Design Downtime

In this episode, Lisa Carey joins us to share her decades-long appreciation for Brian Eno. She introduces us to Eno the musician, producer, visual artist, and one of the originators of systems thinking in creative work, and traces a through-line from Roxy Music to Bowie's Berlin Trilogy, and from Oblique Strategies to a generative documentary that shows differently every screening - all united by a philosophy of embracing randomness and the unexpected over rigid planning.Guest BioLisa Carey (she/her) is a Design System Lead and Product Designer with a unique, 30+ year creative career spanning film, marketing, television, and software design, and her own creative pursuits. Working in the financial sector since 2012, Lisa brings over 20 years of UX/UI experience to her work. Currently, she is focusing on systemic design, front-end development, and AI collaboration within modern design system frameworks. Previously, Lisa spent 15 years in film as a director including the film Rough Road and managing international distribution and licensing for Ken Burns and other filmmakers. Today, she brings that same passion for visual storytelling to digital product design. A practicing painter who also teaches community courses exploring music and art, Lisa anchors her multi-disciplinary work in her true passions: systemic design, creative strategy, and making unexpected connections.LinksLisa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisacareydesign/CreditsCover design by Raquel Breternitz.

Saddle up and start your stopwatch, when Jenny Dee Brecheisen joins us to talk about her passion for barrel racing. She shares how it completely transformed her life, from city dweller to 10-acre landowner with four horses. Jenny explores the deep bonds formed with her horses through daily care and patience, the 14-17 seconds of pure adrenaline that make all the preparation worthwhile, and the steep learning curve and real physical dangers that come with the sport.Guest BioJenny Dee Brecheisen (she/her) is a UI Engineer on Cloudflare’s UI Platform team, where she works across frontend UI, systems, and engineering infrastructure. Beginning with a degree in graphic design and early work in print and marketing, she later moved into product design and design systems before transitioning into engineering, bringing a cross-disciplinary perspective to building products in the age of AI. Her work today spans everything from frontend development and accessibility to migrations, debugging, and improving how software gets built and maintained at scale. When she’s not working, she spends her time barrel racing and investing in futurity horse prospects.LinksJenny’s website: tinycrowbar.comJenny’s race-tracking app: highloper.comJenny on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yennie/CreditsCover design by Raquel Breternitz.

We built this city, or rather Odette Jansen did, as she joins us to explore her deep love of city-building games. She talks about being drawn to games with genuine depth and resource management challenges, and a blank canvas that gives her full control without consequences. Games like Cities Skylines or Planet Zoo, where she's logged over 400 hours recreating Disneyland leaf by leaf. Odette also reflects honestly on how being late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD shapes her play style. From the hyperfocus and Excel sheets tracking city resources, to the pure joy of knowing random animal facts at the zoo.Guest BioOdette Jansen (she/her) has spent 15 years in UX. She leads research and content at ING, and she also runs UXR Study (uxrstudy.com) - a training platform for UX researchers, used by over 80,000 professionals worldwide, with courses, templates, and support on everything from research to UX leadership. She's got a BSc in UX and an MEd in talent development and diversity. She's late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD, and that shapes a lot of her work - she's spent a long time looking at how organizations overlook neurodivergent people, and how to build places and leaders that don't.LinksOdette on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/odett/UXR Study: https://uxrstudy.com/CreditsCover design by Raquel Breternitz.

Happiness is a warm puppy, when Lauren LoPrete joins us to talk about her love of Snoopy. She describes creating "This Charming Charlie", a Tumblr mashup project combining Smiths lyrics with Peanuts comic panels that unexpectedly became Time Magazine's Tumblr of the Year. Lauren talks about evolving into an adult collector and curator focused on "Snoobies" (Snoopy bootlegs), valuing folk art interpretations and outsider artist reinterpretations, and explains her deep connection to Snoopy - viewing him as aspirational with his multiple personas representing the mask she puts on when feeling less confident. She views Snoopy as a reminder to loosen her grip on stress and embrace creativity and imagination, finding the character "heartwarming and whimsical in a world that lacks those things.”Guest BioLauren LoPrete (she/her) is a design systems specialist who's spent the last eight years leading teams at Expedia, Dropbox, and Block. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and comes from a multi-disciplinary background in exhibition design and book design before finding her way to design systems. She's known for being honest about the emotional toll of this work, including giving talks about burnout and why design systems act like a mirror to the organizations they serve. She lives on the west coast with her small family: Gus, a 15-year-old mutt, and her husband, an artist. When she's not thinking about design tokens or stewardship models, she's probably trying to convince someone that design systems are about people, not just components.LinksSnooby Bootleg on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/snooby_bootleg/Lauren on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/laurenloprete.bsky.socialLauren on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenlopreteCreditsCover design by Raquel Breternitz.

Shantay, we all stay, when Connie Chen joins us to talk about her love of drag and drag queens. She describes how drag culture became a lifeline for her when she was struggling to adjust to life in California, and how a week-long stay in the hospital watching RuPaul's Drag Race provided hope and laughter. Connie talks about her journey from watching the show to attending drag events and finding an unexpectedly welcoming and positive community, discusses the artistry of drag performance, and explores the significance of drag names as expressions of personal identity and creativity. She also reflects on how drag culture has boosted her confidence, helped her embrace vulnerability, and taught her not to care about others' judgments.Guest BioConnie Chen (she/her) is an accomplished UX designer and mentor with over 10 years of experience. Starting her career as a graphic designer in Boston, she later transitioned to UX design in California, where she contributed to companies such as Ancestry, Apple, and Dell EMC. After a transformative two-year sabbatical, she now works as a UX Designer at Disney on the Enterprise Design team, where she supports tools and platforms for Disney's global supply chain and distribution processes for films and TV shows worldwide.LinksConnie’s website: https://conniechen.design/Connie on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/conniechiiiwa.bsky.socialConnie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conniewzchen/CreditsCover design by Raquel Breternitz.