"Design Downtime" celebrates the joys of living a balanced creative life outside the pixels and wireframes.
Join your host, Guy Segal, a design director, on this journey to redefine what it means to be a successful design professional, as each episode features a conversation with a talented design expert, delving into the world beyond their design screens and uncovering the passions that fuel their imagination.
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Get your brush and easel ready as Amy Hupe joins us to share her newfound passion for watercolour painting. She talks about reconnecting with the hobby as an adult when a friend suggested painting together as a distraction, and how she discovered watercolour painting uniquely silenced her normally busy mind. Despite not considering herself naturally artistic or visually creative, Amy appreciates watercolour's forgiving nature - it allows for mistakes and corrections in a way that complements her otherwise perfectionist tendencies, and has become a rare exception where she embraces imperfection and enjoys the process over the result. Guest Bio Amy Hupe (she/her) is a UK based design systems and content design consultant. Over the past 8 years, she's worked on design systems for some of the biggest names around, including GOV.UK, BT, Springer Nature, the BBC and the Wellcome Trust. Whether she’s leading systems work or designing content, Amy works to champion simplicity and inclusion in the face of increasing complexity. Links Amy’s website: https://amyhupe.co.uk/ Amy on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/amyhupe.bsky.social Amy on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@Amy_Hupe@social.design.systems Credits Cover design by Raquel Breternitz.
Grab your controller and get ready to double jump, as Asia Hoe joins us to talk about her love of video games, starting with memories of playing Mario and Donkey Kong between her parents as a child. She discusses how her relationship with gaming evolved from pure childhood immersion to a more analytical adult perspective, and explains how her love for collection-based games matches her perfectionism. Asia highlights her appreciation for indie games, explores her experience developing games at game jams, and touches on the artistic value of video games, arguing that indie games tend to be more artful due to their personal, specific nature. Guest Bio Asia Hoe (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary, award-winning product design leader with over 15 years of expertise in user experience design and strategy, front-end development, and design systems. She has worked with startups, agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and small business owners to develop user-centric experiences in education, healthcare, and finance. She recently joined the team at Jasper to explore the intersection of marketing and AI. Links Asia on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/asia.bsky.social Asia’s gaming account on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/gynesys.bsky.social Credits Cover design by Raquel Breternitz.
In the first episode of season 3, Karen VanHouten joins us to share her love of ’80s new wave music, a love that began in high school in the mid-1980s. She talks about discovering the music through friends, noting how it was "accessible enough, but different enough to make you feel a little special”. That juxtaposition of the dark and the beautiful in new wave music resonated with her, and made her a fan for life. Karen talks about music sharing in a pre-internet era, her time as a college radio DJ, and how the music scene fostered a sense of community. She ends with a list of essential new wave albums, recommended for new and curious listeners. Guest Bio Karen VanHouten (she/her) is an expert generalist and a curious skeptic who is committed to designing better ways for teams to work together. She loves messes of both the digital and human kind. She’s been working as a UX leader, a researcher, and a strategist in both the private and public sector, both in-house and as a consultant, for over 25 years. She uses the foundations of human-centered design (with a dash of scrappiness) to create healthy digital strategies and help teams safely operate in the space between opportunity and risk. Links Karen’s website: https://www.designinginward.com/ Karen on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/designinginward.bsky.social Credits Cover design by Raquel Breternitz.
It’s the season two finale and this week’s episode goes to eleven, as Joe Natoli joins us to talk about his lifelong passion for heavy metal music. From his earliest exposure to Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality at age ten, Joe reflects on the profound emotional connection and sense of identity metal gave him. He shares stories of scouring record stores, trading mixtapes with friends, and devouring music magazines to explore the growing metal scene in the pre-internet era. Joe also discusses the genre's theatrical aesthetics, the thrill of live performances, and the deeper messages in metal lyrics that often get misunderstood. The conversation goes into the diversity of metal’s sub-genres, Joe's favorite bands, and his own personal standards for what makes great metal. Guest Bio Joe Natoli (he/him) is a UX consultant, author and speaker. For three decades, he’s advised, trained and empowered the UX, design and product development teams of some of the world’s largest organizations, from Fortune 100 companies to U.S. Government agencies and startups. He has published ten books and is a regular keynote speaker and lecturer at industry conferences and corporate events across the globe. Joe has also taught more than 350,000 students through his online courses and his own UX 365 Academy, in addition to a private coaching practice. Joe’s approach to improving product UX and design focuses on addressing systemic and personal dynamics issues across individuals, teams and organizations: fighting impostor syndrome and increasing self-confidence, improving communication and collaboration, addressing fear and dysfunction driving poor management practices and redesigning inappropriate, counterproductive processes. Joe lives in Washington DC with his wife Eli and three kids, and he strives to be the person his dog Rosie thinks he is. Links The Hard Volume Experience Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNuc2kcwGbd_iJvc9-4YUKA The UX 365 Academy: https://www.ux365academy.com Joe Natoli's Give Good UX: https://givegoodux.com Joe on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/joenatoli.bsky.social Joe on Twitter: https://x.com/joenatoli Joe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joenatoli/ Credits Cover design by Raquel Breternitz.
Grab your fabric and pick your favourite stitch, as Elyse Holladay joins us to talk about her adventures with sewing. She recounts being inspired by her mother sewing and her own experiences running a personal style program, and how frustrations with ill-fitting off-the-rack clothing got her to take up the hobby. Elyse reflects on the highs and lows of learning the craft, from her initial overconfidence after sewing a tote bag to grappling with failed projects, and her breakthrough with a simple yet satisfying project, which became a stylish staple and a symbol of her progress. Along the way, she gained a new appreciation for the craftsmanship behind fashion and the ethics of sustainable clothing. Guest Bio Elyse Holladay (she/her) is a long-time Design Systems practitioner and speaker, currently the solo Design Systems engineer at Color Health. She was tapped to start the first Design System team for Indeed, has taught hundreds of hours of technical training content, and has been invited to speak at well-known industry events such as Clarity Conference, CSSConf Berlin, and Frontend Design Conference. She's a technical generalist who can flex between design, code, glue work, and OKRs, once quit tech to build a personal style program, is an off-the-charts extrovert, avid reader, and expat Texan with an armadillo tattoo. Links Elyse’s website: https://www.elyseholladay.com/ Elyse on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elyseholladay/ Credits Cover design by Raquel Breternitz.