314: Beauty, Vulnerability, and Doing Things That Matter (feat. Haraldur Thorleifsson)

This week, we catch up with Haraldur Thorleifsson, the founder, CEO, and social media intern at Ueno. In today's conversation, we cover everything from burnout to why designers should be thinking about solving more meaningful problems. We dig into the current and future plans for Ueno, the function of beauty in design, whether Halli wants to be famous, and finding catharsis on Twitter. And as always, we share some cool things like a TV show, a book, and yet-to-be-released physical products.

Follow-up:

Last week, Marshall incorrectly attributed the micro-LED displays to a 2020 iPhone rumor, when in fact, that rumor was meant for the 2020 Apple Watch
A few listener tweets:

Hannah Cunningham is focused on pushing through the last 10%
David Afolayan's interests are aligned with ours (MX Master 3 and finger drumming)
Uhl Albert wants us to weigh in on Android 10 (stay tuned!)

Interview with Haraldur Thorleifsson:

Halli is a good Twitter person. You should follow him.
Halli has joined us twice before:

"44: Everything is a beta"
"69: Epicurrence Live"

For anyone who doesn't know, Ueno is a design agency making work you've likely seen or used before.

Ueno Made the Inc 5000 list of fastest-growing companies in America.

Haus is a small direct-to-consumer brand that has built a strong emotional design language
Video: "Are we the baddies?"
Halli has recently changed the tone, transparency, and vulnerability of his personal tweets
Old man rant: People change jobs too frequently + Twitter thread resulting in lots of new points of view and learning
Bueno is a side project for Ueno that is about helping good people do good things
Ueno's new about page is very fun, and includes a great video about the awards photographer.

One Cool Thing:

Marshall shared Songland, a competition show for songwriters to pitch their work to be recorded by established artists

Whoops: It's on NBC, not CBS
Here's a playlist on Spotify and Apple Music

Brian shared the Kollur, a stool that Ueno has begun making, but hasn't finished... yet
Halli shared Educated, a memoir by Tara Westover about her upbringing, coming-of-age, and a journey for knowledge

Design Details on the Web:

We are @designdetailsfm

Brian is @brian_lovin
Marshall is @marshallbock
@Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are

Got a question? Ask it on our Listener Questions Hub, and we'll do our best to answer it on the show :)
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BYEEEEE!