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Welcome to Overlay! This is the Official Layers Podcast brought to you by Liam McCabe (@liampmccabe) and Reijo Palmiste (@reijowrites). What is Layers? It's a design community platform where designers can connect, share work and build their portfolio.
In this episode, Liam and Reijo discuss the introduction of the new Posts feature as well as the importance of moderation and user safety. They also talk about the role of community in platform success and being authentic online.
Timestamps
Links
In this episode, Liam and Reijo discuss the introduction of the new Posts feature as well as the importance of moderation and user safety. They also talk about the role of community in platform success and being authentic online.
Timestamps
- (00:00) - Introduction and Fundraising
- (15:07) - Introducing the Posts Functionality for Layers
- (26:46) - Enhancing User Experience with Single Column View
- (34:55) - Prioritizing Moderation and User Safety
- (45:33) - The Role of Community in Platform Success
- (52:17) - Design Twitter vs. 3D Communities
- (59:34) - The Pitfalls of Engagement Farming
- (01:06:03) - The Power of Authenticity in Online Interactions
Links
Creators & Guests
What is Overlay?
Liam McCabe and Reijo Palmiste talk about everything design (mostly digital) and a bit about Layers.
Liam (00:01)
Hello and welcome to a new episode of the official layers podcast overlay. I'm your host Liam McCabe.
Reijo (00:08)
And I'm Reijo, a designer and illustrator.
Liam (00:12)
Just before we get started, if you're looking to support layers or overlay, then you can join layers plus today and gain access to additional features such as analytics, scheduling, profile customization and more. Overlay listeners can also get a 10 % discount off the annual plan using the code OVERLAY10. And now on with the episode. How's it going Rare? How's your week, two weeks been?
Reijo (00:37)
Not too bad, not too bad. Busy, busy, comfortably. It depends on the day, I think. How about you?
Liam (00:42)
Busy good or busy bad?
It's been pretty good on my side to be honest. I don't really have any major deadlines. I guess I do, but it's kind of like the end of the month. So it's getting closer to the end of May, then I'll be a bit more, it might be a bit more hectic, but it might not depending how things go. Basically with raising some money.
Reijo (01:01)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm. Yeah, yeah. Is that progressing well?
Liam (01:23)
I think so. I think so. I have plenty of interest. I had a call this week that was promising. A lot of people that are interested, some of them want to enter at a lower amount, which I'm not opposed to. It just means you have to break down...
the total valuation. So if they want to invest 10 grand instead of 20 grand, you need to find two 10 grand basically. So I'd love to include everyone really. But if obviously if I include more smaller amounts, that's more work for me to try and find more people. But no, it's going well so far. Fingers crossed.
Reijo (01:56)
Yeah.
That's true.
Liam (02:22)
fingers crossed it continues to go well.
Reijo (02:25)
Nice.
Liam (02:27)
What type of work are you doing at the moment?
Reijo (02:32)
Animations. I've got a plethora of client animations that I need to work on. Surprisingly, most of the clients are actually kind of working in a similar industry or similar industries at least. For some reason, I tend to attract...
people who work in crypto or people who work in fintech or fintech adjacent things, stuff like that. So it's very interesting and the problems are quite complicated, I think. So like describing a complicated idea in a simple animation takes a lot of process to get to a good result there.
Liam (03:25)
All right. Do you do a lot of, how do you work? Do you do a lot of storyboarding or how do you come up with the general concepts? And then when do you decide to go into actual high fidelity, whatever it is.
Reijo (03:42)
Like like
I think it happens differently for each client or for each project because they're so, right now at least, they're so different in their scale and what they consist of. But I think deciding on the direction that will lead to a high fidelity animation, that actually happens quite early on. It's just...
incrementally increasing the fidelity and just showing how it will be, how it will look like with some lights, with some materials, with some advanced modeling and stuff like that. It happens early on. They just don't see the high fidelity yet.
Liam (04:38)
Right, alright you do like a low res render. Have clients ever just like scrapped and wanted to start again?
Reijo (04:48)
Uh, not this year, but last year, uh, last year, one of the final projects I did, which I basically, when I took that project, I, I almost knew for a fact that it's going to blow up in some way. It gave me so many different red flags. It was crazy. Uh, yeah, my, yeah, a hundred percent, but that was also what sort of made me interested in the project because I felt like.
Liam (05:10)
Your spider sense tingling.
Reijo (05:18)
If this doesn't blow up, then it will be some sort of a miracle. Like I need to experience that miracle. But sure as shit, it did blow up, of course. Because they hired me to do one thing, and in the middle of it, in the middle of making that one thing, they kept like wavering on the direction anyway.
Liam (05:23)
Yep. Yep.
Reijo (05:47)
But sort of in the middle, they saw, not a competitor, but someone popular dropped a new product, sort of demo video that they really liked. And they were like, ah, I want this. I want like this exactly frame by frame. And I was like, A, I'm not gonna do frame by frame, like basically plagiarism. And B,
Liam (06:07)
Hmm.
Reijo (06:17)
We've already been working on something completely different. So either we increased the budget like tenfold or we scrapped the project.
Liam (06:31)
And what did happen?
Reijo (06:31)
We scrapped the project. Yeah. Yeah. We fired each other, yeah.
Liam (06:34)
He scrapped it. You were done. You fired them.
That's the right move I think. They sounded a bit demanding. Or they sounded like they didn't really know what they wanted maybe.
Reijo (06:47)
Yes, uh...
No, no, no. And it was, it was a, they were, they were really, they wanted to, the communication happened on, happened on WhatsApp, which to some is a red flag in itself. But I find that, yeah, it can be okay with some clients, but they want to, they really wanted to send me voice notes about like feedback and such. And I quickly told them,
No, I need everything in writing because I need screenshots later on. I knew that this was going to go like 100 % left. So I needed like, I need screenshots. I don't want you like, like a two minute clip of you rambling about like five different, five different directions that we can go to. I like, I need clean direction.
