Interviews met Zicheng Gu

I’ve been a product designer since 2018. My background is actually in chemistry and chemical engineering, which I think gives me a different lens than most designers. I hold a Master’s in Engineering Design Innovation from Northwestern University. Over the years I’ve worked across very different environments — Securonix in cybersecurity, VMware in enterprise cloud infrastructure, a startup called Proponent where I was the founding designer building the product from zero, and most recently AppLovin, where I’m a Senior AI Design Engineer working on ad creation systems that reach millions of impressions. I also run side projects constantly, you can find out more at: https://zicheng.design

I originally studied chemistry and chemical engineering, a very analytical, structured discipline. But during college, a design class opened a door I didn’t know existed. I had always loved hands-on arts and crafts, but I’d never connected that creative instinct to a career. That class revealed a hidden passion. What drew me in was the possibility of getting closely involved in building products that can genuinely change how people experience the world. Design felt like the rare discipline where analytical thinking and creative expression don’t compete, they reinforce each other. I simply discovered that this was what I was meant to do, and I pursued it with everything I had.

My priorities shift depending on the context. For personal and passion projects like Tripilot, I prioritize inspiration, I want the design to move people, to make them feel something. For professional work, I prioritize intuitive usability, the product should feel effortless and require no explanation. Across everything, I value craft and constantly push toward a higher standard of visual and interaction quality.

There’s a particular pleasure in solving a hard problem elegantly — finding the simple version of something that was previously complicated.

My engineering background is probably the most significant skill I bring. Having studied chemistry and chemical engineering, I understand systems, constraints, and complexity at a structural level. When I look at a product, I don’t just see the surface, I see the engineering underneath, the technical tradeoffs, the feasibility questions. That lets me design solutions that are not only beautiful but actually buildable. Beyond that, I have a strong sense of aesthetic taste, an ability to identify what’s working visually and what isn’t, that helps me fine-tune designs and push toward a higher standard.

I want to keep operating at the intersection of design and technology, specifically in AI-driven products where design decisions have outsized impact on how people experience complex systems. I’m deeply interested in how AI can be shaped into experiences that feel human rather than mechanical,

Build things. Don’t wait for the perfect project or the perfect company to start doing meaningful work. Side projects taught me as much as any job, building a Figma plugin, launching a nut butter brand, prototyping an AI wellness tool, each one stretched my skills in ways that client work alone never would have. Also, learn to see beneath the surface. Understanding engineering constraints, business models, and user psychology will make you a fundamentally better designer than someone who only thinks about pixels. And be honest with yourself about your own work. Constant self-reflection and iteration, being willing to admit something isn’t working and rethinking it.

Stay hands-on. The further you get in your career, the more pressure there is to become purely strategic or managerial. Resist that. Keep making things yourself. That direct contact with craft is what keeps your instincts sharp. Also, invest in understanding adjacent disciplines. The best design decisions I’ve made came from understanding engineering tradeoffs, business context, or cultural nuance, not from design theory alone. And don’t chase trends for the sake of it. Develop your own point of view, root it in real problems, and let that guide your work.

My days typically start with reviewing ongoing design work, checking in on implementation progress, reviewing any QA feedback, and aligning with engineering and product on priorities. The core of my day is focused design time in Figma/Claude, working through interaction flows, refining visual details, or building out design system components.

I pay attention to trends but I don’t chase them. Trends are useful as signals, they tell you what the industry is gravitating toward and what users are becoming accustomed to. But designing purely to be trendy produces work that ages quickly and lacks substance. I’d rather develop a strong personal point of view rooted in clarity, craft, and real needs, and then selectively incorporate elements that feel genuinely right for the project. My inspiration comes from broad sources, not just design platforms, but art, architecture, cultural experiences, and conversations with people outside the design world. The best ideas usually come from unexpected places.

Good design is invisible in the best way, when someone uses a product and it just works without them having to think about why, that’s the mark of something well designed. I evaluate design on whether it solves the actual problem clearly and whether the experience feels effortless rather than forced. Beyond function, I look for intentionality, does every element have a reason to exist? Is there a coherent point of view behind the visual and interaction choices?

Honestly, I don’t think a design is ever truly finished. There’s always something that could be refined or rethought. But in practice, design readiness comes down to prioritization. When a design solves the core problem effectively and the team has confidence in it, it’s ready to ship, even if there are edges you’d still love to polish. You ship, you learn from real usage, and you iterate.

I’d highlight two. Professionally, my work as the founding product designer at Proponent was the most demanding and formative, I designed the entire product experience from zero, built the design system from scratch with over 50 reusable components, and directly influenced the product direction through user research, helping secure new enterprise deals. It was the purest expression of the builder’s mindset I value most. On the passion project side, Tripilot holds a special place. Designing an AI companion that helps foreign travelers navigate China’s unique ecosystem, bridging language, culture, and an entirely different digital infrastructure, was deeply personal and meaningful.

