Feature Friday #014 is here, and it’s a throwback interview with our old friend Gerren Lamson. The best place to keep up with Gerren’s incredible output is his website. Shop his full catalog at Nosmal or his Cotton Bureau collection here.

Dude, I can’t believe it’s been 13+ years since we met at SXSW. Feels like (and is) a completely different world. Can you give us all just a super quick review on what you’re up to these days?

Yeah, it has been a long time! Last time we met I was close to wrapping up my time in digital marketing and advertising agencies before venturing into a tech startup called Creative Market which was acquired by Autodesk and then Dribbble in the last few years.

These days, I lead a talented UX team at Indeed consisting of UX designers, content designers, UX researchers, and UX developers. Our group works on the employer experiences side of the marketplace, and we support product experiences such as: Indeed Hire, Hiring Events, Indeed Recruiter Extension, Scheduling & Interviewing Platforms, Generative AI, and more.

Throughout that journey of learning how to grow an effective UX team and practice in different tech settings, I kept my creative hobbies alive with side projects.

Let’s talk about some of those side projects. You’ve got a UX newsletter, an active Medium publication, multiple musical albums, and hundreds of physical and digital products. We’re not as young as we used to be. I know I don’t get home from work these days excited to hop back on the computer to put in more hours. What makes you want to take on that additional load?

When you put it that way, it definitely doesn't make sense to work on computer-based side projects after a day job in tech. I don't recommend 12 hour days on a laptop. Let me provide some clarity.

My UX newsletter is a self-prescribed requirement for my job. I spend 1/8 of my time each week reading about changes to the UX industry of which there have been a lot lately. Then, I share the best of what I consumed with others with minimal effort. I haven't written about my experiences and perspectives as much as I'd like, but I've managed to publish 2 articles during my 5 year tenure at Indeed. Hopefully there will be more to come.

The technical nature of my day job leaves some creative itches to scratch. This is where I sometimes put an additional load on myself to invest in my music and visual art practices which have been going on since the early 2000s. For me, these art forms are like a meditative or therapeutic practice, so it doesn't feel like a heavy additional load if I have to spend some time digitizing my work.

There are recurring seasons such as summer and winter where I return to producing music and physical art organically. A lot of the time it starts with physical work such as noodling on the piano or sketching out some ideas. Then I translate it digitally during dedicated time on weekends or during the holidays. This approach takes longer than doing creative work full time, but I end up with a smaller body of work that I'm proud of over the years.

Got it. That completely makes sense. Still, that’s a tremendous amount of output and something to be proud of, particularly if it feels sustainable or even restorative for you. Since you mentioned work, let’s linger on that for a minute. What has the transition from designer to director been like for you?

That's a great question. Guiding the work of others rather than doing it myself wasn't natural at first. The transition took time.

I had two direct reports as a first time manager. There was a surplus of UX work so I continued pitching in as a designer as needed. The drawbacks of being in a "player/coach role" were that there was less focus on building good manager skills and contributing at the leadership level on strategy, staffing and other topics.

When the size of the UX team started to scale up, I had more time to focus on growing my management skills and impact at the leadership level. Over time, I got focused on supporting how the UX team could impact the strategy and initiatives at the ground and high levels of the organization. That became the most important work and I still really enjoy it to this day.

From conversations we had in person nearly 15 years ago, I could tell you had a strong analytical side which is not something you always see in designers. Has that been an asset for you as you lead teams?

Thanks for the kind words! I do think it has been an asset in my career.

I'm not a trained quantitative UX researcher, behavioral scientist, or data/product scientist, but I understand a lot of their work. I've pushed for closer collaboration with UX functions (design, content, research, etc). I've also dabbled with general analysis on customer sentiment and behavior data at the high-level and taskflow levels of the business for my own understanding. I leave the scientific analytical work to the professionals.

Being analytical with quant data and qual insights is an important skillset. I keep returning to prompting the UX team to think about how to leverage quant behavior data and qualitative insights to tell compelling stories focused on the most important customer behaviors. UX teams can tell more effective stories by pairing them with analysis and facts instead of just trying to influence with data analysis alone.