Liam (07:45)
I recently read that maybe controversial, but voice notes are only good for the people that send them. For the list for the listener, it's like, oh, just get to the point. Come on, get to the point. Get to the point.
Reijo (07:54)
That is true. That is true.
Right? Right? I've never sent voice notes and I don't think I know anybody who sends voice notes either.
Liam (08:10)
I have a few people who send them and yeah I've never sent them myself maybe one or two but yeah I much prefer I think a succinct message but then at the same time it's a good way of having like an asynchronous call kind of thing but also just calling people is I think probably nicer.
Reijo (08:29)
That is true. That is true.
That is also true, but if you account for time differences and stuff like that, like time zone differences, it can get difficult. So the...
Liam (08:46)
Yeah, that's true.
But also calls people can just blabber on and say nothing.
Reijo (08:55)
That is also true. That is also true. That was, yeah. Yeah. That was my initial reaction to loom videos was also that like, like I thought that that's, that's how it's going to be. People just, you know, it's going to be one tangent after another, but it's been surprisingly so far from my experience getting people who use loop videos.
Liam (08:57)
So many meetings are just pointless.
Yep.
Reijo (09:22)
Send feedback through me on Loom videos. They're very very straight to the point
Liam (09:26)
Oh, I think, I think Lume is great actually. Like really, really good. We've, we've used it a lot in the past. Um, and it could, yeah, like you say, it can just be a great way of leaving feedback. You've got the context there. A lot of the videos that I've seen or made are usually straight to the point. I think, I think it was probably due to their free tier. It was maybe like you could get the first five minutes free, which
Reijo (09:29)
Yeah?
Oh really?
Liam (09:54)
Something like that, I think, which was actually quite good from a productivity and like a succinctness point of view, because you wanted to get everything said in that five minutes and demonstrate it as clear as possible. So it's kind of a very good, it's very good constraint actually.
Reijo (10:07)
Mmm. Yes.
Yes.
Yeah, it's a very good motivator to get to the point.
Liam (10:17)
Yeah. I've often thought, um, I kind of want to maybe in the future introduce some sort of video feedback on layers. Um, I'm wondering how that would work. So basically like instead of, uh, well it'd be like leaving a comment or an annotation, but in the comment form, there'd be just like a record button. Maybe it could be audio as well, audio only, but also video.
Reijo (10:27)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Liam (10:48)
I was also thinking, I was also thinking as, as you record yourself, record this, I don't know quite how it would work. Actually, it could work like as you record yourself. And as you're clicking around the layer.
Reijo (10:51)
Damn.
Yes.
Liam (11:11)
annotating it or it just follows the mouse whilst you're on the layer. It doesn't have to show a screen recording, it can just show the image or the video moving right. That'd be kind of cool maybe.
Reijo (11:24)
Yeah, having video feedback in itself, even let's say without the screen recording part, that would be kind of mind blowing. I don't know if that would motivate me to leave more feedback, possibly, maybe, because I feel like there's more reason to...
to leave feedback when I feel like it can be very freeform.
Liam (11:57)
Hmm. I think it's definitely probably a much higher barrier barrier to entry. Like, like people, especially video people might be be a bit more concerned with how they look and how they're coming across rather than the rather than the feedback itself. Audio maybe not. Yeah, audio maybe not as much.
Reijo (12:04)
That's true.
You start overthinking really fast.
Nice colors.
Liam (12:25)
And yeah again it's just another thing to moderate as well. You don't want to...
Reijo (12:30)
Ooooo
Liam (12:32)
You don't want certain video or audio content going live. Oh yeah, there's always malicious ways of abusing a system. But yeah, basically, like if there's a few people that leave feedback,
Reijo (12:37)
That is a good point. That is a landmine. I didn't realize that.
Yeah.
Liam (13:00)
video feedback on Twitter for example, and I just thought it'd be so cool if that was integrated in layers somehow. So yeah, maybe in the future. I mean uploading videos, or even recording videos, uploading videos and putting them in comments is relatively easy. Because you can obviously post videos at the moment on layers, all the functionalities there, adding them to comments would be straightforward. It's more of a
Reijo (13:17)
Oh yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Liam (13:30)
More of a UX issue, I think.
Reijo (13:33)
I feel like leaving the comment or leaving a video comment, that would be... I don't know how many people would enjoy it. However, the receiver of said video comment would like... That would be a much, much, much, much more significant event for them.
Liam (13:57)
Yeah, very true. I think maybe if it initially is introduced through some sort of feedback session, because we did a feedback session with an agency, Significa, and they spent the afternoon leaving feedback in the work in progress section, so maybe having it somewhat official to begin with, like it can only happen in these sessions. That could be kind of...
Reijo (14:11)
Mmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Hmm.
Liam (14:27)
That could be kind of cool.
Reijo (14:30)
Yeah, having a limited way of testing the waters and seeing how it goes.
Liam (14:38)
Yeah. And speaking of that, God, the segues are good today. Yeah. I'm planning to start testing this posts functionality that I've been building for layers. So I've said probably a lot in previous podcasts that I've always wanted layers to be like a bespoke design Twitter rather than a behance or dribble.
Reijo (14:41)
Hahaha!
Ooh. Ooh.
Mm -hmm.
Liam (15:07)
So that would mean members will be able to post anything, just like text content, polls, images and videos that they found, links that they found, or links from their blogs or articles, whatever like that. And then you have your portfolio, which is kind of separate.
but maybe you can post about your portfolio as well. Basically you still need to figure out how it's all going to integrate together, but...
Yeah, I'm excited because a lot of the functionality is almost done. I'm hoping to maybe put it live today or this weekend, but I'll probably only make it available to Plus members initially, just like you say, so we can test the waters and see if people use it, see if people like it, if it's useful, and then if it is how, like I said, how it can integrate.
Reijo (15:54)
Oooooh.
Liam (16:16)
with the current platform basically. Because it's almost like two separate platforms.
Reijo (16:26)
Hmm.
Liam (16:26)
in a way, but I'm sure there must be a way to integrate them.