I don’t have a single favorite, and honestly my admiration extends far beyond designers. I admire anyone who can inspire people and share their point of view through their creation, whether that’s through product design, painting, film, architecture, or any other medium. What matters to me is authenticity and the courage to see the world through your own lens and express that clearly.

I was born in China and have spent the last eight years in the United States pursuing my Master’s degree and building my design career. Beyond that, I’ve lived in Canada, UK, and traveled across multiple continents. That kind of cross-cultural life gives you something you can’t learn from a textbook, a genuine understanding that people in different places think differently, navigate technology differently, and have fundamentally different expectations of what feels intuitive.

I’m a highly collaborative designer. At every company I’ve worked at, I’ve partnered closely with product managers, engineers, and leadership, not designing in isolation but co-creating through continuous feedback.

I get involved in my design community wherever I’m based. When I was in Seattle, I participated in the Seattle Design Festival and helped prepare events and judge the admission works. Now in the Bay Area, I’ve contributed to Bay Area Design Week. I believe designers have a responsibility to give back to the communities that support them.

Participating in the A’ Design Award gave me three things. First, validation from an international panel that the design thinking behind Tripilot resonates beyond my own perspective, that’s meaningful for any designer working on a culturally specific problem. Second, visibility, the award connects your work with a global design community and opens conversations you wouldn’t otherwise have. Third, and most importantly, it pushed me to articulate clearly why this project matters, which deepened my own understanding of the work.

The core principle is that confidence unlocks curiosity. Tripilot was inspired by the real frustrations foreign travelers face in China — a country with an incredibly rich culture but an entirely different digital and social infrastructure from the rest of the world. The idea was to design AI not as a transactional tool but as a warm, culturally intelligent companion that makes China feel approachable and deeply rewarding rather than overwhelming.

The main focus was creating an experience that feels human rather than mechanical. We wanted to achieve seamless integration of translation, cultural guidance, and navigation into a single conversational flow — so users never have to switch between five different apps.

We plan to expand Tripilot’s destination coverage, introduce offline functionality for areas with limited connectivity, and develop deeper cultural content through partnerships with local guides and communities.

The design process took approximately four to six months, from initial research and concept development through prototyping, user testing, and final visual refinement.

This project was initiated by my friend, a travel enthusiast who saw the growing wave of foreign travelers coming to China and recognized how poorly existing tools served them. As someone who had experienced the same frustrations traveling, I was brought on as the designer to shape the product experience. The concept came from a shared understanding of how isolating it feels to navigate a country with entirely different digital platforms, payment systems, and cultural norms.

Tripilot is fully produced and shipped. It is a live product available for foreign travelers visiting China. The company develops and operates it independently, and I serve as the designer on the team.

Existing travel apps solve individual problems in isolation — one for translation, another for maps, another for reviews — but none connects those moments into a unified, culturally aware experience. That fragmentation is exactly what makes foreign travel stressful. We designed Tripilot because the problem demanded a holistic solution, not another single-purpose tool.

We were influenced by conversational AI interfaces that prioritize simplicity and emotional tone, as well as travel products that emphasize storytelling over utility.

Tripilot is designed for international travelers visiting China — solo travelers, couples, and small groups — who want authentic local experiences but face significant language, cultural, and digital barriers. It particularly serves first-time visitors unfamiliar with China’s unique ecosystem of local apps, payment platforms, and social customs, as well as returning visitors who want to explore more independently beyond major tourist areas.

Most general travel apps are built around Western digital infrastructure and fail the moment a traveler lands in China. Tripilot is purpose-built for China’s unique ecosystem — it understands local platforms, payment systems, transportation networks, and cultural nuances that generic translation or map apps simply cannot address. The differentiator is not any single feature but the holistic, China-native approach that feels like traveling with a knowledgeable local friend.

Tripilot is a combination of “trip” and “pilot” — someone who guides you through unfamiliar territory. The name reflects the app’s role as a co-pilot for your journey: not taking control, but always there beside you with the right guidance at the right moment. It’s simple, memorable, and immediately communicates the product’s purpose.

The project was designed primarily in Figma for UI/UX design and prototyping, with supporting work from ChatGPT and Gemini for image generation

The most unique aspect is the China-native cultural intelligence. Tripilot doesn’t just translate Chinese — it explains context, etiquette, regional customs, and helps users navigate an entirely different digital ecosystem. It bridges the gap between China’s local platforms and a foreign traveler’s expectations, making the experience feel intuitive rather than foreign.