It’s definitely not uncommon to see people move from technical or design-focused roles and more into management as they move through their careers. Have their been any specific resources on the management or UX side that you would highlight for people who are trying to add those skills?

Absolutely. For those just starting out in UX management or looking to improve, I would recommend these:

• Making of a Manager
• Radical Candor
• Org Design for Design Orgs
• User Experience Management
• Move Fast and Fix Things

If someone is trying to improve their coaching of others or their own abilities, I would recommend the following short list for UX skills on the strategic side of the discipline.

• Jobs To Be Done
• User Story Mapping
• Conversational Design
• Strategic Content Design
• Storytelling for User Experience
• Designing Human-Centric AI Experiences
• This Is Service Design Doing
• The Path to Senior Designer

That’s a fantastic list. Radical Candor and Jobs to be Done are two of my personal favorites.

Before we wrap up, I have to ask the single question I’m most curious about in 2024. Where do you see tool-assisted design — specially AI generated — moving in the near future? As someone who has worked in the past for companies who provide marketplaces for buying and selling art, how concerned are you about the space?

Good question. I'll give my answer in 2 parts:

1) I think that policies (or the lack thereof) will be a driving force for adoption (or not) of AI tools that accelerate someone's ability to create production-ready designs/art. Users can pick up and use any AI tools, but it'll come down to the businesses that the users submit the art into being able to detect and allow (or not) AI-created work if it wasn't generated by their tool where they can control the inputs/IP into their AI models. A big factor here will be the risk tolerance for litigation and the level of control that organizations have over their creators' content generated and/or enhanced by AI. It'll be tough for companies to control users' behavior with AI, let alone detect where non-owned AI model capabilities are being used. So, policies will be the thing to watch. I assume Marketplaces will take a conservative approach.

2) From a design perspective, I think we'll continue to see a slow evolution and adoption of AI being used to generate and enhance design. Companies such as Adobe who can clearly demonstrate rights-free AI generated content from their models that were built by their owned IP will potentially give them an advantage. I think we'll see more current or new design-focused companies trying to tackle sub-problems in the market if the TAM is big enough, such as the following:

• Getting better at generating higher quality visuals that have tasteful intention and meaning behind them (esp in the context of the relevant culture(s) of the intended audience)
• Giving more fine-tuned controls to balance the design from a visual vs. mathematical perspective
• Improving automatic preparation for print-ready production such as outlining vector strokes/type, positioning layers, etc. for the intended print format

Let’s get out of here on a design note. You’ve got a deep catalog of products for Nosmal. Can you tell us a little bit more about the origin of that idea, where you see it going in the future, and maybe highlight a few products that you like best?

Sure! The name Nosmal is a fun play on my last name — Lamson spelled backwards. The origin of the project is that it is the latest evolution of the space I make for myself to experiment with visual design. To be honest, I'm not sure where it might go in the future. I'd like to think that my best work is yet to come.

In terms of my current products, I can share some highlights. I started playing with Bauhaus stylings which I quite enjoyed. Designs like Geometria I Gold and Geometria II Midday were like fun puzzles to arrange until they looked balanced. I was happy with how they translated to iPhone case designs too such as Geometria I Midday and Geometria II Sunrise.

A lot of my work starts with drawing, and I've always been interested in finding a way to bridge physical and digital art mediums. Some of my earliest pieces, Gaggle of Triangles and The Commander, were abstract drawings that were combined with a gradient which was inspired by my experience in screen printing the "rainbow roll" effective. Other times, I've got a more specific subject in mind such Ode to 512 and Maker's Heart I Gold.

Thank you so much for your time and insight, Gerren. Keep up the great work!

Thanks for having me!

Oh hello again! Here we go with Feature Friday #013! Today we get to hear about Josh Gibson, travel extraordinaire. You can find Josh on Instagram, his website or shop his Cotton Bureau collection here.

Hey Josh! How's life? Any recent trips you want to share?

Life is good! Fall is in full swing here in Virginia so it's my favorite time of year.

