Design Table Podcast

Nick Groeneveld, Tyler White
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Design
  • Updated Weekly

Get a seat at the table and build the design career you want. This podcast is for designers looking to break in, level up, and take control of their careers—whether you're freelancing, climbing the corporate ladder, or just trying to get noticed. Every two weeks, we dive into career fundamentals, design best practices, and the hottest topics in the design community.

  1. 4h ago

    How a Product Design Director Uses AI to Explore 10 Ideas At Once

    Design school taught us you should explore before you settle on a solution. In reality, most designers sketch two or three options, pick one, and hope nobody asks about edge cases or anything outside of the 'happy flow'. Now that prototyping is so much more accessible, going wide has never been easier. With that in mind, why are so many designers still designing for that happy flow only? In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick talk about conceptual range and depth: going wide to find better design solutions before going deep one that one solution to bring it up to standard. They take down the "double diamond is dead" takes you read everywhere else and focus on the real day-to-day workflow of a modern product designer. Tyler walks through his full process, step by step. He asks Claude for ten variations of a concept in a single prototype with a toggle to switch between them, shares it live with engineering and product, and narrows down from there. Before making any prototype, he maps the flow and edge cases in FigJam. Then he uses a GitHub connector to check his ideas against the real app, and the Figma agent to turn screenshots into design system-ready files for handoff. Like always, Nick is more reserved. He shares what he learned from the Interface Craft course, why context switching while AI works is exhausting, and the risk of anchoring too hard on the design you already have. On one project, it took a developer with a completely fresh idea to break the team out of weeks of going in circles. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 What range and depth mean and why you need both to land on a good solution🔸 Why engineers now want designers to own edge cases and error states🔸 How Tyler prompts for ten design directions in one clickable prototype🔸 What to do while you wait for AI to build, without burning out on context switching🔸 How to push similar-looking variations further until they become truly different ideas🔸 Why Tyler never skips a journey or flow map in FigJam before prototyping🔸 How a GitHub connector lets you check ideas against the real product and scope what fits in two weeks🔸 How to get a full list of edge cases per screen before engineering has to ask🔸 How the Figma agent turns prototype screenshots into design system ready files for handoff🔸 Why new components still need real pixel pushing and craft🔸 The risk of only improving what already exists, and when to start from scratch🔸 How to apply all of this to last episode's hero section challenge Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld #productdesign #uxdesign #aiprototyping

  2. Oct 7

    The One Way to Get Better at (And Still Enjoy) Product Design When AI Does Half the Work

    Every designer wants sharper craft and better taste. But with the new tools generating close to all of your work, it's tempting to skip the design fundamentals entirely. I mean... who knows anything about gestalt or color theory anymore?! Also, social media is full of hot takes claiming UX is dead and the double diamond is over. None of this or the above helps you to enjoy your job as a Product Designer. Luckily, there's a better way. In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick continue their series on becoming a modern, in-demand product designer with part two: improving your hard skills. They skip the hype and focus on how you get better at the output, whether you like building everything by hand or running 20 directions in parallel. Tyler makes the case for learning the fundamentals the slow way first, so you can art direct the tools instead of just trusting whatever they come up with. He shares how he uses Figma's agent to apply a design system to his mockups, and why talking through a problem with ChatGPT for 30 minutes is part of his discovery. Nick is much more skeptical and explains why reviewing an AI-generated 80% version can be more exhausting than designing it yourself. They also agree on a very boring answer: repetition. Copy the designers you admire, make something every day, and build a playground of experiments that shows off your range. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 Why junior designers need to nail hard skills before leaning on AI tools🔸 What AI design tools still get wrong, from happy path flows to generic styling🔸 Why the journey map is the one step you shouldn't skip🔸 How a branch-and-merge workflow could make code the source of truth for design🔸 Why repetition and daily design challenges still beat every shortcut🔸 Why one to two year goals beat a five year plan🔸 How a playground page with 52 experiments helps you stand out, especially as a freelancer🔸 How Tyler uses Figma's agent to apply components, spacing, and variables from a design system🔸 Why the double diamond isn't dead, it's on steroids🔸 How talking a problem through with ChatGPT turns into personal discovery🔸 How Nick and Tyler's opposite working styles show up everywhere, down to a broken dishwasher🔸 This week's challenge: a portfolio hero section with no centered layout that works in English, Spanish, and German Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

