Designer Fund

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Making decarbonization profitable through design

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Plus, explore open design roles at our portfolio companies 👋

Climate Impact Through Design: Meet Lumen Energy

Commercial buildings produce an estimated 16% of US greenhouse gas emissions. Designer Fund portfolio company Lumen Energy is on a mission to change that, with the goal of helping every building owner find the most profitable path to decarbonization.

Installing clean energy solutions at scale is a surprisingly complex process, but Lumen Energy believes smart design can make it a more accessible—even delightful—process. In our latest piece, meet the team behind the innovative platform and see why they believe design will play a critical role in reducing global carbon emissions.

Some of the other topics we cover:

  • How to influence product decisions through design
  • The potential for designers to make an impact in climate tech
  • What it takes to create a culture of design at an early stage startup
“We believe that having really good design is going to be instrumental in making our work possible. Being able to deeply understand our user personas and design elegant ways of presenting really complicated information is mission-critical for us.”

– Dave Cohen, COO and Co-founder at Lumen Energy

Business and Storytelling: A Powerful Combination for Designers

We’re wrapping up our spring schedule with our two most popular workshops, covering what we believe are the most important tools for designers to add to their toolkits: business and storytelling.

Business Value of Design | May 15-19
“As a time-strapped content designer, the format and delivery of this course was—as Goldilocks said—‘just right!’ I feel adequately equipped with the most essential frameworks, tools, and language to help me communicate, negotiate, and discuss more effectively with business stakeholders.”
— Senior Content Designer, Grab

Designing Stories | May 22-26
“ think this is by far the most creative and interactive virtual workshop I've attended. I really enjoyed learning the fundamentals of storytelling and I would recommend this workshop to anyone who's new to the process.” 
— Product Designer, Yelp

🗓️ Our workshops are crafted specifically for designers to fit into their work week — 5 days. 25 minutes per day. 100% asynchronous. Find the full schedule here.

What We’re Reading

Looking for inspiration on design, startups, and leadership? Check out these resources from our portfolio companies and community.

The Framer Story
Framer’s co-founder Jorn van Dijk chronicles the company’s nine-year “overnight success” story and shares his thoughts on the evolution of AI and design.

Design at Gusto: Keeping Collaboration and Customers at the Core
We spoke to past and present design team members at Gusto for their advice on getting buy-in for design's value and building a more customer-connected culture.

The Startup CEO Remaking City Hall
From UX designer → Founder of Remix → now the Chief of Staff to Boston's mayor, Tiffany Chu’s career is a testament to her commitment to designing better cities.

  Recruiting Outside Your Personal Network
In this guide, a recruiter from Stripe offers pointers on sourcing potential new employees outside the bounds of your personal network.

Q&A with Jenny Wen
How do you build products that users love? ICYMI: Jenny Wen, Product Design Manager at Figma and the mastermind behind FigJam, recently answered our community's questions on all things design and leadership.

New Manager Starter Pack
Speaking of Figma, check out Brent Palmer's toolkit of templates to help design managers build morale, team trust, and a culture of coaching.

Open Design Roles

Below are some of the companies across our portfolio that are hiring designers right now:

Senior Product Designer at Commure — You'll create user-centered digital healthcare products that help improve patient outcomes

Senior Content Designer at Elevate Labs — You’ll write intuitive copy that creates a meaningful, cohesive experience across Elevate's mobile apps

Senior Product Designer at Formation — You'll design well-crafted tools that help technologists from underrepresented backgrounds accelerate their career

Product Design Manager at Foundation — You'll be the company's first design manager, helping grow and inspire a team of designers working to build the best-designed user experience in web3

Freelance Brand Designer at Gatheround — You’ll deliver high-quality visual designs across multiple channels to help achieve the company's mission to connect teams

Senior Product Designer, Benefits at Gusto — You’ll oversee user experience for a part of Gusto’s product that expands access to quality health and financial benefits

Lead Product Designer at Layer — You’ll design a cutting-edge tool that simplifies workflows and makes it easier for every designer to bring their ideas to life

Product Designer at Pledge — You'll ideate and develop experiences that empower mission-driven donors, companies, and nonprofits

Product Designer at Siteline — You'll help modernize finance for construction, an industry that employs one of out every 10 workers

Associate Creative Director at Stripe — You'll conceive of and execute on meaningful online and social creative campaign ideas

Product Designer, Consumer at Stripe — You'll design tools and infrastructure for Stripe's consumer-focused products

Principal Product Designer at Visual Electric — You'll build a new class of design tool powered by AI across mobile, web, and desktop

Plus: Product Marketer (Ambrook), VP of Product (DICE), Head of Marketing (Felt), Frontend Engineer (Mage) Technical Writer (Mixmax), Frontend Engineer, Creative Tools (Visual Electric)

Interested in new opportunities? Share your job preferences here so we can help connect you to mission-driven companies in our network.

Are you hiring? Post your job listing on our job board to reach more designers.

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