Yes! I just travelled with my wife and three kids to California for a couple weeks this summer, hitting up a few new-to-us spots as well as some old favorites. We visited Yosemite National Park for the first time and thanks to record snowfall and melt,got to see the waterfalls three times larger than recent years, hiked, and rock climbed. Then we explored the Big Sur coast for a few days and revisited the spot where we got married 18 years ago (Santa Barbara). Then we spent a few days in San Francisco exploring the city and doing all the ultra-touristy things before heading back to the east coast.

Wow that's amazing. Ultra touristy is fun! I took a similar trip a few years ago and have been itching to go back. Half Dome was the highlight for me but if Vernal and Nevada Falls had been three times the size I think that would've taken the cake.

What were the kids favorite parts? Did you check out Alcatraz? See any famous climbers on El Cap? Should we just talk about Yosemite the entire interview? Jk... sort of.

I think Vernal and Nevada were the faves as far as waterfalls go. The volume was so intense that there really was no mist...it was more like battering rain the entire time and everyone was dripping for miles longer than normal. Raincoats helped very little and it was FREEZING. Really cool experience and daunting to watch that much water go over the top!

Their favorite thing overall was probably climbing at Swan Slab. They went well above the tree lines and I loved watching our fellow park goers admiring them from below like they were pros. But they are not pros, and no way, I didn't let them near El Cap! I am not a climber so I spent that day fly fishing the Merced.

Yes, we did get to check out Alcatraz...the night tour! It was definitely creepy and I prepped the kids by showing them movies and YouTube videos about Alcatraz history and lore, so I think they enjoyed it. There is so much to do in California and we just saw a small sliver so I hope to go back at some point. Since a large segment of my design output involves public lands, natural areas, and outdoor activities in general, it was a great inspirational trip as well

Oh my gosh I can't even imagine. That much water would be intense. Sounds like it was a spectacular trip for all of you, I feel like that's what core memories are made of.

Loving the opportunity to segue here into some art questions. Many of your designs depict as you mentioned public lands, natural areas, and outdoor activities. Have you been to all of the places you illustrate? And what's your creative process like. Do you photograph the places and start creating when you get home? Just go off of memory? Whip out a pen and paper on the trail? I'd love a glimpse of start to finish what typically happens when you come up with an idea.

Sadly I have not been EVERYWHERE but have been to most. I interned for a season in Yellowstone and I think my appreciation for Americas Best Idea started there.

When it's a place I'm visiting, I almost always get started designing that day. My discovery of Apple Pencil, iPad Pro and Procreate fundamentally changed my design process for the better about 5 years ago. Now I travel with them (and my MacBook) everywhere. Most of my ideas go nowhere, but I have found that getting started right away and then putting on the finishing touches after I travel yields the best results. And yes, most is based off of photos I've taken, edited, and combined to create the best composition. Creative embellishments, like creating a super dramatic sky that didn't exist in the photo, it one of the most fun parts.

The process for creating T-shirt designs differs from commemorative posters in that I try to make merch much simpler and less painting-like. I like vintage style tees and even though very little of what I do gets screen printed anymore, I avoid gradients and dozens of colors, and I use negative space so that most of my stuff still looks screen printed.

Oh wow really cool, I haven't seen Americas Best Idea but I'm intrigued, I'll check it out.

Do you enjoy photography as well? Or are you taking pictures more for memories sake/inspiration later on. The embellishments sounds like it would be a really cool part of the process. I just got back from a trip to the smokies and found myself wishing there were more red trees in my photos. It would be cool if I was talented enough to just add them in myself. If I was I'd maybe sneak a bear or two in there as well lol.

I guess I meant that "best idea" quote as referring to the national parks themselves, I forgot about the documentary. But you should definitely watch that, it's great!

I have a decent camera but photography is a means to an end for me, i don't real have the eye of a professional.

I love the Smokies! It is the most visited park since it's near Dollywood and Gatlinburg but no one ever gets out of their car, so if you go for a hike you have most trails to yourself.