Reijo (16:34)
I like for me it doesn't feel like that. Like from what I've seen like this feels.
There's already, there's already a feed of work that's going on, like inside of layers. That's basically a collection of people's people's portfolios. And I have my own portfolio. Like I have my own profile page, um, to add sort of free form writing to that feels like a natural expansion, natural expansion of the, of the, whatever the layers.
sort of like a suite of products, suite of features it is. Like that feels, like that's, yes, that feels like, that feels like a natural expansion of that to me. So I'm not worried about them feeling separate, but it is going to like.
Liam (17:18)
A sweet. No, don't say sweet. We're not going to go down the Adobe route.
I think the concern is though, like if you
Reijo (17:40)
Twitter is already there.
Liam (17:42)
Yeah, yeah, but you might want to post something that you don't want on your portfolio, right? Or you might want to share something. For example, if you ask your poll, like, I don't know, what 3D toy using Blender Cinema 4D, 3ds Max, blah, blah, blah, you don't want that appearing on your portfolio, right?
Reijo (18:06)
No. So there has to be a way for me to... Wait, so...
Liam (18:08)
So.
Reijo (18:17)
just so I get the nomenclature right. A post on layers is a layer, but a post in the written form is what? A post?
Liam (18:30)
Yeah, that's the other thing I realized when I was about to like, put it live, put it in the nav bar. Because I've, yeah, I've called them, I've called them posts simply because things that you put on your portfolio or in your profile currently are called are called layers, right? Like images and videos that, yeah, they're called, they're called layers. But I actually, the name of the button is called post.
Reijo (18:37)
Right? What is it?
Notes?
Yeah, yeah.
Liam (19:00)
Because I guess I did that because maybe it was just a bit more intuitive from the beginning, rather than if it was like new layer or like create layer, people would have been like, what the hell is this? So by default, it's just post. And then I was like, oh, I can't have posts in the nav bar then. I'll probably call it feed. I've always thought of calling it feed to begin with, because it might just be...
Reijo (19:22)
Right.
Liam (19:31)
a feed of everything in the future. It might be the homepage, right? It might be a feed of posts and layers combined. So
Reijo (19:37)
That's what I was going towards was that there has to be a way then for me to post something into the feed. Let's say I want to post my illustration today into my portfolio and into the feed. So I would post it into the feed, but I would somehow market that it will also go to the portfolio. So I would...
not need to make two different sort of uploads, right?
Liam (20:06)
Yeah.
Yeah, so there's the option of being able to post a layer from the post form. So the post form, just imagine like Twitter form, it's got a media upload icon, it's also got a poll icon, add polls, and there could theoretically be another icon that's like a layer icon, a new layer icon. So I don't know.
if you'd want to update your portfolio that way.
Reijo (20:43)
I would. Yeah, for sure. Because if I'm making a new animation and I'm posting it, for example, right now I'm posting it on Twitter and layers on two, that's two separate uploads, right? And now if you split up, if you split up layers inside as well, so there's a portfolio layers and there's a feed layers. Now I need to make two posts inside of layers as well. So I would, right?
Liam (21:09)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, combining it does make sense.
Yeah, but yeah, I think it's.
Reijo (21:20)
If it's going to, if it's going into my portfolio, I definitely want to post it into the feed as well.
Liam (21:26)
Yeah. So, but like, but like, does it automatically get put in the feed when you update your portfolio? Like almost like activity, you know, or do you want to, you want to specifically, because the, the, the, the, the alternative is you update your portfolio and then you get the link of the layer and then you share that in the post, which is a bit more cumbersome.
Reijo (21:34)
No. No.
Yes.
That feels like there should be a button to do that, to post to feed as well. Yeah.
Liam (21:59)
Share to feed. Yeah. But should it be that way around or the other way around? So you get what I'm saying? So you post your portfolio from posts or you share a post once you've updated your portfolio.
Reijo (22:13)
I feel like there could be... like the product could in some way...
Liam (22:23)
Because I'd see it as like a status update, right? Like you update your portfolio and then you want to share on the feed. You're like, I've just updated a new illustration. What do you think? But then, yeah.
Reijo (22:33)
I would do it starting from the feed because that's when I can mark it out that yes, this also goes into my portfolio. Bam. I would do it that way. But also having like posting something into my portfolio and then in there marking that yes, post that to the feed as well. I think these could be like cross -linked. So whichever way you find it comfortable to do.
Liam (22:44)
Hmm.
Reijo (23:03)
you can do.
Liam (23:05)
Yeah, so yeah, I guess I'm hoping
I'm hoping, yeah, when I open this up to plus members, maybe we'll just figure it out. And the good thing about posts is like people can just make a post, right, and comment on it. So that's what I'm looking forward to. Like they can just be a bit meta about it and post something like, oh, it would be great if this worked like this. And I'll be like, oh, finally I have...
Reijo (23:23)
Yes. Yes.
Yes.
Liam (23:36)
a discussion area where people can talk about that stuff, right? Because there's feedback on layers is like people can message me on layers itself or DM me on other socials, but actually having a discussion area on the site. I think, yeah, I'm looking forward to.
Reijo (23:48)
Yeah. Yeah.
This, yes, but this raises a question for me in the sense that let's say I update my portfolio from the feed. So I post something in the feed, just however it will be displayed. Basically something that shows me the illustration or the animation and shows that this went into the portfolio as well. So this is a portfolio piece.
So now there's ways to respond to this event in the feed. So you can leave comments there. And there's also comments in that portfolio link specifically, right? So that piece still exists in the portfolio and that has its own comments there as well. Are these two going to be combined in some way? Or when I go into the portfolio piece, is there a way for me to see there that this
Like in the portfolio it has no comments, but from the feed, like people responded to it like this because it was shared into the feed as well.
Liam (25:08)
Yes, see these are the questions. I mean, to be honest, I saw a lot of similarities with...
Facebook.
Reijo (25:21)
out of all the platforms.
