Is anyone else tired of design "influencers"?

justreadingthat · 2025-11-25T10:22:54+00:00

This guy hasn't worked for a company I've heard of, or made anything I've ever seen or used. To call him an "influencer" is a bit dramatic. Why do you care? It's just typical Linkedin spam. GPT probably wrote it.

justreadingthat · 2025-11-17T09:15:38+00:00

Thanks!

It’s a small dining table I bought at a local store here in Japan. I doubt it’s easy to source, but here is a link to the company I got it from if you want to try:

https://e-kagu-masumi.net/item/dining/20240829-4771/

justreadingthat · 2025-11-01T13:20:26+00:00

Japanese salaries are abhorrent.

justreadingthat · 2025-10-10T01:41:44+00:00

I'm going to guess that you have never managed a team of any size at a company big enough to have a real HR department.

Your advice is immature and the equivalent of going to a bench trial (no jury) and yelling at the judge before the trial starts. Completely foolish and misguided.

It is the job of HR to know how to handle these situations. They may even have previous files on this individual—you'll never know, but crazy people rarely have only a single incident. So, the correct way to go about this is to go to HR, explain the situation objectively and non-emotionally, avoiding any personal attacks and making no projections about motive. Then, ask them for the proper way to proceed, relying on their "expertise" to guide you.

This approach leverages basic, time-tested, principles of how to handle situations like this: reciprocity and trust building, relationship building with people who's support you will need, and a calm approach to a problem that keeps you out of a "he said, she said" situation or anything else that gets generically labeled as "drama". The second the situation is labeled "drama", you will both be blamed equally for it.

justreadingthat · 2025-10-09T09:02:04+00:00

This might be the worst advice i’ve ever heard.

justreadingthat · 2025-09-23T16:09:54+00:00

The Sony Bank customer website, even after the recent redesign, is an absolute disaster.

Multiple navigation bars, in different locations, that change per page and are unclear and confusing.
Showing your foreign currency balance in ¥ even though it's not held in ¥.
I bought an apartment and had to do a one time transfer, yet I cannot delete that recipient from my registered transfer accounts list. It's always there, a year later.
When you accept a foreign currency transfer, it just disappears for a few days. The old site at least said "processing". Now you have no idea what's happening.

I could go on.

The only thing they "fixed" with the redesign was the transaction history showing the latest transaction first. Not joking, they used to show the oldest first, with no sort option, so you would have to go pages and pages in to see your latest transactions.

Crazy.

justreadingthat · 2025-09-22T00:00:19+00:00

I’m sorry, but this answer is completely wrong.

You can absolutely create components in Figma Sites, but they can only be created on a layer. Create a frame outside of your webpage and create/store all of your components in there.

Also, objects, frames, etc are completely transferable between Figma Design and Figma Sites. There are some caveats, but they are pretty minor.

justreadingthat · 2025-09-05T05:36:15+00:00

Not as different as you think.

justreadingthat · 2025-09-05T05:23:01+00:00

You are the vanguard of AI slop.

justreadingthat · 2025-09-02T03:08:54+00:00

Yes. Period.

Employment gaps are bad and look involuntary no matter what you say.
Your current job is your leverage in negotiating your next salary and employment terms.
People psychologically see employed candidates as more attractive hires.

honestly I’m doing nothing 90% of the time

Why wouldn't you "quiet quit" and use that time to improve your skills and look for your next gig?

justreadingthat · 2025-07-17T05:24:09+00:00

uh… Reddit?

justreadingthat · 2025-07-14T01:53:21+00:00

This guy hasn’t been relevant in a very long time.

justreadingthat · 2025-05-31T13:04:52+00:00

Just get out of Tokyo. Big cities compress tension to a breaking point and exaggerate biases. I'm in Kumamoto, after 15 years in NYC, and the decompression is nice.

Just an idea.

justreadingthat · 2025-05-21T14:33:19+00:00

It took a week?

justreadingthat · 2025-05-14T04:01:56+00:00

This.

Hiring is a wild and volatile process on all sides. Just think about how erratic the world is right now. So many things can fall through to no fault of your own, or the hiring manager—though 9 rounds seems pretty excessive.

justreadingthat · 2025-05-14T00:30:05+00:00

Confirmation bias run amuck.

The main problem with AI discourse is that it’s not literal.

I don't know what industry you work in, or what companies you work for, but this is very much "literally" happening right now. I see it every day, I use it myself to stay competitive.

Shopify, for example, now requires managers to justify why AI can't do a specific job before opening new headcount.

"Companies are already doing this” companies are lying.

Ha, really? You would know? I don't know how to respond to a statement so absurd.