  3. Sep 30

    The Best Way To Get Product Design Experience When You Have None

    Junior product designers know what it is like. To get a job you need experience; and to get experience, you need a job. How do you break free of this annoying circle? The internet is full of generic suggestions that do not really get you anywhere. Luckily, there's a better way. In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick tackle the experience-job circle mentioned above. They skip the tired advice of redesigning a famous website and focus on what gets you real clients, real work, and real proof. Tyler makes the case for doing free work the right way, from pitching local businesses a redesign in exchange for a testimonial to building a home services website before you even reach out. Nick explains why good outreach makes things easier for the other person, and shares the Loom and FigJam combo that gets him a reply almost every time. They also get honest about timelines. Bootcamps promise a new career in weeks. Nick puts it closer to two years and Tyler caps it at one year if you're willing to make sacrifices. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 Why free work in exchange for a testimonial beats another pet project🔸 How to pitch a local business without sounding desperate🔸 Why freelance-style experience translates to in-house roles🔸 What Dan Mall gets right about cold outreach, and why Don't Make Me Think applies to your pitch🔸 How answering an A or B question with option C landed Nick a client🔸 Why building the website before you pitch speeds up the sale and lets you charge more🔸 How offering to do the job until they find someone can make you the person they keep🔸 Why small, unscalable gestures like handmade cookies or a printed portfolio get you remembered🔸 The two-minute Loom that gets Nick a reply and an invite to talk almost every time🔸 Why vibe coded pet projects can hurt your portfolio, and when a playground page still works🔸 How long it really takes to land your first paying design job Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

  4. Sep 23

    Your Product Design Setup - How To Go From Idea To Live Prototype In Just a Few Clicks

    Imagine you found a bug on your client's website. Back in the day, you'd have to get that issue on the agenda and agreed on before even starting to work on it. Today, Nick's website fix went live twelve seconds after he clicked 'sync', and the whole setup costs about twenty-five dollars a month. In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick kick off a ten-episode series on how to become a modern, in-demand product designer. They start with the foundation: setting up an environment that helps you get an idea off the ground and into a working prototype fast. It is a modern product designer's way of doing things now. Tyler explains how connecting analytics tools through MCPs gets you a project baseline the same day, and Nick shares why faster data still means you have to think about whether it's the right data. They also break down how designers can capture and act on ideas, from Nick's Granola and Zapier pipeline that scores every meeting red, orange, or green to Tyler's scheduled Claude recaps that catch what he missed in Slack and Jira. Nick closes out with the exact hosting, GitHub, and Claude setup he uses to push changes live. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 Why connecting analytics through MCPs cuts your baseline research from weeks to a single day🔸 Why faster access to data doesn't help if you're filtering it wrong🔸 What a funnel actually is and how it overlaps with a customer journey🔸 How to match your design to a buyer's mindset so you don't spook them or oversell🔸 How Nick vibe coded a baby tracker for his newborn twins, and why every designer needs a setup that turns an idea into a link in minutes🔸 How to capture ideas automatically with Granola, Zapier, and Slack🔸 How Tyler uses scheduled Claude runs for a daily catch-up, a weekly recap, and one-click vibe coding prompts for open design tasks🔸 The exact stack Nick runs: hosting, GitHub, VS Code, and Claude, plus why Claude Pro is enough to start🔸 Why you still need to learn the rules of design before you can break them Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

  5. Sep 16

    The Business Side Of Freelancing - How Nick Prices, Gets Paid, and Builds A Buffer