Liam (25:21)
Because yeah, so well basically if you share a photo or any media on Facebook, it appears in the feed as a post as well, but when you click on the actual image and video, it takes you to the full screen view with comments, right? So it's almost like a layer is like a specific media view.
Reijo (25:39)
That's true. Yes. Yes.
Liam (25:49)
which does have the full screen view of comments on the side etc. Whereas if you post other images that you're just sharing like a flipping meme image or something like that, you won't necessarily open it in that full screen layer view right?
Reijo (26:03)
Ah, ah, that's a good point. That's a good point. I like having that. Yeah.
Liam (26:09)
So it's like a specific media view. That's why it's similar to Facebook in that way. Well, potentially it could be. But yeah, if someone posts a meme or a gif or something, then you'd leave the comments on that post as opposed to the image.
Reijo (26:28)
Yes.
Interesting. This sounds like, the more we talk about it, the more it sounds to me like it kind of warms. Like there are a lot of little intricate sort of edge cases here that sort of break the space -time continuum in some way.
Liam (26:46)
Yep. Yep.
Yeah it's yeah it is it is a challenge I think but it's also something that I do feel strongly that it should exist you know like you should have it having a platform that allows you to build a portfolio and connect and grow your reputation and network seems like it should be
Reijo (27:07)
Yes.
Now, yeah, I agree. Yeah, that's a very like as a, I think as a...
Liam (27:21)
in one platform.
Reijo (27:30)
to designers, I think that's an easy sell, right? You can take the niche design Twitter part and implant it into an actual platform that's built for that specific industry, right? How many people will actually transition over, that's hard to say because Twitter still has so many other, I would say, benefits or there's already such a...
Liam (27:34)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Reijo (27:58)
pre -existing audience there that's going to be hard to convert. But also, Twitter has a lot of like, they have a lot of like reigns on the show, right? You can report people, like there's rules on what you can post and what you cannot post, especially coming, especially with written content and such. How do you plan on addressing that?
Liam (28:02)
Yeah.
Well, there's going to be a report feature. I mean, it's already somewhat worked on, being worked on, including like mute and block and all that sort of stuff. A lot of that stuff is actually already implemented somewhat in the backend. So it's just putting it in the UI. But...
Reijo (28:31)
Mm -hmm.
Oh nice.
Liam (28:52)
Yeah, I was gonna say something but I can't remember now.
Reijo (28:56)
But you don't, well, it's hard to, it's from a...
Liam (29:02)
Basically, yeah, so I was basically just gonna be like, I will probably still use Twitter, right? I don't want this to be just a layers Twitter. I want it to be something that's just a bit more useful for connecting, right? That's what it should be about, and learning and asking questions like...
Reijo (29:25)
Okay, okay.
But...
Liam (29:29)
Because like you say, I'll continue using Twitter for design, but also non design related topics. And I don't necessarily feel like we should expect people to need to post on both platforms, right? It should be like, oh, I've got a design, even though that's, it's difficult because design Twitter is also quite...
Reijo (29:38)
Right.
Liam (29:58)
very good, very well, doing very well at the moment. But, but if there was like something that you wanted, wanted the answer to, and you were like, Oh, where should I post this Twitter or layers? Or it might be better on layers actually, because it's bespoke. Like, why not both? But both is effort. People don't want to post on multiple platforms.
Reijo (30:12)
When I post.
Yeah, you tell me, right? Fuck.
Liam (30:21)
Yeah, you want to try and win that battle. I mean, well, you don't necessarily want to win that battle, like competition is good, but if you can provide the most value, then why would they...
post on another platform.
Reijo (30:42)
I feel like, yeah, I don't... The point about using Twitter for more than just design things, that's going to be the nail in the coffin, right? That's why people won't... If they won't move over to layers from Twitter, if that's the conversation, that's why they won't move, because they have many, many, many more interests, right, than just...
than just design. So I feel like the easiest, perhaps the easier sell for this, for this, or the easier way to explain this is to have like a public notebook or like a public journal where you can express written thought as well, like in a very nice clean form that is sort of attached to your portfolio. So it's...
Liam (31:29)
Hmm.
Yep.
Reijo (31:38)
It might be interesting to clients, it might not be interesting to clients, it might be interesting to the other designers. And then that sort of gets collected into a feed.
Liam (31:50)
Yeah, yes, yes, but yeah, all this discussion is just, yeah, I find very interesting. So I'm excited to put, I'm excited just to put it live just to see what happens, you know. Like personally, personally, I'll probably use it a lot just to give updates on what I'm working on on layers, like,
Reijo (32:04)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll be interesting.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Liam (32:18)
because I primarily do that on Discord, but I feel a bit weird posting like really small updates on Twitter, like, oh, I just fixed this bug. Like, I'm sure people won't care, right? But if it's on layers, I won't actually care if people care. They can jump on my profile or even the layers profile and see all the changelog and stuff like that.
Because that's another thing I wanted for layers basically, the layers profile. Being able to go on the layers profile and see a feed of basically a change log. So instead of a portfolio view, because layers doesn't really need a portfolio view, right? But it needs maybe a single column view of updates.
Reijo (33:08)
Yeah. Yeah.
Liam (33:19)
that you want to digest. You don't want to necessarily see that in a grid. And that's been on my mind for a while, just having a single column view. And I think introducing this post feature might lead to figuring that out a bit more. Because for your use case and sharing your work, it doesn't make sense. Like having them in a grid is nice and then clicking on them and viewing them full screen, it works. But for layers,
Reijo (33:20)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Liam (33:49)
having that changelog feed or that updates feed in single column, I think makes sense a bit more.
Reijo (33:57)
Yeah, yeah, I feel like it's a...
Liam (33:59)
And possibly if you're even like a UX designer or researcher where a lot of your design is more textual.
Reijo (34:07)
Mmm. Yeah.
Liam (34:09)
you don't really want to display that in a grid view.
Reijo (34:13)
Yeah, yeah. Having, having...
Liam (34:15)
So yeah, it's opening a lot of doors.
Reijo (34:18)
Yeah, yeah, it'll be interesting. So what do you think you're gonna release to prod on Friday?
