Marvin Schwaibold
Leads the Product Design Studio at Shopify; co-founder of the design agency Molly, which Shopify acquired in 2025.
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What they believe
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Graphic design is learned by copying graphic design; the best thing a younger designer can do on seeing something beautiful is try to recreate it.
I learned graphic design by copying graphic design. Like that was the main thing we had to do and that I tried to do. And I think by the way for listeners who are maybe also a little bit younger in their career, the best thing you can do when you see something that you really like that's really beautiful is try to recreate it.
youtube.comSaid 2 Apr 2026This on korrents
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Graphic design is learned by copying graphic design; the best thing a younger designer can do on seeing something beautiful is try to recreate it.
I learned graphic design by copying graphic design. Like that was the main thing we had to do and that I tried to do. And I think by the way for listeners who are maybe also a little bit younger in their career, the best thing you can do when you see something that you really like that's really beautiful is try to recreate it.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
If you are not having fun with the people you are working with, that seldom produces very good creative output.
If you're not having fun with the people that you're working, then I think that seldom produces very good creative output.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
People are more inclined to listen to you and follow your ideas when you entertain them than when you educate them, which can often come across as more patronizing.
When you're entertaining I think people are more inclined to listen to you and to and to follow your ideas versus educating clients or peers or colleagues can often come come across as maybe more patronizing.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
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Everyone's genius sits right next to their dysfunction, and a job in tech is to create an environment where everybody can thrive at the thing that makes them really good; that is how a team gets really good output.
everyone's genius is like right next to their dysfunction and everybody's good at one thing and our job in the studio and and and our job in in in tech and at Shopify general is to create an environment where everybody can thrive at the thing that makes them really, really good and that's how we get really good output out out of our team and out of ourselves.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
There is almost no end state to a project: it has to reach a point where everybody has given as much of what makes them unique to it, and then it is usually in a state it otherwise could not get to.
There is almost no end state to to a project. It has to get to a point where everybody's given as much of what makes them unique in the team to the project and then it'll usually be in a state that you otherwise couldn't get to.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
Being a mile wide and an inch deep with a team loses creativity; the team is better kept together and close, sequencing work more than running it in parallel.
You don't want to be a mile wide and an inch deep with your team. That's how you lose creativity. That's how you lose the environment where somebody with a specific skill set can be successful and can work in. You want to keep the team together. You want to keep the team really close and you want to sequence more than you do parallel.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
With many stakeholders on a project, the most important thing is bringing them along, showing them the thinking behind the decision and selling them over, which makes it a lot easier to progress as a unit.
the most important thing with all of this is just like bringing them along, like showing them the thinking behind how did we land on this and why did we land on this and how do we think this positively impact what we're all trying to achieve, and selling them over. And once they're sold over, and once they're on your side, it becomes a lot easier to that just progress as a unit and and and move forward.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
A designer's assumption about where a component belongs is a personal assumption and does not mean that the market or the users will react to the component that way.
Because my assumption of where I want the carousel component to be on the website is a personal assumption that I have or the studio can have. That doesn't mean that that's how the market or the users will react to that component.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
Motion can hint at the hierarchy of the content you are looking at, for example a sheet overlaying a page tells the user that the content lies on top.
I think that motion can hint at the hierarchy of the content that you're that you're looking at right? So we would build a website and you would click on a CTA and a sheet would overlay that sheet quite literally overlays itself over the website and now your mental understanding of where that content lies is oh it lies on top.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
Output gets really high by iterating and ideating through as many ideas as possible in the fastest amount of time, then picking threads to follow and going deeper into them.
Like our output is really really high because we try to iterate and ideate through as much ideas as possible in the fastest amount of time just to get to an end point where we can look at a lot of different things that we've worked on. And then from there you can pick strings or channels to follow and then fall deeper into.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
Going back to your roots and using tools you know how to use to solve problems is not a bad thing, and AI tools should not be the only thing relied on to solve problems.
going back to your roots and using tools that you know how to use to solve problems is definitely not not a bad thing. I don't think we should only rely on on AI tools to solve our problems for us.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
Coding tools are unlocking designers a ton and creating much more output, which creates more reactions and accumulates to better output for everyone.
I feel like what I'm seeing a lot with our team and with designers on on all of these different teams is just like it's unlocking everyone a ton and it's creating so much more output that creates so much more reactions and that then all accumulates to just better output for everyone.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
Don't be afraid of AI tools: as you start using them and build awareness of how they work, it is a lot easier to understand them, trust them and work better with them.
I would just advise people to just don't be afraid of it. Like just start using the tools. As you start using the tools and you start building more context and awareness of how the tools actually work, it it's it's a lot easier to start to understand them and trust them and and work and work better with them.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
AI tools are innately patient; they are the most patient teacher you will ever have.
Tools are innately patient. This is the most patient teacher you will ever have.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
Creatives were measured by their ability to understand the tools, for better or worse, rather than by the idea behind why they were using the tool.
We were measured as creatives by our ability to understand the tools. The better you were at understanding After Effects or Origami or any of these tools, for better or worse, ranked you higher or lower between your peers and in an organization versus I guess the idea behind why you were using the tool, right?
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
The design process for everyone is becoming way more contextual, whereas before everybody had to open the tool in the same way because of how the tool was built.
I feel like right now we're entering this world where the design process for everyone is becoming way more contextual. versus before, everybody has to open up the tool in the same way because the tool is just built in the specific way and the architecture and hierarchy of how the tool is created is always in the same way.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
People creating their own workflows, building a set of tools and stringing them together to get to their output, is as creative as it gets.
what we're seeing right now is people creating their own workflows. That alone is as creative as you can get. Building a set of tools and stringing them together in a way you want it you want them strung together to get to your output is an insanely cool to see
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
AI enables people with agency, who want to ideate, move and iterate, to move way faster.
Like I think AI is enabling people with agency and people who want to ideate and who want to move and who want to iterate to move way way way faster.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
Design differentiation in the future means more of a malleable interface that morphs and shapes itself around the contextual needs of merchants, rather than one specific direction.
I think design differentiation means that in the future, we're looking at more of a malleable interface that morphs and shapes itself around contextual needs of the merchants, more so than at maybe one specific like our direction or admin uplift for lack of a better term.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
The branding, animations, logo and micro interactions that make a tool feel beautiful to interact with are what give it soul, meaning and excitement, and that craft has to be married to solving the problem.
the branding behind it, the animations behind it, the logo behind it, and all of these little micro interactions that we added to the tool to make it feel like something really, really, really beautiful that you want to interact with is what gives it soul and what gives it meaning and what gives it excitement. And I think you have to marry those two worlds together to get to that outcome.
Marvin Schwaibold - Inside Shopify's New Product Design Studio Said 2 Apr 2026
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Where they publish
Site marvinschwaibold.com Personal site: selected work and short written theses.
A portfolio page titled “Marvin Schwaibold” that says he leads the Product Design Studio at Shopify, lists client work (Collins, WePresent, Spencer Gabor, July) and links short thesis pages with titles such as “The strategic edge of experimentation” and “Complexity of today's web”.
Link verified 4 Oct 2026.
x.com @MSchwaibold His account on X.
Not read for this entry (x.com needs a login); listed because both his own site and Dive Club link it as his.
Link verified 4 Oct 2026.
Interviews As a guest Long-form interviews on other people’s channels, chosen and not exhaustive.
His own voice by his own participation: interviews he chose to sit for. Dive Club’s hour on the Shopify Product Design Studio, Molly, the Collins website, and designers working with AI coding tools.
Link verified 4 Oct 2026.
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