And with the new AI updates to Photoshop you can add in all the red trees you want! I am actually kidding, the only experimentation I have done with that new photoshop AI (called "generative fill") has yielded nightmare results. I mean really weird stuff. Im sure that will improve and get better though, probably pretty rapidly.

Yesss you're so right! I was actually nervous because there was so much traffic but as soon as we got out to start hiking everyone disappeared. I really enjoyed the park overall. Do you have a favorite place you've visited? Or even a least favorite?

I may check out the generative fill. As the ultimate photoshop amateur it feels out of my league but we'll see. Personally the whole AI thing scares me. What are your thoughts? Helpful? Risky? Just a phase?

My favorite place I've visited is probably the Big Sur coast. There's nothing like it and there are usually so few people there sometimes that it feels like a different world. I'd go every year if I could. I also love Costa Rica. Have visited a couple times and there are so many things to see and do in one country, it's a great visit every time. And the people are so friendly.

I feel like AI manipulation of photos and art is definitely not just a phase. There are SO many designers I know or follow on socials who are leading boycotts or rallying the troops to stop it, but that's a tough battle to win. It is moving rapidly but I am trying my best to stay up on the goings on. I do not think true, original design and branding can ever be completely replaced by AI.

Sure, if someone wants a super cheap logo and isn't at all picky, an AI-generated design may save them the $25 they'd otherwise be spending on Fiverr. But I think if we get to a point where AI can truly understand the nuances of what humans get from art and design and can create real art with real value, or generate good visual branding, then we are at Skynet level anyway and AI images are the least of our problems.

Right now I see it as a really convenient way to explore different art styles and disciplines and I am trying my best to figure out good ways to use it for ideas and inspiration, since it's probably here to stay.

Aaah Big Sur is beeeautiful and I've heard great things about Costa Rica. It's possible I'm actually using these interviews to create a travel wish list lol so thanks for the recs.

AI art has got to be a pretty stressful as a designer, not surprised there are boycotts going on. It seems like a pretty slippery slope to me but who knows, maybe something good will come of it and using it for inspiration sounds like a great way to make the best of it for now.

Well hey, let's wrap this up here. It was a blast talking with you, Josh! Can't wait to see where you're headed next.

First up for the new year, our fourth unique on demand product: totes. When the big blizzard looms and you need to haul cans of chicken noodle soup, there’s nothing better than a high quality cotton canvas bag. Same sturdy OAD totes we’ve used for years, now available on demand from Cotton Bureau in black and natural.

Head over to the submit design page to show us what you can do. We’ll be sharing our favorite tote designs all month long.

Just a heads up, for natural-colored totes, any white ink in your design will become transparent. Light colors may also be slightly darker than expected. Last thing, cyan and magenta lose some vibrancy when printed on totes. If your design depends heavily on those colors, it may be more muted in person than you see here.

The bags measure 15" wide by 16" tall. Maximum print size is 10" ⅹ 12".

It might be cold and snowy outside, but Cotton Bureau hats are evergreen. No, literally, we now have three hats in a new forest color.

Joining black, charcoal, natural, white, navy, royal, light blue, and red, we’re pleased to make the unstructured dad hat, premium wool-blended snapback, and mesh-paneled trucker cap available in forest.

If this is the color you’ve been waiting for, green means go ahead and do it.

Well hey there, here we are with Feature Friday #012! Today is all about Maria Tina Beddia. You can catch up with Maria on her website and Instagram or track her down at Maria's Bread Sandwiches.

Hiya! We're going to do this interview a little bit different and see how it goes! We'll call it rapid fire and I'll hit you with all 5 questions at once. Let's get started...

Pleeease tell us all about Maria's Bread Sandwiches. Is this a Covid Sourdough Experiment turns full on Passion Project situation? Have you always been the most talented person ever? Do you find yourself drooling all day every day being around so much delicious food? We need to know more. I guess I'm specifically asking how you got started but feel free to share it all.