Liam (34:23)
Yes.
I don't know when this goes live, but by the time this goes live, it will already be in a beta phase available for plus people, and hopefully there have been a few posts by now. And hopefully it's useful.
Reijo (34:35)
It's already been live.
Yeah. Yeah.
Hopefully it's useful.
Liam (34:55)
Yes. That's what I think platforms such as this should be about. It should be experimenting with new features and then if they work, that's great. But the important thing is if they don't, then they should be removed or at least hidden somewhere. Because...
Reijo (35:04)
That's true. That's true.
You can cut them. Yeah.
Liam (35:18)
I don't necessarily like building features for the sake of building features, because you don't just want a platform that's just full of bloat.
Reijo (35:21)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I can't remember. I can't remember what, what company it was, but I read sort of a practice. It was some sort of like a new tech company whose practice was to every feature they build, they kill one feature as well to make sure that there's not, there's, there isn't like an ever growing sort of bloat that's happening in.
in development and in the user experience as well.
Liam (35:59)
Yeah, yeah, I think I do think a lot of companies, especially new startups tried to do that.
But yeah, killing ideas is a good thing in the long run. I think Google is very well known for doing that, right? Like so many things they've built and they've killed.
Reijo (36:13)
Do you feel...
I think, honest to God, I think Google took the wrong lesson from that sort of maxim, is to build one finisher and kill one finisher. They looked at both things are equally good. You don't have to build things just to kill them later on. That's not the point.
Liam (36:46)
Yeah, I think they just have bigger expectations, right? Like they need to reach millions, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions for it to be somewhat validated. And if they don't meet that, then it's like, oh, we can't, we can't keep this running anymore. We can't, we can't sustain this.
Reijo (37:03)
Also, imagine the gamble that they're taking with every product feature. When you release a new feature, let's say colors or let's say feed, how many users using them would you consider the feature then to be a success?
Liam (37:25)
Yeah, it is very true. Yeah. Cause like currently on layers, not many people go on cutters and I'll probably hide it away in a nav drop down later or something. But I wouldn't want to ever remove it, right? Cause I think, I think it's useful and I think people that use it think it's useful. So yeah, like you say, what percentage,
is what percentage means it's a success.
Reijo (38:03)
Yeah. And so, well, in Layers case, it's a small number of people compared to when Google's launching something. They need adaptation in the millions or at least some sort of like a very big number. Very big number.
Liam (38:25)
Very big number. Yeah, I mean, Google would have killed layers by now.
Reijo (38:27)
hahahaha
Oh, God, that's hard to think about, right? Yeah. But also, would have they even have taken the gamble?
Liam (38:36)
But to be honest...
Wow mate, Google +, do you remember Google+.
Reijo (38:48)
That was a thing for like six months or something.
Liam (38:51)
They built a whole social network trying to compete with Facebook, Twitter.
Reijo (38:58)
I would have loved to hear the internal pitches for that. Like who was telling, who are the people, what were they telling each other that yeah, we can capture the same sort of lightning in a bottle as Facebook has or as Twitter has.
Liam (39:07)
Hmm.
Yeah, I think it's more just like if we can capture X percentage of that market that is still quite valuable. Like even if you had 20 % of 10 % of Facebook, it's still fucking loads, right?
Reijo (39:32)
Yeah, that is true. But two things, A, they're Google. So that's like, are they the company to make a social media platform? And B, they're Google. They're not that cool. Like Facebook used to be very cool. They used to be like, Google is not that. And I think they understand it themselves. Now they might not have understood it then, I think.
Liam (39:50)
Yep.
The one that always surprised me was Google Wave. Did you ever use Google Wave?
Reijo (40:08)
I don't even know what that is. Like, fuck the... Was that like a thing for three days?
Liam (40:12)
It was like a...
Kind of. I think it was a little ahead of its time really, because it was kind of like a slack before slack. Actually, I'm assuming it was before slack. It must have been. Yeah, right. 2009.
Reijo (40:29)
No, this is ancient.
Yeah, this is yeah, 4814 years ago.
Liam (40:39)
but they were trying to do something similar to Slack, I thought, like turn emails into like instant messaging type thing. It was basically like a UI for IRC. Yeah, we have an IRC. So it's like making that available to the masses basically. But it also had...
Reijo (40:49)
It looks like that.
IRC. Yeah, exactly.
And it lasted almost 10 years.
Liam (41:07)
Oh yeah, that's quite long. But they're also marketing it in like quite a professional way, right? Like you can use Google Wave instead of email. Similar to how Slack marketed themselves when they started, right?
Reijo (41:08)
Yeah.
Liam (41:25)
Um...
Reijo (41:25)
Yeah, but this is like this is you know, this is reminding me of this like
reminding me of the situation of yes there were like touch screen phones before iPhone but the iPhone was the thing that sort of made it go told everybody like this is the way to do it this is a similar kind of thing we just needed slack to do it
Liam (41:56)
You think the UI, the UX is ultimately what sells it in the end.
Reijo (42:04)
Slack was cool. That's the thing, I think.
Liam (42:08)
Yeah, that's true. It was cool.
Reijo (42:10)
Now it has that musty corporate smell to it. Not that pleasant anymore.
Liam (42:17)
Now it's just struggling from being around for so long.
Reijo (42:22)
Imagine how many people they've managed to traumatize with the swish click. Like every time I hear it, I'm like a Pavlov's dog. Like I'm triggered by it.
Liam (42:30)
Yeah. But it used to be amazing. People loved it. What a great little sound.
Reijo (42:38)
Yes! Yes! Now it's the source of nightmares.
Liam (42:42)
But yeah, it -
But like being, I guess being cool is like, it's almost like a young new fresh thing, right? You can't, it must be very difficult to be, yeah, it must be very difficult to be 10, 20 years old and still be cool, product wise.
Reijo (42:50)
Yeah. And it's temporary.
