A small, friendly web conference

Kinference 2025

A small, friendly web conference

Kinference 2025

A small, friendly web conference

Kinference 2025

Kinference 2025

A small, friendly web conference

Kinference is one of my favorite events, less of a formal conference and more of a reunion of internet friends. It’s a space for the web’s optimists to come together offline and rally around a shared hope for the future of the internet.

Kinference is one of my favorite events, less of a formal conference and more of a reunion of internet friends. It’s a space for the web’s optimists to come together offline and rally around a shared hope for the future of the internet.

This year, I volunteered to help document the event and the parties. Trying to capture great photos while also trying to catch the talks was a serious challenge, much respect to all the event photographers out there.

Day 1

Cameron Koczon opened the conference with thoughtful words about the design and tech industry’s shifting landscape. He framed the next two days as a space for reflection, a chance to pause, reconnect, and reimagine our roles as designers in the age of AI and constant change.

Russ Maschmeyer (Product Design Director, GenAI at Meta) & Jessica Hische (Lettering artist and author) kicked things off with A House Div-ai-ded, a fun and honest conversation between husband and wife about how AI is shaping the tech, design and creative industries.

Russ sees endless opportunity, Jessica approaches it with curiosity and caution. Togther they captured what many of us feel about AI: hopeful, anxious, and figuring it out as we go.

Next was a short demo of Output, a new workplace communication app for small, fast, ambitious teams – think a modern Slack or Discord alternative, still in alpha but already showing promise.

Andrew Green (Head of Design at Canva) shared how his team is experimenting with vibe coding and how it helps designers move faster from idea to iteration.

Matthew Smith (freelance designer and founder of Wimp Decaf Coffee Co.) gave a grounded, refreshingly real talk about using AI to write website copy. By feeding it voice notes from a therapist client, he was able to turn her spoken thoughts into clear, usable content. A smart example of AI as a creative partner rather than a replacement.

Carl Rivera (Chief Design Officer at Shopify) zoomed out to look at the bigger picture, tracing the web’s evolution from desktop to mobile, to social, and now to AI. His call to action was clear: designers should lead this new era, not just adapt to it.

Pablo Stanley (Illustrator and designer at Vercel v0) shared a vulnerable, humerous talk about his creative ups and downs with using AI, from burnout to finding joy again.

Frank Chimero (designer and writer) gave an insightful talk about how creativity and AI can coexist without flattening human skill. It included how Rick Rubin annoys him, and a poetic comparison to Spirited Away, where the “AI monster” isn’t an enemy to defeat, but a spirit we must learn to live with.

He published the talk as an essay on his website, and you should absolutely read it →.


Jessica Hische & Chris Shiflett introduced Studio Works, their new venture aimed at helping creative studios manage their businesses. Built around shared values rather than growth for growth’s sake, it felt like a refreshing antidote to the startup obsession with scale.

Julia Parris, award-winning multidisciplinary artist and creative director, spoke about grief and healing through the lens of a magazine she created. Born from her mother’s cancer diagnosis and the pandemic lockdown, the project evolved from a personal visual diary into a celebration of her creative community’s resilience.

Jonni Hallman wrapped up the day with an energetic talk about passion projects and basketball. A self-proclaimed domain-name collector and pickup game regular, he built bball.app to schedule local games, and recently left his job to pursue it full-time. An inspiring reminder that sometimes side projects become the main story.

Day 2

Day two started with a VC panel moderated by Cameron, featuring Willem van Lancker (Terrain), Hayley Barna (First Round), and Tyler Mincey (Baukunst). They discussed what it means to fund creative ideas in an AI-driven era, with the shared belief that real innovation comes from ambitious people.

Jonathan Mann, a.k.a. Song A Day Man, has written a song every day for over 16 years. He talked about his evolving creative process, including new experiments with vibe-coded games, like one based on the Coldplay kiss cam incident, and how he found another Jonathan Mann who writes two songs a day (about Warhammer).