Maria’s Bread Sandwiches came about when my husband and I were living in South Philly talking about what we wanted to eat for lunch one day. I was describing the kind of sandwich I wanted. “I don’t want a cheesesteak. I don’t want a hoagie. I don’t want a 5lb sandwich. I want a bread sandwich! Like from childhood! I don’t want to feel like I need to take a nap after eating.” “Maria’s Bread Sandwiches would be a great name for a sandwich shop!” said my husband. I was like, no one will get it. That’s the point! He said. Haha It doesn’t need to make sense but it will stand out and so Maria’s Bread Sandwiches was born.
It was actually over the pandemic that we moved to New Jersey and spotted a cute little shop on the main avenue of our town of Collingswood. The owners were changing careers at that point and we had told ourselves that if it ever became available, we’d have to do it. Once we found out they were moving on, we made it official. Full disclosure: my husband is a chef! So I’m very lucky in that regard. He’s been working in the Philly food scene for like 20 years so he’s very talented to say the least. We had never gone into business with each other but felt like we had these skills that would make it extra special. I got to work on the branding and interior design, paint murals, pick bright fun colors for the building while he crafted a menu full of comfort foods that we both loved. We actually just celebrated our 2nd Anniversary so I’d say we’re doing pretty good!

I don't want to be too controversial here but it feels like you're the right person to ask... how do you feel about cheddar cheese on apple pie? Have you tried it? I just can't seem to take the risk. If I have a piece of apple pie in front of me it just feels wrong to add anything other than cinnamon ice cream. What do you think? From the short bit of Googling I Just did it looks like this idea originally came from England, jury is still out on if it should've stayed there or not.

Alright, I’m a BIG cheese person. Stinky, gooey, aged…love it all. Keep it off my pie. It’s that simple. I’m not into it and ESPECIALLY cheddar. Cheddar is delicious to eat when it’s cut up in cubes on a cheeseboard but once it’s melted, yawn. I’m going to sound controversial myself but I swear, once it’s melted, it loses all flavor. Doesn’t do it for me on a burger or nachos. Give me some American, Cooper sharp, munster, Colby jack…I’m telling you, I love cheese. Haha

You've sold quite a few shirts on Cotton Bureau with Philly sports designs. Would you consider yourself a sports enthusiast? Have you always been a Phillies and Eagles fan?

This is funny because I’m not really a sports person. Don’t yell at me! That’s actually why I created these shirts. I felt like everything I saw out there was for such diehard fans and I’m thinking, what about me? I love this city and I love the enthusiasm but I don’t want to be a walking NFL billboard. Everything I saw was too corporate and not playful at all. All the women’s stuff is pale pink (blah) and I just felt there was a huge gap in it all. I want it to be for all of Philadelphia, not just the people that know sports stats.

I couldn't help but notice a sweet pupper making appearances in your Instagram posts. Who is this adorable fur child?

I actually have two dogs. Bruce (Springsteen) and Willie (Nelson). They are best friends and make my life so much more entertaining. Bruce is a little terrier mutt that made his way to Philly from a kill shelter in Georgia. He’s our southern gentleman. And willie is the chillest dog in the world. He’s a miniature Labradoodle. We adopted him when he was 5 months old. The very first night at our house, we had a party and literally walked to the middle of the room, laid down and fell asleep. We assumed he had something wrong with him and would be dead in a month because what kind of puppy acts like that when there’s a party going on around him? But he’s still going strong at 9 years old!

Lastly, if you got to pick a question for the next designer interview, what would you ask?

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. Everything is so digital now. I think about it and wonder if the pencil will be completely useless in my lifetime. But the question is do you prefer pencil and paper to the digital drawing pads or vice versa? It kind of freaks me out that mistakes can just disappear instantly. Like did it even happen? What does that do to us creatively? We’re not living with our mistakes anymore and that is very weird to me. Sorry, that’s a deep one. I personally absolutely love my pencils and pens and PAPER. But once I draw something how I like it, I do still scan in to colorize and clean up. So who knows.

And that's a wrap! Check out Maria's latest product below and use coupon code MARIAFF for 15% off any of her Cotton Bureau designs.