Layers is gonna go through the same shit. It's gonna go through the same shit. Like, I feel... Honestly, I don't think we're in the cool phase yet. It's coming. Like, I can feel it coming. People are starting to understand how it can be cool. So, and then there will be the cool phase, which is like how long that grace will last, who knows. But after that...
Liam (43:02)
Yeah.
Yeah.
What phase is this? What phase is this then?
Reijo (43:29)
Like pre -k? Like pre -kindergarten or something like that? I don't know.
Liam (43:32)
This is pretty cool, pretty cool, potentially cool.
Reijo (43:38)
Pre -adaptation. Yeah.
I don't know.
Liam (43:43)
Yeah, I think, yeah, there's a kind of agree, hopefully. I think, yeah, when it reaches a certain critical mass, then it's still fresh for a lot of people, right? So as soon as it reaches everyone that it can reach, then it's going down because it's no longer fresh, it's no longer new to anyone, right? Or it's new to a lot less fewer people.
Reijo (43:57)
Yeah.
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's going to be newer and younger competitors. And then, then you're going to have to compete on features and it'll go. Yeah. It'll be difficult.
Liam (44:12)
But yeah.
Beat on features? I don't know. I think, yeah, I don't know. The most important thing is the community, I think.
Reijo (44:32)
That's true. That's true. But you're also like, I can tell you're you're thinking about like, lots of new and interesting ways to augment the product as it already is, like video feedback and stuff like that. So those are kind of novel and interesting features to plug in. So it's not just the community. It's also like,
Liam (44:34)
You need a...
Mm.
Reijo (44:59)
interesting way, interesting tools to give to the community.
Liam (45:03)
Yep. Yeah. Very true. Very true. But yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean, ultimately, I think I've maybe told you in the past, I'd love to do some events in real life events. I want to start doing those quite regularly soon. Maybe, maybe the one in June will spark something. I'm hoping to do like a one in June because I started layers two years ago in June. So having a little
Reijo (45:16)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Nice.
Liam (45:33)
anniversary then might be quite nice. And then, yeah, I'd love to, I think it's a natural progression of communities if they grow. Like if Layers continues to grow, I think a lot of people will want to start meeting up regardless of what Layers does. I know this because I...
Reijo (45:37)
That would be nice.
Yeah.
Liam (46:02)
Did it for Dribbble, right? I'm not sure if I started it necessarily, but I think there might have been a few comments saying, oh, it'd be great if there was a Dribbble meetup. Everyone met up, just talk design. And I was like, oh yeah, that would be awesome. And I think, well, I know that I instigated one of the first meetups.
Reijo (46:04)
Yes.
hahahaha
Liam (46:32)
started and did one of the first meetups, but only one other person turned up. That's how early this was.
Reijo (46:40)
Oh my god.
That's... Do you remember what year it was?
Liam (46:45)
ages ago now. That was, that was, it must have been 12, 13 years ago. Yeah, Dribble, Dan and Rich even sent us like some merch and stickers and stuff like that to share at the meetup.
Reijo (46:51)
Wow, oh wow, okay
That was then, yeah, that was, that was before treble was cool, I think, right?
Liam (47:10)
Well, I don't know when these things become cool rare. You're the expert by the sounds.
Reijo (47:14)
No, not at all. But to me, always people people always say like, or the most I've heard was like a period between 2014 and 2016 ish, maybe 20 up to 2018. I don't know exactly. But some somewhere like around that. That's typically the time period to talk about. But dribbles been around for a lot longer than that, I think, right?
Liam (47:43)
Yeah, I think something that's growing typically is just cool. Everyone wants to be a part of it. Everyone likes seeing new features, new people, new content. It's like, this is bustling. This is thriving. I love it.
Reijo (47:50)
That's true.
I feel like it's, and it's in some interesting, strange way, it's rewarding as a user to be a part of that growth for a long time. Like to think back, I was here like before XYZ feature launch, I was here from the very ground up, right? And to see that entire journey, I feel like that's very...
That's rewarding in some sense.
Liam (48:33)
Yeah, it can be. I think some people can see it as a quite a large investment, but if you just see it as playing around with something cool, I think, I think that's the way to go about it. And if you still enjoy using the platform, you can't contributing to the community, meeting people, then you just keep doing it. Don't think about what you want to get from it necessarily. Um,
Reijo (48:45)
Yeah. Yeah.
100 % 100 % It should be like are you having fun? If yes, very good. If no, go back to start.
Liam (49:01)
Yeah.
I think it gets a little different as you get older, like our ages and even older, because then you're like, I know how long it takes. And is it worth my time? I've got a lot of other stuff to do. But you...
Reijo (49:22)
You're right, like I understand you're right, you're right, but I still feel like...
Liam (49:26)
But the fun is still there for us as well, right? We choose what to do with our time, especially our time off. It's like...
Reijo (49:29)
Yeah, you have 100 percent.
Like if it wouldn't be fun, like I wouldn't do it. That's it. Like I wouldn't use it if it doesn't provide me with a sense of joy in some way, I think. So it's still here.
Liam (49:51)
Yep. Yeah, so what else is new? Let's talk about design news. What's happened? What's been occurring on your feed?
Reijo (50:07)
That's a very good question. I cleaned up, I used the extension on Brave. What was the extension called? Minimal Twitter by Typefily. Beautiful. Like I cleaned up my feed a lot. It's been very enjoyable to use now actually on Twitter.
Liam (50:25)
Oh yeah, because someone posted a layer and they basically redesigned Twitter in a much more minimal fashion, and I shared it with Rhea and I was like, oh this is what layers posts looks like. And then I was like, oh you can actually achieve this with TypeFleece Chrome extension, and Rhea was like, what? What?
Reijo (50:30)
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Right? What? This is amazing. And you know what the best feature about it is? I can hide notification badges, any sort of indication about notifications. So I don't get those bubbles anywhere. So I'm not sidetracked to, ah, let's go and see what the notification is. I get to browse in peace somewhat.
Liam (51:02)
Mm.
Yeah. Yeah. I love how customizable the extension is, right? How much you can show and hide, like almost practically everything.