The team behind Noomalooma introduced their creative playground, small daily exercises that fit into real life. They even handed out bingo cards for a scavenger hunt called Wonder Wandering, which led everyone on a sunny walk to Fort Greene Park for a delicious picnic lunch.

Strategist Chappell Ellison delivered a sharp and funny eulogy for design, tracing its arc from the “design will save the world” optimism of 2009 through to its current identity crisis. A perfect mix of humor and reflection.

Maykel Loomans (Principal Designer at Brex) followed with an honest talk about the current state of digital product design, reminding everyone why thoughtful, human-centered design still matters.

Jake Harper, artist and co-founder of SOOT, demoed an intelligent visual search app inspired by the curvatures and organic forms found in nature. His talk reimagined what interfaces could look like when we draw more inspiration from the natural world.

Tyler Mincey, co-founder and GP at Baukunst, and a member of the original iPhone team, gave a fascinating live hardware demo of the first iPhone. Under a microscope camera, he revealed the intricate chip layouts and touchscreen layers while sharing stories of the design challenges the team faced. It was a rare glimpse into the hidden craftsmanship behind a product that changed everything.

Reggie James (co-founder of Eternal and Maria, Maria) closed out the lineup with a talk about design as a way of life, about building things that matter, with intention and care. You can read his full script here →

As tradition goes, Jonathan Mann returned to close out the conference with a song that somehow managed to summarize two packed days and make it all rhyme.

—

And that wrapped up Kinference 2025, still the friendliest, most inspiring conference I’ve ever been to. And a big shoutout to Cameron, Jessi, Creighton, Bekka, Casson, Ben, and everyone else that brought Kinference to life.

—

More photos of the event are on my instagram: day 1 & day 2

Day 2

Day two started with a VC panel moderated by Cameron, featuring Willem van Lancker (Terrain), Hayley Barna (First Round), and Tyler Mincey (Baukunst). They discussed what it means to fund creative ideas in an AI-driven era, with the shared belief that real innovation comes from ambitious people.

Jonathan Mann, a.k.a. Song A Day Man, has written a song every day for over 16 years. He talked about his evolving creative process, including new experiments with vibe-coded games, like one based on the Coldplay kiss cam incident, and how he found another Jonathan Mann who writes two songs a day (about Warhammer).

The team behind Noomalooma introduced their creative playground, small daily exercises that fit into real life. They even handed out bingo cards for a scavenger hunt called Wonder Wandering, which led everyone on a sunny walk to Fort Greene Park for a delicious picnic lunch.

Strategist Chappell Ellison delivered a sharp and funny eulogy for design, tracing its arc from the “design will save the world” optimism of 2009 through to its current identity crisis. A perfect mix of humor and reflection.

Maykel Loomans (Principal Designer at Brex) followed with an honest talk about the current state of digital product design, reminding everyone why thoughtful, human-centered design still matters.

Jake Harper, artist and co-founder of SOOT, demoed an intelligent visual search app inspired by the curvatures and organic forms found in nature. His talk reimagined what interfaces could look like when we draw more inspiration from the natural world.

Tyler Mincey, co-founder and GP at Baukunst, and a member of the original iPhone team, gave a fascinating live hardware demo of the first iPhone. Under a microscope camera, he revealed the intricate chip layouts and touchscreen layers while sharing stories of the design challenges the team faced. It was a rare glimpse into the hidden craftsmanship behind a product that changed everything.

Reggie James (co-founder of Eternal and Maria, Maria) closed out the lineup with a talk about design as a way of life, about building things that matter, with intention and care. You can read his full script here →

As tradition goes, Jonathan Mann returned to close out the conference with a song that somehow managed to summarize two packed days and make it all rhyme.

—

And that wrapped up Kinference 2025, still the friendliest, most inspiring conference I’ve ever been to. And a big shoutout to Cameron, Jessi, Creighton, Bekka, Casson, Ben, and everyone else that brought Kinference to life.

—

More photos of the event are on my instagram: day 1 & day 2