Mmm.

Meg: Well, that’s it for this week’s episode of overtime. Let’s continue the conversation on the internet with #DribbbleOvertime. And if you love this episode, you know what to do, do the likes and the subscribing, whatever, I don’t know. Whatever you want to do. And don’t forget to tweet or tag me on the internet. I’m @DarnGooood with four O’s. Bye, hear me next week!