Kieran Parker

Designer. Products, tools, objects, what-ifs.

Prev founding designer @luckyrobots

[Tommy Geoco 🇺🇸 @designertom]

I fumbled generational wealth trying to be more designer when I needed to be more founder.

It took me many years to forgive myself for that one.

[Ryo Lu @ryolu_]

struggle together

i learned programming and design by trying, failing, and trying again.

when i hit a wall, i figured out how to climb it. read something i barely understood. took things apart. asked someone for help. started over.

when i began my career, i kept doing things i had never done before. trying different ways to make something work. when i stopped learning, i moved on to the next struggle.

many things i made weren’t very good. but after enough rounds, something stuck. what once took so much effort became part of how i thought. i could feel something was wrong before i knew how to explain it.

it became like water.

i think about what went into that. the bug i couldn’t fix. the design that looked right until someone used it. the conversation that made me realize my flaws.

now we can ask a machine.

i’ve made things with these tools that i might never have made otherwise. i don’t miss every tedious task. but i wonder what happens when we remove the difficulty before we understand what it was teaching us.

we ask. something appears. it works well enough. we move on.

we learn how to get results without necessarily understanding how it works. and because the result looks complete, it becomes easy to miss the questions we never learned to ask.

there is another side to this.

working with people is uncomfortable.

everyone wants something different. everyone has a history you don’t know. someone cares about a detail you think is unimportant. someone pushes back when you want to move. someone needs time when you feel certain.

it takes a while to find each other.

but sometimes, after struggling together, you become a band.

you know who notices what you miss. who can pull an idea apart without killing it. when to step in, when to slow down, when to let someone else carry the rhythm.

you share something unfinished. admit you don’t know. hurt each other, apologize, try again. eventually you make something none of you could have made alone.

some of my closest friendships came from working this way. smart, caring humans who saw me confused, wrong, tired, excited. people i could be vulnerable with. people whose ideas changed mine.

i worry we are making it easier to avoid that beginning.

an agent is always there. patient. ready to keep going. talking to it can feel easier than reaching toward someone who might misunderstand you, disagree, or have somewhere else to be.

sometimes that ease helps. but if we keep choosing it, where do the friendships begin?

i picture each of us with our own agents. our own explanations. our own little worlds. making more things, with fewer reasons to leave the screen or work through a difference with another person.

and these worlds aren’t entirely ours.

they run on machines in server farms, owned by companies, shaped by interests we may not see. we bring them our questions, our work, our loneliness. they become part of how we understand what is real.

is that freedom?

or a comfortable kind of confinement, where everything responds to us but fewer things reach us?

i don’t think pain makes something good. there are struggles nobody should have to endure. but i don’t want to lose the difficulty of learning something unfamiliar, or getting to know someone who isn’t like me.

maybe we need tools that help us spend more time with the world, instead of giving us fewer reasons to enter it. tools that make it easier to find people, share something unfinished, and work through what we couldn’t figure out alone.

sometimes i want to close the laptop.

sit with people i love. play something we haven’t figured out yet. miss a note, lose the rhythm, listen until we find each other again.

like a jazz band. everyone bringing something different. nobody knowing where we’ll end up.

i don’t want a life without struggle. i want people to struggle with. something we can feel, change, and make our own.

music we couldn’t have made alone, instead of the silent static of the server farm.

[Kieran Parker @_kprkr]

@jsngr @soleio @mainframe

[Kieran Parker @_kprkr]

@therealcarlin @DavidPlakon Ahhh gotcha! tdil!

Ok sweet man, i'll keep my eyes peeled for your updates!

[Kieran Parker @_kprkr]

@therealcarlin @DavidPlakon Family mold as in, a few products in one mold or?

And swee tthanks for the info man, hard to get real cost to output examples online.

Have you shared more info on the process/journey anywhere? Interested to learn more about the process!

[Kieran Parker @_kprkr]

@therealcarlin @DavidPlakon Out of interest, whats the rough cost for injection molding and at what sort of MOQ?

[mason @madebymbw]

My desk was always buried in sticky notes and index cards I could never find.