Reijo (51:18)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very, give you very, very, very many features to disable, which is cool. But I hope it hasn't broken yet, but I'm, I'm suspecting that it will find a way to break Twitter in some way. Like, I don't, I don't believe that this works bug free.
Liam (51:45)
I don't know, I guess maybe they keep it updated regularly when Twitter makes changes to their UI? I don't know. I assume if it's working fine now they must keep it somewhat updated.
Reijo (51:58)
That's true. That's true. It's enjoyable. It's enjoyable. But mostly, you know, the most recurring topic in my, let's say, design Twitter feed is framer versus Webflow. That's the most recurring topic. Yeah.
Liam (52:17)
Oh really? You're encroaching on those communities, eh?
Reijo (52:22)
I think I follow people from both and they're both very strongly opinionated. I think that one of them is better or the other is better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But also I feel like there's some, there are people with at least like a balanced opinion to say that yes, one like they both have strengths and they both have weaknesses. I haven't yet used both in detail, like deeply figured out how they work. So I have no opinion on it.
Liam (52:28)
To put it lightly.
Reijo (52:50)
But I'm glad that people like this has become a huge, huge part of design businesses, I think.
Liam (52:50)
Yep.
Yeah. Yeah. Like my, um, my partner and co -founder of Kodam Wonder, she works, um, with Webflow a lot every day. Uh, so she's, she's big in the Webflow community and has also spoken at the conferences and events, et cetera. Um, but yeah, the community behind Webflow is, is incredible. It is a very, very thriving community. Like,
the members, you meet someone who's in that community and they're so happy to be in it. They love the product and like, I don't know who's doing it is necessarily, but I think, I think it's just the intrinsic value that Webflow produces. It's allowing people to create websites, whereas they would
never have been able to before, or it would have been a much higher barrier to entry. They'd have to learn a lot more to figure it out. And I think Webplay removing that barrier to entry. So almost anyone can create a website in less than a day and then sell it or get clients from it is, is what makes the community so strong. It's like with this tool, I've been able to make a career, a living.
Reijo (54:05)
Yeah?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Liam (54:28)
And I've been able to pretty much do what I want. And that that sort of value is just incomparable, I think. And so of course you're going to love the product. You're going to love whoever uses that product and you're probably going to want to meet up with those other users and just discuss how to.
Reijo (54:32)
Yeah.
I feel the same about Blender. For me, it's like a life -changing piece of software, for sure, 100%. Much, much more so.
Liam (54:58)
Yeah. Yeah. What is that? What is that community like actually? How did you, how do you get into that?
Reijo (55:05)
Through Dribbble. Yeah, I saw a lot of 3D illustrations on Dribbble and I was like, ah, this looks fucking amazing. I would like to have a Charlotte trying to make something like this. So I found some tutorials to go through, some free, some paid tutorials, communities to join and then sort of...
Liam (55:09)
Oh yeah?
Reijo (55:35)
started building it up from there. Communities for when you're just starting learning, I found are incredibly important, like super, super important to be a part, to be amongst the people who are at the same level as you. Like if you know nothing and you have 10 other people around you who also know close to nothing, it's very, it's the learning experience is much, much more enjoyable.
Liam (55:48)
Yes.
Yeah, how did you teach yourself just YouTube videos?
Reijo (56:09)
No, I joined, there's an amazing, amazing, amazing tutorial creator or like a teacher under the name Polygon Runway, whose community I joined, whose tutorials I started out with. And I finished like, I didn't even finish all the tutorials. I finished like maybe first half of them at the time.
And after that, I was like off to the races, like figuring, trying, making things on my own and just troubleshooting as I went on.
Liam (56:47)
Yeah, yeah, I've dabbled numerous times. Like I've done the infamous donut tutorial three or four times.
Reijo (56:57)
The torn -out father.
Liam (57:02)
And similar to After Effects, like a video copilot, I did those back in the day, but I never jumped right in, I never got hooked in, like what I'm doing now, like coding and design. I'd love to, but I think it is just a lot of time that I need to dedicate to it.
Reijo (57:24)
Yeah.
It needs, yes, there's definitely a learning curve. There's definitely hardware requirements at some sort, at least. And those hardware requirements also will put limits on what you can and cannot make, reasonably, I think. It's not going to be easy, but I think it's going to be worth it.
Liam (57:56)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I was gonna say I've always loved, I've always wanted to be able to master After Effects and some sort of 3D tool. I mean, I did 3ds Max for a year in university. So I became quite experienced with 3ds Max, but I...
Reijo (57:57)
So I have, I've.
Like.
Fucking...
Oh really?
Liam (58:25)
I never wanted to use that full time. I wanted to use something like Blender. Actually, previously, I think I was more into Cinema 4D. And maybe it was just the combination of using so many different tools. I was like, oh, I could never stick to one. And then I was just building websites, so I never really needed some 3D stuff. And then, yeah, it wasn't until recently.
Reijo (58:41)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Liam (58:53)
similar to yourself, you're seeing all this cool 3D stuff, you're like, oh I want to make some of this.
Reijo (58:56)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It's.
You have to make a choice on how you spend your time, right? If I hadn't made the choice to start learning 3D, I would have picked up something else. Like maybe I would have picked up like Framer or Webflow, or maybe honest to God coding by itself, who knows? But 3D, that's what I've, I'm very lucky. I feel like I'm lucky that I did pick 3D because that's something I immensely enjoy. Like I could do this for the rest of my life.
Liam (59:32)
Mm. Yep.
Reijo (59:34)
without a problem. So, I lucked out with that.
Liam (59:37)
Yep.
Reijo (59:41)
But the communities are different or they're differently oriented, I feel like. They're not like Design Twitter, at least, I think.
Liam (59:41)
Also, uh...
Is there like a 3D Twitter? People that you regularly see or chat with?