I collaborated closely with the company’s CEO and CTO to iterate on the design. The CEO brought the original vision and deep understanding of the traveler’s perspective, while the CTO provided the technical foundation. My role was to translate their business goals and technical capabilities into a cohesive, user-centered experience through continuous design iteration.

Technology is central but intentionally invisible. AI powers real-time translation, contextual recommendations, and adaptive itinerary planning, but the interface is designed so the technology recedes behind a natural, conversational experience. The goal is that users feel they’re talking to a travel companion, not operating a piece of software.

Yes. The design was informed by research into the pain points of independent international travelers — identifying the specific moments where language and cultural barriers cause the most friction: ordering food, using public transport, understanding social customs, and navigating safety concerns. This research shaped both the feature set and the conversational tone of the interface.

The biggest challenge was balancing depth with simplicity. The app needs to deliver rich cultural and linguistic context without overwhelming users who are often already stressed and in unfamiliar environments. Designing a conversational AI interface that feels warm and human rather than robotic — while remaining functionally reliable — required extensive iteration and testing.

We believe Tripilot addresses a universal human challenge — the desire to explore the world independently regardless of language ability. An international competition felt like the right platform to share that vision with a global audience and receive feedback from a diverse panel of design professionals.

The process deepened our understanding of how cultural context shapes user expectations. What feels intuitive in one culture can feel confusing in another. Designing for a truly international audience taught us to question every assumption and prioritize clarity and emotional warmth above visual complexity.

Tripilot represents a broader belief that AI’s greatest potential in travel isn’t replacing human connection — it’s enabling it. By removing the barriers of language and cultural unfamiliarity, we give travelers the confidence to have real conversations, visit local neighborhoods, and experience places the way residents do. That’s not just better travel — it’s a more respectful and meaningful way to see the world.

I was born and raised in China, where I became interested in design at a young age, often drawn to thoughtfully designed objects and visuals in magazines. Although that interest started early, I chose an engineering-focused undergraduate path to build a foundation in analytical thinking and problem-solving.

I moved to the United States seven years ago and pivoted toward design innovation during my graduate studies at Northwestern University, where I earned a Master of Science. Since then, I have developed my career in design, combining an engineering mindset with visual expression and an understanding of how people interact with technology.

I currently work as a Senior AI Product Designer at AppLovin, taking ideas from concept through implementation and shipping features and websites. Previously, I was the sole and lead designer at Proponent, a B2B marketing technology platform, and Tripilot, an AI travel agent. Those roles gave me responsibility for the entire design experience, including product structure, interactions, visual identity, and branding.

For me, design is the process of making an idea useful, meaningful, and inspiring to someone else. It connects intention with experience. Whether I am designing an enterprise product or an expressive letterform, I think about what people should understand, feel, and be able to do.

I enjoy designing AI products and creative tools, especially when the work combines a complex problem with opportunities for visual expression. I also enjoy typography and communication design, which let me explore how form, color, and composition can add meaning.

My favorite personal project is a creative tool that lets people dress words and letters in expressive patterns. Hollow letterforms become canvases for color and texture, from watermelon stripes in “summer” to lemon hues in “lemon.” I like how it makes typography playful and participatory, giving people a simple way to add a visual layer to written language.

a policy creation process for a cybersecurity company

Figma is my main design tool, but I am adaptable and enjoy exploring new AI tools. I am particularly interested in technology that helps me move from an idea to something people can actually use. In my personal practice, I also enjoy working with physical materials.

I feel most creative when I have a clear starting point and enough space to explore unexpected possibilities. That starting point might be a client’s idea, a technical capability, or a memory from traveling. Moving between digital design and hands-on art helps me see familiar problems differently.

I focus first on the purpose of the design and the experience of the person using it. From there, I work on structure, interactions, and visual clarity. I also consider implementation throughout the process, because the quality of a design depends on how well it works once it is built.

Design brings a mixture of curiosity, uncertainty, and excitement. I enjoy exploring possibilities, although finding the right direction can take patience. There is a satisfying moment when the structure, interaction, and visual expression begin to support the same idea.

Seeing a design become real gives me a sense of satisfaction and responsibility. Shipping is an achievement, but it also means people will encounter the decisions I have made. I am interested in what happens next: whether the experience makes sense and where it can improve.

A successful design serves a clear purpose and makes sense to the people it is intended for. It should balance usefulness, clarity, and craftsmanship. For me, success also depends on whether the original idea holds up in real use.

I first consider whether the design communicates its purpose and responds thoughtfully to its context. Then I look at originality, usability, and craftsmanship. I value work where the details support the overall idea and contribute to meaningful human impact.

Designers should consider who benefits from their decisions, who might be excluded, and what resources their work requires. In digital products, that includes accessibility, privacy, and responsible interactions. My involvement in nonprofit education initiatives in Kenya is also part of the broader perspective I bring to questions of access and human impact.