    Nick's first freelance invoice was for six hundred euros, quoted with a straight face, even though he half expected the client to talk him down. In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick dedicate the full conversation to the business side of freelancing, the part that never makes it into a portfolio case study. Nick walks through how he landed his first clients without ever doing cold outreach, why he said yes to everything for two years before niching down, and the pricing structures he actually uses: fifty-fifty splits, milestone billing, and prepaid hour packages. They also get into the financial mechanics most new freelancers never think about, like paying yourself a fixed monthly salary regardless of what comes in, setting aside fifty percent for taxes, and building a six-to-eight-month buffer before you can call yourself safe. Nick closes out with the exact tech stack he runs his business on, and why he's kept it deliberately boring. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 How Nick landed his first freelance clients without ever doing cold outreach🔸 Why he said yes to everything for two years before niching down to SMBs and early-stage startups🔸 The pricing structures that actually work: fifty-fifty splits, milestones, and prepaid hour packages🔸 How to quote your first project when you have zero pricing reference point🔸 Why Nick pays himself a fixed monthly salary and sets aside fifty percent for taxes🔸 How big your buffer should really be before you can call yourself a safe freelancer🔸 The exact, deliberately boring tech stack Nick runs his freelance business on Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

  6. Sep 9

    Design Quick Fire Round - Job Titles, Email Design, and Why AI Made Us Less Proud Of Our Work

    Nick's biggest newsletter open rate was fifty percent when his list was small. Now that it's grown, he's happy with thirty, and neither of them can fully explain why. In this quick-fire episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick answer a stack of rapid questions on product design and careers, each in under five minutes. They cover why email and newsletter design remains such an underrated skill, why designers keep leaving the field entirely to open restaurants and ninja warrior gyms, and how AI has shifted the job from pushing pixels to writing planning documents and doing discovery work. They also debate the statement "AI has made me faster but less proud of what I create," argue over whether job titles actually matter, and swap their favorite misconceptions people have about product design, before Tyler explains why he's stopped justifying his design decisions to stakeholders altogether. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 Why email design is underrated, and how newsletter design differs for personal brands versus enterprise brands🔸 What it means when your open rate drops as your list grows, and why click-through rate might matter more🔸 Why some designers are leaving tech entirely to open restaurants and gyms, and what carries over with them🔸 How AI has shifted design work from pushing pixels to planning and discovery🔸 Whether "AI made me faster but less proud of what I create" is a fair trade🔸 Why job titles matter more for a freelancer's SEO than for an in-house designer's ego🔸 Why Tyler doesn't explain his design decisions unless he's pushed on it, and why that works Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

  7. Sep 2

    Product Design Money Talk - How To Go From $50 To $95 An Hour Doing The Same Work

    Nick's first freelance client paid him fifty dollars an hour. He said 'yes' before he  knew what the market rate was, and it turned out to be exactly the right way to find out. In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick spend the whole episode on money, salaries, hourly rates, and how you should ask for more. Tyler walks through the salary research tool that showed him his entire possible career path and the forty thousand dollar salary he thought he would happily live on forever. Nick breaks down the raise that took him from 2500 EUR/month to 4000 EUR/month, and the freelance pricing strategy that pushed his average hourly rate from 50 USD up past 95 USD just by raising the number with every new client until the rejections started piling up. They also get into the LinkedIn open to work banner and why neither of them will turn it on, the case for and against salary transparency laws, and the three times revenue framework Tyler uses to justify asking for a raise with actual numbers instead of a feeling. In this episode you will learn:🔸 The salary research tool that mapped out an entire career path before Tyler ever got a job🔸 Why having a job already makes salary negotiation dramatically easier🔸 The real reason job hoppers usually out earn people who stay in one role🔸 Why neither host will turn on the LinkedIn open to work banner🔸 The three times revenue framework for justifying a raise with numbers, not feelings🔸 How Nick raised his freelance hourly rate from fifty dollars to ninety five using rejection rate as a signal 🔸 What actually happens once salary transparency becomes required by law Chapters:0:00 Deciding to make an entire episode about money1:18 What this episode will cover, salary and hourly rate negotiation1:40 Tylers early mindset, just wanting to make forty thousand a year doing art2:48 The salary tool that mapped out an entire career path4:04 Whether the tool actually matched reality4:44 The three times revenue framework for what an employee should be worth5:15 Why it depends factors make salary numbers online unreliable6:30 Why job hoppers usually out earn people who stay put7:24 Why having a job already makes negotiating easier8:00 The LinkedIn open to work banner and why neither host uses it9:26 Saying you have other interviews lined up, even when you do not 10:21 Nicks raise from a hundred euros a month to eight hundred11:43 Going from twenty five hundred to four thousand euros a month 12:58 Using Glassdoor to benchmark a salary band before applying 13:26 The new salary transparency law and whether it helps employees 14:46 Why recruiters get more cautious once salaries are public16:14 A friend who threatened to quit over a pay gap and won17:16 The three times revenue framework for asking for a raise18:33 The one caveat before you push for more money19:06 How Nick started freelancing at fifty dollars an hour20:27 Raising the rate with every new client until rejections start21:41 Using rejection rate as the signal that you found your ceiling22:08 Saying yes to everything at first, then learning to say no23:59 Final thoughts on treating money like part of the craft Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

