Justin LaBaw-Rivers

I’ve spent years designing products inside fast-moving tech companies. Over time, I noticed something shift. The work was solid, but my curiosity was ahead of it. I wanted room to explore again. To test ideas without asking permission. To follow questions instead of roadmaps. So I reset how I show up. I rebuilt my portfolio as a reflection of how I think now forward-leaning, HUMAN, and deeply curious about what’s next. Alongside my core work, I created a space for "Play". A place for AI experiments, loose sketches, and unfinished thoughts. Where learning is visible and outcomes aren’t the point. This work isn’t about polish for its own sake. It’s about staying in motion. Designing with intent. And making space for experimentation to lead. The result feels closer to the work I want to be doing and the people I want to build with. The new 26' portfolio reflects where I’m headed, not just where I’ve been. jlabaw.xyz

@preetsuthar17 Folio + work jlabaw.xyz

We’re hiring founding designers for Relysta. please drop your best work!

New brand work for Diamond Terrace. A Napa Valley, CA based co. focused on developing Skin Care products derived from the "lees" of wine. (the goodness at the bottom of the barrels) Super excited to share more of this soon —

@icanvardar Say it louder for the people in the back Can! How is LinkedIN still the only professional network in 2026? I’ll invest my creative energy into anyone wanting to disrupt and build a competitor

linkedin having no real competitor is honestly kind of sad not because linkedin is bad but because it means nobody is even trying to rethink how professional identity on the internet should work

Respectfully disagree. I do think people may have leaned into Karen Bass during the last election b/c she was a woman of color, our political climate was very "woke" at that time and leaned heavily towards DEI over meritocracy, but based on my pulse on the ground, this has changed

@jlabaw @Polymarket @spencerpratt LA is 25% white. A white Republican can't win, even against a failed groid woman and a disgusting street-shitting communist.

JUST IN: Democratic Socialist Nithya Raman, dubbed "the next Mamdani," is now projected to win the LA mayoral election. 60% chance she leads the City of Angels.

Bottled Moment #002: "Offleash" Find the perfect park for your pup run free! Filter by squirrel count, shade coverage, and pond ducks. Because your dog deserves a park that matches their vibe. Built with Claude Code (using Figma + Midjourney + Nano Banana Pro 2).

@AlexAperios Analog is the way. It's coming back big! Beautiful card design AA.

Finally getting this business card to print. Enquiry submitted. Let's see how close to this finish I can get this IRL. Also I am surprised how many of my clients want business cards recently. Almost everyone recently has asked for them as part of a brand package.

@samraaj Ty brother! Been having some "fun" as of late bridging design + motion w/ Claude & such.

@jlabaw yo this is so fire wow

Hot take: those modular cards we use in design everywhere are way underutilized. They don’t have to feel interchangeable. Played with that idea in a “What If” concept inspired by The Dark Side of the Moon: Three cards. Hover adds subtle motion. The third flips into a live audio feed from the Moon. A little interaction goes a long way. Built with Claude Code + Figma

@ayushsoni_io LG HEX. Would be a dream & would love to collab. Just sent my infos. jlabaw.xyz

we're hiring across web, brand, motion and product hex.inc/join

@kyleanthony This is what FLOW state look s like. You've hit your groove my man. Clean work. Dialed. Beautiful

Designers stop overthinking your website. Focus on the work. Make it easy to update.

@secondeight_ Those late night sessions is where the magic happens. Everything hits different! Looking good

Late night work, updating my website!

@0xCharlota Ooo! Loving the “Architecture of Happiness” recco. Thx @0xCharlota!

4 books that aren't about taste, but will make you better at it. In today's Working Notes, I want to share the books I keep coming back to. These aren't on the usual design reading lists, but each one shows you a different side of what taste actually is: a way of seeing, choosing, and shaping experience. Joyful — Ingrid Fetell Lee Ingrid is a fellow ex-@IDEO design director. She spent years researching why certain shapes, colors, and patterns make people light up. She landed on 10 "aesthetics of joy" — energy, abundance, harmony, play, surprise, and more — all backed by neuroscience. The taste angle: there's a shared visual language underneath personal preference. There are patterns, and once you can read them, you can design emotional responses on purpose. This book guides you to use it to transform your home, but can be easily applied to branding or web design. The Creative Pragmatist — Amy Smilovic Amy built the fashion brand Tibi over almost 30 years around one idea: style is a way of communicating. Her "Creative Pragmatist" framework changed how I think about what I wear. And, as a graphic designer, her color wheel and her "one, ton, or none" rule gave me also new ways to think about branding and web design too. The book doesn't tell you what to wear. It teaches you how to put words to why you like what you like. For the taste conversation, that's the missing middle: the bridge between gut feeling and intentional choice. The Architecture of Happiness — Alain de Botton De Botton's big idea: we find things beautiful when they reflect values we wish we had more of ourselves. A minimalist space isn't "better". It just speaks to someone craving order in chaos. So taste isn't really about knowledge. It's about self-knowledge. He also makes the case that aesthetics aren't frivolous. They quietly shape who we become. A must-read for anyone who's been told "it's just about making things pretty", and knew it wasn't. The Art of Gathering — Priya Parker The odd one out, but stay with me. Priya designs high-stakes group conversations (diplomatic negotiations, corporate offsites, community dialogues) for living. She says every gathering lives or dies by its purpose. Her idea of "generous exclusion" (being thoughtful about who's in the room so the experience sharpens instead of blurs) is bascially a taste logic, just applied to people instead of things. If taste is knowing what to include and what to leave out, Parker wrote the playbook for it. She just did it for hosting, but you can apply it to experience design. Now I'm curious: what's a book that shaped your design taste, but has almost nothing to do with design? Always looking for unexpected reads. btw, I built the 📕📗📘📙 3D book component above in @Framer. It's fully remixable if you want one for your own site, reading list, or portfolio. Link below.

@alexispresa Wholeheartedly agree. 👍🏽

it’s actually the best time ever to be a designer.

@CharlesPattson Super clean. Looks like the complete opposite of "doomscrolling" which I'm here for. Looking fwd to launch!

A new home for creatives: loading…

@0xCharlota @pdotcv EXACTLY... Which is why to me this seems more like a "sample + quick folio project" then an actual real one. If I was "ARCUS" Capital and I was sent this as a design concept, I would immediately shoot it down. It does zero for the brand to be a copycat (in same space)

@pdotcv It’s so wild to me there are so many people in the comments saying anyone can used the black and white illustration. YES, but it’s copying bc it’s for two companies in the same industry, basically competitors. As a client I’d be pissed to see my website look same as competitor’s

Very obvious divide in the comments. And one side appears to be much larger than the other. Which doesn't exactly bode well for the industry.

@kaolti Ty brother! Appreciate the inspiration last week you cooked on

@jlabaw Nice, looks good man!

Best ideas still hit on weekends when I'm mostly offline. The hard part? Getting them out before Monday. Saturday night I cooked up hero concepts for TDSOTM – the "What If" Series. Brought them to life early this week. Flow state: activated. Presentation remix from the goodness @kaolti dropped last week.

@daveschatz @daveschatz - Seems like an obvious "fake proj" disguised as a real client fwiw... He was definitely "inspired" by Titan to say the least. The past few weeks #designtwitter has been running rampid w/ imposters posting other ppl's work & copycat designs. Def an issue!

copying our site design and presenting it as your own is definitely… a choice lol

@brandonspikes55 I heard he signed a UDFA deal with the Jets?

Damn !! So Diego Pavia didn’t get a camp invite or udfa deal or nothing ? 👀