Reijo (59:56)
Ah, there might be Blender Twitter. I don't actually know, perhaps. I feel like 3D people are much more, how do you say, honest? Or maybe, like, you know, like, design Twitter can be awfully curated, you know? You, like...
you dance around like the issues or like you pick your words carefully. I found that like illustrators or people of those traits are much more honest online as well. Like they call us spade is spade.
Liam (1:00:40)
They're a bit more blunt.
Reijo (1:00:42)
Yeah, yeah, I don't know why specifically, but that's been my experience in those communities.
Liam (1:00:45)
Oh really?
be fair. Yeah, thinking of I only know a few, and I can only recall a few tweets. So obviously generalization, but yeah, they have been quite blunt. Well, they're not afraid to share what they really think. Put it that way.
Reijo (1:00:59)
Right?
Yeah, that's kind of refreshing to me, I feel. There's not like a, there's at least I don't perceive that there's a huge facade of between who the person is and who the person, who they're projecting to be, I think.
Liam (1:01:09)
Yeah.
That must be nice to be fair.
Reijo (1:01:24)
Yeah, whereas on design Twitter, like, if I didn't see the profile picture and the name, like, these tweets could be coming from, like, whoever. Like, there's often very minimal personality in them, I feel.
Liam (1:01:44)
Yeah that is true actually, that is kind of true. Yeah well I think there's a f -
Reijo (1:01:53)
That's I don't say that's a fact. That's just how I've that's what that's my experience
Liam (1:01:59)
Your experience. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think I do have a few people that do share their opinions quite a bit. But yeah, I do understand there are also a lot of accounts out there just trying to post the same old stuff and just trying to grow basically. They're just trying to grow their account. They're not bothered about necessarily, I don't know, discussing something or...
Reijo (1:02:28)
People approach social media in very different ways. It means a lot of different things to people. Some look at it in a very cold sort of, this is just a tool that I'm using to find clients or grow an audience or something like that. And I feel like that leads...
Liam (1:02:39)
Yeah.
Yeah, for work. Yep.
Reijo (1:02:55)
that very easily leads to like engagement farming and like all sorts of stuff. I personally feel like when I'm gonna tweet something or when I post something that's what I actually mean or that's what I actually think. Like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna engagement farm for the sake of it.
Liam (1:03:18)
Yep, I've seen a few of your recent tweets. Like you say, quite blunt. I can't remember what one of them was, but it was quite funny. I was like, rare, geez.
Reijo (1:03:23)
No, no, no.
Did I say anything? I don't think, I don't, and I don't think, mostly what, like 95 % of the things I post is just work. Like I don't, I don't get online soapbox that often.
Liam (1:03:36)
No.
Yeah. Yeah.
Occasionally you might reply to some stupid thread or stupid comment.
Reijo (1:03:50)
That's the thing I can't help, I think. That's a bad habit that I should stop because what's there in it for me? Nothing. Only the satisfaction of replying and that's it.
Liam (1:04:00)
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, it's a small outlet just to vent your emotions. So it's not all that bad.
Reijo (1:04:15)
Yeah, yeah, what pisses you off the most when you're on Twitter?
Liam (1:04:18)
What pisses me off the most?
Reijo (1:04:21)
Yeah, like what grinds your gears?
Liam (1:04:26)
Uhhhh
I'm not a fan of a lot of the engagement farming like posting... the thing is I love a good shitpost but I hate seeing them all the time so it's quite hypocritical I'm like...
Reijo (1:04:38)
I 100 % agree.
That's also true. Yes. Yes.
Liam (1:04:48)
And, and design Twitter has a number of post types, which have been game to fuck right now. Like a A B tests and like which one do you prefer? And, uh, just like sharing images of fonts. I think, I think I did. Yeah. I think I did like a shit post myself, which is also kind of hypocritical, like a starter pack for design Twitter. Like what to post.
Reijo (1:04:53)
Yes.
or like.
What star sign are you? Like, what colors are your nails?
Liam (1:05:18)
and yeah I guess I think especially from designers that I think who are really good designers I'm like you don't you don't need to do these types of posts come on man well it's like
Reijo (1:05:36)
That's also what I feel like. That also feels like I respect your work. I don't know about you as a person, like speaking to a stranger on Twitter. I don't know anything about you as a person, but I respect your work enough to think that you don't need to do this fucking, are you an extrovert or an introvert bullshit? Like you should respect your own work a bit more.
Liam (1:06:03)
Hmm.
Yep.
Reijo (1:06:06)
Like this is so clearly bait that it's How does it even work to this day and age? I don't know but like I feel like you should respect your work a bit more
Liam (1:06:19)
Yeah, I also don't like when...
start to worry about what they should post to retain their engagement levels. I understand that when it gets to a point you don't want to lose followers and you want to remain interesting, but at the same time don't just do it for the sake of the game right? Just...
Reijo (1:06:38)
Yes, and that's not sustainable.
Liam (1:06:45)
Mm.
Reijo (1:06:45)
I don't think that's sustainable. And I think believing that it is sustainable leads to making, I think, unfortunate decisions. But again, that's from the viewpoint of if you look at your account as just as a very cold as a tool, not as an extension of yourself.
Liam (1:06:58)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Which is... Yeah, I guess there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. But you just have to be just have to be a bit careful with how you want to perceive. Like if you if you don't worry about how you're perceived, then yeah, fine, do what you want. But if you do, then...
Reijo (1:07:15)
That's a way to do it.
There's not... Yeah, absolutely.
You get muted. Yes.
Exactly, exactly.
I don't know.
Liam (1:07:41)
Right. And on that note, we'll call it there. Thanks very much for listening everyone. If you have any questions or feedback for us here on overlay, then please send us an email to overlay at layers .to and we'll discuss them live on the podcast. Overlay is available on any podcasting service app, anything that you use. So if you would like to rate, review, subscribe, like, whatever, whatever you can do, that'd be
Very helpful for Ryo and I. And that's it. I'm Liam P McCabe on X.
Reijo (1:08:18)
And I am Ray of Rates on X.
Liam (1:08:22)
and we shall see you in the next one. Peace.
Reijo (1:08:25)
Bye!