Ramp, Dropbox, Lyft, Twitch: The Design Layer You Never Notice | Jon Howell

What makes a product feel magical? It's rarely one big thing. It's the haptic buzz when your payment goes through. The animated rocket ship in a toast notification. The onboarding moment you skip but somehow still remember. That's brand experience design, and most people have never heard of it.Jon Howell is Principal Brand Experience Designer at Ramp, and before that, he shaped product and brand at Dropbox, Lyft, Twitch, Robin Hood, and more. In this episode, we get into the discipline that sits between brand and product and why the best companies in the world are finally taking it seriously.We cover the full toolkit: Rive, Lottie, ProtoPie, Jitter, haptic feedback, sonic design, AI motion identity, wearables and more. Plus Jon gives genuinely useful career advice for designers trying to break into this space.00:00 Intro and what is brand experience design02:05 New tools reshaping the field: Rive, Lottie, ProtoPie05:15 Haptics, sound and the Robin Hood loot box example07:09 How brands build emotional connection through design13:19 Testing brand moments and why metrics don't always apply18:27 Designing trust into AI products24:45 Balancing delight with function30:15 How to sell brand experience work internally34:06 Career advice: breaking into brand experience design43:53 Wearables, AR glasses and the future of brand interaction