So I built the notes app I’ve always wanted. Droplist is a simple daily planner that feels like paper, but you never lose an idea or a to-do. There's a daily note for dropping thoughts as they come, and a desk view for organizing the bigger parts of your life.

See a fully interactive demo right on the homepage and try it for yourself → https://t.co/Kbz8WwHbGm

[Lucky Robots @luckyrobots]

🚀 We’re thrilled to announce the release of Lucky Engine 2026.3! "The Matrix for Robots" is now 100% Agentic 🤖✨

To train autonomy, you need a "Matrix" a virtual playground where they can learn before touching the physical world.

Today, we are dropping Lucky Engine 2026.3, and we think that it redefines how synthetic environments are built.

• Real-time ray tracing & path tracing

• 100% agentic (AI agents fully control the engine)

• Upload a photo → instant data generation for your policies

• Graph-based procedural generation, AI generated determinism

• No Blender required. Here’s what’s inside 🧵 👇

[Kieran Parker @_kprkr]

@chalaska Do you think the clientele or offering would be different if you were solo vs studio?

Studios are easier to fluidly bring people in where as solo feels more messy to get them in on a project.

[Kieran Parker @_kprkr]

@darylginn @zach_yadegari Dunno what I’m going to get done in an hour to prove my “worth” but ok then 😂

[Kieran Parker @_kprkr]

@dannypostma Danny 3 questions:

1. Do you typically set an initial budget?
2. Preferred channel? (Or depends on the audience/product)
3. What metrics are you measuring/looking for?

I'd love a live example of this in practice!

[Kieran Parker @_kprkr]

Insightful question and response here.

And something I (and others) should keep in mind when selling yourself.

Chris asked what Parthos speciality was after hinting at wanting to work with him.

The response listed a bunch of generic things.

Had he replied with a direct "Logo design" or even "Logo design for hardware companies" im sure Chris would have earmarked this designer for the next hardware client that needed a logo.

But by being a bit too generic, you get put into the pool other other general designers (and likely buried).

During some hiring rounds, I often had general designers that were good but didn't stand out in one specific area.

But the ones that were extremely good at a specific thing/discipline/etc are still bookmarked - should i need that specific talent in the future.

[Chris Halaska @chalaska]

@ParthoS99 Maybe one day, what do you specialise in?

[Kieran Parker @_kprkr]

@ModestMitkus Cancelled my annual sub, will run out mid-Nov.

It's no longer a no-brain sub for me with the current landscape/etc.

Also launching a lot of features i just do not care about rather than focusing on their core audience.

[Phi Hoang @apostraphi]

what if you let music take control of motion?

[mason @madebymbw]

I love pinterest, but always wanted more control of the UI. So I made a free plugin for chrome that turns your pinterest into a beautiful gallery that puts you in control. Introducing minimalpin.

Get it for free: https://t.co/WE9M3qRKBy

[Kieran Parker @_kprkr]

@marclou Im not sure you understand how first name last names work Marclou Marclou

[Kieran Parker @_kprkr]

@stephenhaney

[Alex @alexgilev]

Nothing humbles a designer when s/he sees their own work implemented in code 1:1.

A lot of things need to be felt in the browser to be able to fully understand how they really work.

[Kieran Parker @_kprkr]

@ModestMitkus Sweet appreciate the insight!

Interested to hear how you get on, would love to try the landingpage-test approach personally but am completely lost with ads/etc

[Kieran Parker @_kprkr]

The apple wait for any small change is insane.
And their rejection for stupid things is even worse.

I enjoy designing/building apps.
But I agree, the game you have to play to make it successful is one i am either misunderstanding or just one i don't want to play.

There are a few people who just naturally fit their idea/niche/marketing angle. But the majority fail to mention their 6-figures comes with a 99% ad/marketing spend.

And the amount of people who make claims like "how to market your app without spending $ on ads" and then go on to talk about hiring UGC creators, failing to realise thats (even loosely) and ad... it nuts.

Also - as someone who focuses on quality first, would love to hear your plan on testing in two weeks with a landing page. I have considered this but then get stuck at "how to get eyes on" in a meaningful way