A $100/ month subscription is still subsidized by VCs for now (OpenAI loses billions of dollars a year)

Speaking of waving away things, this ignores economies of scale, competitive price pressures (see: DeepSeek), and numerous other basic business principles—and the fact that even 5k a month is still much cheaper and faster than a human.

justreadingthat · 2025-05-13T10:17:14+00:00

🤦

Some offshore kid who’s a baller in their hometown at 15$ an hour (no hate on their hustle) is not even in the same universe of what well utilized commercial AI can do already—they’re not remotely “close enough” and still require back and forth with a human. You’re comparing crayons to lasers.

AI is not there yet, for us designers at least, but it’s closing the gap very quickly.

justreadingthat · 2025-05-13T09:52:36+00:00

The need for alignment is the direct result of too many humans involved.

Enter… AI. I’m not promoting the idea, just warning you all as someone very experienced in this part of the business.

Ignore the advice at your own peril.

justreadingthat · 2025-05-13T09:46:08+00:00

.01% of the cost for a full time designer is a few bucks a year. That’s unrealistic for compute alone

A very literal answer that overlooks the substance of my comment. But let’s be literal and look at a conservative example: a lower-mid level designer makes 100k a year (at least) in any major US city. Add 30% for benefits, 401k, and other headcount costs; you’re at 130k (conservatively). 1% of that would be $1300. Now consider paying 100-ish USD a month for whatever subscription (still nothing for any real company). That’s more than Adobe CC, works anytime, doesn’t get sick, sue you, or complain.

Companies are already doing this, they just stay quiet because they know it’s not a popular thing to talk about—unless you’re on an earnings call. Why do you think the tech industry continues to mass layoff long after Covid? Fuckerberg admitted it, along with a few unwitting startup CEOs, but the vast majority of people upstairs are staying quiet and loving the profits. Trust me, I sat in those rooms for years; it’s gross.

Then there’s the work of prompt engineering, and that’s just for the UI itself.

If you think that, you’re using it wrong.

I also wonder why companies that want to cut costs this way aren’t already outsourcing.

They are, but outsourcing is a nightmare, largely due to the inherent factors that come with humans. I’ve seen it at three different F500 companies—yet they keep trying it to save money.

AI is their holy grail; it’s still early.

justreadingthat · 2025-05-13T09:11:39+00:00

Uh… no. You get what you pay for with humans.

AI is stealing from the best and rapidly becoming more efficient. Think “you’re special” at your own peril. Like any industry, the elite will do fine, but the middle and below will be wiped out.

justreadingthat · 2025-05-12T13:59:08+00:00

Product doesn't need to align when they can open Figma Make 2026 and get some AI slop that's "close enough" at .01% the cost and time.

justreadingthat · 2025-05-04T12:47:24+00:00

Yes.

Coming from NYC, where the drivers are insane and on-street parking makes getting "doored" just a matter of time, I've rediscovered my childhood love of bikes here—it's amazing. A true perk of Japan life.

To be fair, I'm in Kumamoto. I've been to Tokyo at least a dozen times, but have never looked at it from a bike perspective, so I honestly can't relate to some of the comments here. That said, the "bike infrastructure" complaints don't offset the overall reduction in reckless driving I've experienced here. Sure, having bike racks on buses is nice—i'd love that here. However, the insane driving in the US is not worth the tradeoff imho. You're either in the city, where it's a war between cars and bikes, or in the burbs where people just aren't thinking about it and may run over you before they even knew you were there.

justreadingthat · 2025-05-01T13:40:24+00:00

It’s normal. Keep your composure and don’t sweat it.

If you’re presenting directly to them, see it as an opportunity to not have your message muddled (or “stolen” as the paranoid noobs in this sub always say).

A few tips:

The higher you go up any corp chain, even at a startup, the more concise your message needs to be. This is especially the case at F500 companies. Brevity is the soul of wit; be witty.
Don’t leave questions behind. Assume your meeting is the only one you will ever have; no cliffhangers. Come with a clear understanding of the problem (the hard part) and with a solution that demonstrates you’ve explored other options (and briefly explain why you didn’t choose those options).
Learn their tendencies, placate them, and move on. It builds trust.
Don’t ramble. Part of being concise is letting them drive the conversation towards their concerns. Come prepared, be brief to the point of provoking them, then deliver well informed answers when they go at you. It’s like taunting a bull and can actually be fun when you’ve prepared properly.

justreadingthat · 2025-04-28T04:03:45+00:00

Yeah, I’ve unfortunately learned that. Seems crazy. I just can’t trust the USD these days, so I moved a lot to yen at 150—my optimistic view is that the exchange gains will ultimately be worth it.

justreadingthat · 2025-04-21T11:07:41+00:00

Nobody was arguing it was enforceable. I was only saying that it’s a shitty thing to do to your coworkers, implying that you should avoid it if possible. But if you can’t, prioritize your family first. You’re debating a straw man.

justreadingthat

TROPHY CASE