The first episode of Design Details has arrived! For our opening show, we sat down with designer and developer Sam Soffes to talk about his latest project (Whiskey), building in public, brag-driven development and his interest in working as a designer. This is our first episode and we're learning a lot! We'd love your feedback or suggestions - give a shout on Twitter, @designdetailsfm or send us a private email!

Sam Soffes on the Web:

• Website / Portfolio
• Twitter
• Github
• Instagram
• Nothing Magical
• Whiskey Markdown Editor
• Sam's Blog
• Sam's Video Podcast
• More About Sam
• Hire Sam

Show Notes:

1:35 - We chat with Sam about his latest labor of love, Whiskey.

• Tim Van Damme of Dropbox designed a theme
• Sam is building Whiskey in public via feedback on Twitter and with public release notes

6:30 - We talk about some of Sam's older projects.

• Cheddar (which we compared to Whiteboard)
• Shares

7:50 - Discussion about the difficulty selling apps, including Cheddar and Roon

• Ghost.org
• Ghost Acquires Roon
• Roon's open-source Ghost theme

11:15 - How do you balance freelancing with clients and building your own side projects?

• Nothing Magical

12:10 - We dive a bit deeper into the challenges of building Whiskey - what's your product philosophy?

• iA Writer

18:45 - Sam shares a brilliant product development hack.

• Example of the changelog process

22:33 - What does it take to design a text/markdown editor?

• Whiskey App Icon on Dribbble
• Louie Mantia

26:05 - Sam has built several photo apps; we dive into the process.

• Tiiny
• Kevin Rose
• Marc Hemeon
• Marc Hemeon's blog post on Building Tiiny
• A screenshot of Tiiny's onboarding instructions
• Sam on Github
• Over
• Aaron Marshall

37:40 - We chat about Sam's motorcycle trip through South Africa

• Sam's public photostream
• Sam's Instagram
• Aaron Marshall on Instagram

43:52 - Dan Cassaro for Deus

44:01 - Sam tells us about designing an onboarding experience in Litely

• Litely
• Litely was named one of Apple's Best Apps of 2014

50:50 - Sam talks about his move from development to design. Can taste be learned?

• Aaron Draplin Takes On a Logo Design Challenge

57:27 - We briefly chat about prototyping and the tools Sam uses.

• Sketch
• Sublime Text