Had a blast chatting with Matt Johnson on the Font Awesome Podcast about "Why Design Is Hard" – We dove into what really makes design challenging in organizations:

  • "Figma is not the job" - we often have a product design culture that worships artifacts and avoids relationships
  • The biggest design decisions happen in budget & planning meetings most designers avoid
  • Storytelling is everything - if you can't connect your work to business impact, good luck
  • The most impactful product people know how to handle ambiguity and nurture relationships – they create clarity despite chaos and connect teams across disciplines

Working on teams is messy, and our product design schools rarely prepare us for the human side of making change happen. These real-world challenges are exactly what inspired "Why Design is Hard."

Check out the full episode & the book.