I see design moving toward closer collaboration between design, engineering, and AI. As making things becomes faster, I believe judgment will become even more valuable: deciding which problems deserve attention, what should be built, and how to evaluate the result. I hope that progress creates more room for thoughtful experimentation and individual expression.

It was online at OpenArtForum, and I am planning another one.

My inspiration comes from client ideas, everyday observations, travel, and experimentation with new tools.

I would describe my approach as clear, thoughtful, and open to play. In product design, I prioritize structure and usability

I am based in Mountain View, California. I grew up in Shanghai and moved to the United States seven years ago, so my perspective has developed across two cultural contexts. That experience encourages me to question assumptions about what feels familiar or intuitive. Living in the United States has shaped my career in technology, while the pace of the industry makes it important to protect time for reflection and personal exploration.

My experience includes both working as a sole design lead at startups and designing within a larger company. I usually begin with an idea or need from the client or business side, then help translate it into a clear product direction. My involvement can extend across strategy, user experience, branding, and implementation.

Share the problem, the context, and the constraints as clearly as possible, while leaving room for the designer to explore the solution. When choosing a designer, look beyond polished screens and ask how they make decisions, respond to feedback, and work through limitations. Good collaboration depends on clear communication and shared expectations.

I usually begin with an idea from the client or business side and clarify its purpose, audience, and constraints. I then develop the structure and interactions, explore the visual direction, and refine the design through discussion and iteration. I work toward implementation throughout, so the final result remains connected to the original intent.

Three favorites are my photo board, standing bookshelf, and handmade ceramic vases. The photo board holds memories with my partner and family. The bookshelf keeps books easy to reach while also feeling like an art piece, and the vases bring handmade character into the space.

My day often moves between understanding a product problem, exploring ideas in Figma, and working through the details of bringing a design into production. I make time for focused design work alongside discussions with teammates, and I enjoy experimenting with AI tools when they can help me develop an idea. Outside work, photography, books, and personal creative projects give me space to notice details and explore without a brief.

Develop your ability to explain why a design decision matters, alongside your ability to make it look good. Learn enough about implementation to understand what happens after a design leaves your screen. Keep a personal practice as well; projects driven by your own curiosity can help you discover interests that professional briefs may not reveal.

One of the most rewarding aspects is turning an unclear idea into something tangible and useful. The work also offers constant opportunities to learn. A challenge is balancing ambition with time, technical constraints, and different expectations while maintaining the quality of the experience.

Make every decision serve the experience. I want to understand why an element is there and what it contributes, whether that contribution is clarity, usefulness, or delight.

Observation, communication, and judgment are essential. Designers also need strong visual and interaction skills, an ability to adapt, and an understanding of how their work will be implemented. Knowing when to explore and when to make a decision is particularly valuable.

Figma is my primary tool, and I regularly adapt to new AI tools as they become relevant to my work. My broader toolbox includes photography, typography experiments, and hands-on art projects. These practices help me explore composition, storytelling, and visual expression beyond product interfaces.

My approach is to break a project into clear stages and identify the decisions that other work depends on. I aim to resolve the core structure before investing heavily in visual details. Leaving room for iteration is important, especially when a project moves from design into implementation.

A project usually takes a couple of months from the initial idea to completion, although the timeline depends on its scope and complexity. Work involving product structure, interactions, visual identity, and implementation needs time for both development and refinement.

A question that often comes up is how my engineering background influences my design work. It shapes how I break down problems, understand constraints, and connect an idea to its implementation. I bring that structured thinking into design while leaving room for visual exploration and play. This combination is especially useful in AI product design, where I need to understand both what the technology can do and how people might experience it.

Serving as the sole and lead designer at Proponent and Tripilot was especially important to my development. I was responsible for connecting product structure, interactions, visual identity, and branding across the entire experience. Those roles helped me develop a broader understanding of how individual design decisions affect a product as a whole.

My professional experience includes Proponent, Tripilot, and AppLovin.

I especially enjoy work that brings together product thinking, visual expression, and the ability to build. Creative tools are particularly rewarding because they give other people ways to express their own ideas. AI product design also interests me because it requires translating technical possibilities into understandable experiences.

I would like to continue developing AI products and creative tools that combine usefulness with room for personal expression. I am interested in strengthening the connection between design and implementation, while continuing my independent explorations in typography, photography, and communication design.

I have experience taking ownership of an entire product as a sole designer, as well as working within a company environment. I am comfortable developing a design independently, while recognizing that bringing it into production depends on collaboration. I value both focused individual work and the perspectives that others contribute.

Products at AppLovin

People can learn more about my work and find my public contact information through my website: https://zicheng.design.