A76 | a design pod

In May of 2021, the iceberg that would become A76 calved off an ice shelf in Antarctica. Spotted by Keith Makinson, a polar oceanographer, he estimated it to be over 100 miles long and 16 miles wide, one of the largest icebergs in history, more square mileage then Rhode Island. Eventually it broke into 3 separate icebergs that are still floating out there in a vast sea of ice. My guess is you’ve never heard of A76 and maybe you’re even thinking to yourself why should I care?
My name is Noel Childs and I’m curious about the surprising connections to hidden aspects of our world. And although I’ve been designing for nearly 30 years, I’ve recently felt the proverbial earth under the design industry shift. A subtle, but unprecedented movement of hyperobjects. Much more then trend. End of a golden age of smart usability. A nascent era beginning.
I created A76 to synthesize these connections and speculate on the future of design. And get into important topics like ethics, diversity, technology in design and climate crisis.
And this first season is all about an established design process that seems at odds with a tech very much in the zeitgeist right now – the Double Diamond design model and AI. Hosted by myself and friend and colleague Casey Hudetz.
A76 and a season of AI. Coming Soon.

A76 was created by Noel Childs
Season 2 on Change is produced by Noel Childs
Season 1 on AI was produced by Casey Hudetz and Noel Childs
Our theme music was composed and performed by Stella Solveig
and mixed and mastered by Abbey Nettleton

If you like what you hear, please give us a rating.
Have a question or comment, email [email protected]

The British Design Council codified the Double Diamond model in 2005. If you’re not familiar with the Double Diamond Model, it’s a visual model that interprets the design process represented by 2 diamonds. First one is all about Discovery and Research. Second one is all about design and testing.
There are many articles written about it and many takes. We’ll break down the details and unpack it here. Chances are even if you’ve never heard of it and you’re a designer, this is your approach already. Google it and you can see the many visualizations.
Back to that British Design Council; their intention was to research how designers, well design. And they took a look at all kinds of designers with different backgrounds and mediums and this is what they came up with. But the fact of the matter is, designers have been approaching problem solving and creativity this way for arguably hundreds of years; and in some ways humanity as a whole, going all the way back to those iterations of hand tools thousands of years ago, that have been discovered. We create. We progress. Test. Iterate. The fact is, we all live this model.
But recently, I’ve been feeling an industry shift. You could say it started with the recent pandemic forcing changes in the way we live and work, but I think it was shifting way before that. I’ve created A76 to discuss this shift and speculate on the future of design. And talk about complicated topics that need to be unpacked.
Why did I feel compelled to create A76? To be fair, I prefer doing over talking. I love designing, managing design teams and solving problems with my clients. But this has all brought me forward and my criteria for this podcast; take a thorny subject that has threads to this shift, find a co-host that’s brave enough to get into it with me and have discussions with experts that will help unravel, clarify and find a road forward.
And this first season is all about a technology that feels like its playing by different rules and very much in the design zeitgeist right now, and that’s AI. And for this season, we’ll bounce the double diamond model up against AI and explore its continued relevance in this changing era.
And with me to co-host the first season of AI, is Casey Hudetz. Casey has been interested in how AI can enhance and impact the field of design for the better half of a decade. He has given talks around the world on the topic, created a docuseries and is currently a product design manager at DocuSign where he oversees a team of designers focused on the company's AI efforts.

A76 was created by Noel Childs
Season 2 on Change is produced by Noel Childs
Season 1 on AI was produced by Casey Hudetz and Noel Childs
Our theme music was composed and performed by Stella Solveig
and mixed and mastered by Abbey Nettleton

If you like what you hear, please give us a rating.
Have a question or comment, email [email protected]

In today’s pod we talk to Mick Champayne, a senior visual designer at Google by day who moonlights as an illustrator. She loves navel-gazing about the future, especially how designers can support people’s values and intentions. With AI coming at us at warp speed, the implications for both design and illustration are far-reaching, but she's actively working on shifting her mindset from, in her own words, “it’s all over” to “hey, things could be pretty cool."

Our discussion covers Mick’s views on generative AI, content creation and whether or not it will make the illustration industry obsolete. We cover what happened when Casey feed Mick’s illustration style into an AI model. Mick proposes how a positive optimization mindset has huge ramifications. We discuss the homogenous sci-fi plasticity of existing text to image creations. We get into the critical discussion of ethics, IP and critical copyright legal issues. And discuss the end of the “move fast and break things” era. Finally we discuss how Mick embraced her own unique pov to unlock more opportunity.

We end the discussion with how AI is bringing forward a critical discussion around humanity and necessary changes in our society. And the critical responsibility designers have to spearhead and embrace that change. Mick discusses her design practice at Google, getting better at prompting, and the power of collective ideation empowered by AI.
Reference:
Mick Champayne site and illustrations
AI generated illustrations in style of Mick

A76 was created by Noel Childs
Season 2 on Change is produced by Noel Childs
Season 1 on AI was produced by Casey Hudetz and Noel Childs
Our theme music was composed and performed by Stella Solveig
and mixed and mastered by Abbey Nettleton

If you like what you hear, please give us a rating.
Have a question or comment, email [email protected]

In this pod we talk to Andreas Refsgaard an artist and creative coder based in Copenhagen. Working in the field between art and interaction design he uses coding and machine learning to explore the creative potentials of emerging digital technologies. By connecting inputs and outputs in unconventional ways, Andreas allows people to experiment, interact and have fun with algorithms.
We discuss his origin story, leveraging machine learning for accessibility, the randomness and humor of AI, and asking big societal questions while focusing on personal strengths. Andreas talks about asking ChatGPT to come up with new creative ideas, tickling yourself, the poetry of chest hair and the quirkiness of his meme generator projects.
Finally, we wrap-up the discussion talking about a crowd-sourced AI game idea and reworking old projects with new tech.
Reference:
Andreas Refsgaard's Projects

A76 was created by Noel Childs
Season 2 on Change is produced by Noel Childs
Season 1 on AI was produced by Casey Hudetz and Noel Childs
Our theme music was composed and performed by Stella Solveig
and mixed and mastered by Abbey Nettleton

If you like what you hear, please give us a rating.
Have a question or comment, email [email protected]

Gavin Lew has decades of experience in both corporate and academic environments, as well as founding and selling one of the largest UX firms in the US. He’s a faculty member of the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and adjunct professor at DePaul. A frequent presenter at national and international conferences and the inventor of several patents, Gavin is also the author of the fascinating book – AI and UX; Why Artificial Intelligence Needs User Experience.

As UX designers and researchers, we discuss how we all ended up here, what unique role UX can play in AI, crack open Gavin's book and discuss where this is all headed. He's a visionary thinker, an expert in his field, and a true advocate for the potential of AI infused with brilliant UX thinking.

A76 was created by Noel Childs
Season 2 on Change is produced by Noel Childs
Season 1 on AI was produced by Casey Hudetz and Noel Childs
Our theme music was composed and performed by Stella Solveig
and mixed and mastered by Abbey Nettleton

If you like what you hear, please give us a rating.
Have a question or comment, email [email protected]