This Design Life

We got to interview the AWESOME @Draplin on how he became a designer, how he keeps motivated and some secret nuggets of wisdom for the This Design Life community... thisdesignlife.net/aaron-draplin-…

@ormanclark Feeling that pain

“just a couple of small changes, won’t take you long”

@kyleanthony I saw you post that you recreated your whole portfolio to get more work like this. Did you get more work like this?

@ThisDesignLife Thanks Chris!

In a world where most of the portfolios are looking the same, I am absolutely loving this portfolio by @kyleanthony

@AlexAperios Is it a new logo or a new rendered version of it?

And people say logos aren’t an important part of a brand. Pleaseee… XBox changed its logo again and people are obsessed with talking about it. If that isn’t proof enough that a brand or business needs a great a logo, I don’t know what is!

Don't say the movies never warned us about AI replacing designers ...

@DanPurdie16 While you were away, AI tried to take over design. But we won't allow it ;)

@ThisDesignLife Thanks Chris! Good to be back it did go very well 👌

I’ve been radio silent on here for months… For a very good reason, I have been working on a big client project for the last 3 months. Excited to be back. Excited to share what we’ve been working on 👏

@olegcoada Income and design taste do not go hand in hand.

A company valued at around $80M that helps designers make money, yet uses three different stroke styles for the icons in its header.

@mikefutia SEO

I just built a Claude Code SEO agent that replaces your $200/mo. Ahrefs subscription 🤯 One prompt → keyword gaps found, competitors analyzed, content written in your brand voice, rankings tracked weekly. All inside Claude Code. Perfect for DTC brands and agencies who know SEO matters but never have the bandwidth to actually do it consistently. If your SEO workflow looks like this — log into Ahrefs once a month, export a CSV, skim it for 5 minutes, close the tab, tell yourself you'll write that blog post next week, never do... This agent runs the entire loop for you: → Connects to Google Search Console and pulls your real ranking data → Finds your "gap zone" — keywords sitting at positions 5-20, one article away from page 1 → Uses Apify to scrape who's outranking you and breaks down exactly why they're winning → Interviews you once about your brand, customers, and positioning — then never asks again → Writes content in your voice — not generic AI slop that tanks after 90 days → Tracks rankings weekly and feeds what's working back into the next cycle → Optimizes your product listings for AI shopping — so you show up when someone asks ChatGPT for a recommendation, not just Google No $200/month tools you open once and forget. No freelancers writing content that sounds like everyone else. No manually checking rankings and forgetting to act on it. What you get: - Keyword cards with a specific action recommendation for each gap zone opportunity - A competitive breakdown — who's beating you and the exact fix for each keyword - A weekly content plan generated from your real GSC data - A brand voice profile Claude uses for every article it writes - Product listing optimization for AI shopping (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) — the new SEO nobody's doing yet Built 100% in Claude Code with Google Search Console. I put together a full playbook with the skill files, brand interview, and the exact weekly workflow. Want it for free? > Like this post > Comment "SEO" And I'll send it over (must be following so I can DM)

@JohnnyFSE Thought this was a tennis app for a moment

I built CourtWatch.us — a free public database for American citizens who deserve safer communities. You can track which judges released defendants who then got rearrested, skipped court, or violated their release conditions. All public records. All free. I started with Orange County FL and will be expanding to all 67 Florida counties and eventually every state in the country. This first batch of info is from 2024 and since public reports are released in March/April for the previous year, data is behind. But I wanted to see if this is plausible. After adding 2024,I'll add 2025 and then figure out how to get real-time-data uploaded. It's in beta — would love to know what you think 👇 Numbers don't lie, but criminals do. courtwatch.us @bennyjohnson @jockowillink @GrantCardone @LauraLoomer @nickshirleyy @j_fishback

@chalaska "They want someone senior who shows up with conviction, tells them when they're wrong, and actually does the work." I get this, but how many really senior designers that can think strategically want to do all the design work as well?

The design agency model has a structural flaw that nobody wants to say out loud. The person with the judgment is not the person doing the work. The senior partner shows up at the kickoff. Says smart things. Builds trust. Then disappears. The actual design gets done by mid-level practitioners juggling five clients. The deliverable is a presentation, not a shipped product. Consultancies are the same thing with a bigger logo. The principal frames the problem. The analyst delivers the deck. The output is built to survive a boardroom, not to ship something a user would love. Design subscription platforms flipped the pricing but kept the flaw. A designer who has never met you implements tickets at $4K/month. Fast execution. Zero judgment. Contractors give you execution without ownership. Nobody has the context to tell you you're building the wrong thing. Same gap everywhere. Design decisions happen in one room. Business strategy happens in another. IDEO went from $300M to under $100M in revenue in a few years. Cut 32% of staff in 2023. Lost half their headcount since 2020. Frog got absorbed by Capgemini. Work & Co got absorbed by Accenture. The model isn't dying because design got less valuable. It's dying because the structure separates thinking from doing. And founders figured it out. The founders I work with don't want an agency. They've been burned by one. They want someone senior who shows up with conviction, tells them when they're wrong, and actually does the work. Small, founder-led, judgment over process. That's where design studios are headed.

@ormanclark __ never sure whether they are allowed to call themselves designers.

finish this sentence designers are ____

@basementstudio Just been checking out your website. The transitions and style is INSANE

Building memorable brands.

@danmall Good question. I guess I mean generic and salesy.

@ThisDesignLife I'll share my outreach scripts soon, but first: what do you mean by “spammy?”

One of my agency owner students told me they sent 6 outreach messages last week. They were proud of that number. Sure, it‘s better than sending 0 messages. But we’re not here for participation trophies. We’re here to grow a business. Let’s look at the reality. The typical reply rate for outreach is around 1% on the low end. That means that, to get 1 reply, you have to send 100 messages. (And that’s not even to close a sale. It’s just to get a reply.) When you send 6 messages, what do you expect to happen? Do you expect to get… → 5 replies (an 83% reply rate)? → 3 replies (an 50% reply rate)? → 1 reply (an 17% reply rate)? Even if you expect to get 1 reply from your 6 messages, you mean to say that you’re 17× better than everyone else who does outreach? Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t. Are you willing to bet your whole business on it?

@raffichill Oh man, that's class.

tHis MD fILe cOnTaiNS tHe APPLe AiRBNb aND SpOTIfy DesiGN SysTEmS

@ormanclark Cab't find the off button. Any idea where it is?

design tip: stop overthinking

@bentenwoodring This looks class.

Most cybersecurity companies sell fear. Dark palettes, threat-driven messaging, reactive energy. Onyx wanted the opposite — optimism as a core brand position. We built a visual system that blends natural textures with 8-bit landscapes. Calm, centered, and completely different from anything else in the space. Design should build trust, not anxiety.

@the_boriginal @AlexAperios @the_boriginal and with a significant beard trim

@AlexAperios @ThisDesignLife Either that or Draplin looks much younger here 😁

Big thanks to Chris @ThisDesignLife for interviewing me! We talked about how I get clients, why I became a designer, and a few things I don't usually share often here. If you're curious, give it a read 👇 thisdesignlife.net/interview/alex…

@the_boriginal @AlexAperios LOL