  8. Aug 26

    I Got Fired Over Christmas And Nobody Told Me - Product Design Horror Stories

    In 2015, Nick drove to an interview in his moms car. Three minutes in, the hiring manager told him he would never make it as a designer. 10 Years later, he loses his product design job over Christmas. And that's just the start... In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick share the worst moments of their careers so far. Nick gets torn apart in his first ever interview, prints a batch of flyers that come back the wrong color (because nobody told him about RGB and CMYK), and takes on a small favor for a client that turns into a project so big it costs him two clients. In the meantime, Tyler gets thrown into a print job with zero training, discovers his own company was quietly interviewing outside UX agencies behind his back, and gets let go about a month later. Nick turns down a request to fly to Asia for work, gets let go over the Christmas break, and finds out because nobody bothered to tell him. They weren't bad at their job (is what they're telling each other). Sometimes it is just not the right fit, for either side, and the only way to find that out is to live through it. In this episode you will learn:🔸 Why RGB and CMYK color spaces catch almost every designer off guard the first time they print something🔸 The scope creep mistake that can cost a freelancer a client, or two🔸 How to notice the warning signs that a company is quietly replacing you🔸 Why a job can end without anyone telling you directly🔸 The real lesson buried in every one of these stories, that not being a fit is not the same as not being good Chapters:0:00 Setting up the horror stories episode0:39 Nicks first ever interview goes wrong in three minutes3:01 The shock of an early career rejection4:01 Tyler gets thrown into a print job with zero training5:52 Tyler admits he still cant do print design today6:46 Why the founders had no budget for a second designer7:00 The flyers that printed orange instead of pink9:28 The lesson that stuck for over ten years9:51 Tylers packaging design job with no test prints allowed11:20 Judging a print run from a blurry iPhone photo12:06 Why print has no undo button13:16 A small client favor that turns into a scope creep disaster15:09 Losing two clients over one miscommunication16:02 The lesson on asking more questions before agreeing to scope 17:01 Why the client relationship has to go both ways18:37 Tyler discovers his company is secretly interviewing outside UX agencies19:35 Finding out through a leaked calendar21:44 Confronting his manager about it directly22:55 Being let go about a month later23:21 Layoffs lining up with review and budget season24:39 Nicks story, turning down a work trip to Asia26:26 Coming back from Christmas break to total silence26:52 Finding out he was let go through a different manager entirely 28:18 The real takeaway, horror stories are what build great designers 29:29 Final takeaway, not being a fit goes both ways Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

See All (67)

About

Get a seat at the table and build the design career you want. This podcast is for designers looking to break in, level up, and take control of their careers—whether you're freelancing, climbing the corporate ladder, or just trying to get noticed. Every two weeks, we dive into career fundamentals, design best practices, and the hottest topics in the design community.

Information

  • Creator
    Nick Groeneveld, Tyler White
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    67
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Nick Groeneveld, Tyler White
  • Show Website
    Design Table Podcast

You Might Also Like