Makers #9: Yolanda Lam and Roger Young

Leveling up.

Yolanda: Roger and I have mutual respect for each other and our crafts. I want to level up to meet him where he’s at. Like, I've got to crush it for Roger. So we're always just trying to go up and up, adding to each other's work.

Naturally in that process, being receptive to each other's ideas really helps elevate things. Say Roger gives me something and I think, "Oh, that's really interesting. That's a microinteraction I hadn't thought about. Could we build on it? Is there more here?" Suddenly we start looking at things through a completely different lens.

From the experience and system design side, when you're thinking about building out a whole experience, those microinteractions can make a huge impact. That back and forth is my favourite part about working with Roger.

Roger: Thinking about work through a motion lens really opens things up. Take micro interactions—if there are issues with copy not fitting, animation gives us a way through without compromising the design. There's an effervescence to motion—what might feel like a restriction in a static frame suddenly has room to breathe.

What really sets Yolanda apart is that she's always playing offense. A lot of designers design for the still frame and don't think about what comes before or after. Yolanda's already there, assets ready, already thinking in motion.

Yolanda: It comes down to building a holistic experience. What Roger's describing is stateful design and it opens up a huge amount of opportunity. So much of what we do in design lives in statics. Even when we're designing states, it's still a static form. Prototyping helps and we can move faster than ever — but sometimes the traditional prototyping tools can only go so far.

What someone like Roger brings in is a level of creativity that goes beyond narrative. It's not just the little visual stories within a piece; it's thinking about the whole system and how to build it. Without motion there's no delight. Those little moments connect the user to the experience and brand in a way that static just can't. Motion helps balance content, shapes what you read and when you read it, creates the rhythm of a page or an app.

And there's so much fun to be had in that. When I prototype something and bring it to Roger—he takes it and blows us away every time.

Roger: There's nothing quite like watching designers and clients light up when motion comes in. It adds tangibility to the product. It's that "oh s***, now it's real” moment. The internet is too fast to not have video and motion. Now more than ever, motion is an extension of the brand. In its behaviours in how it's represented. But if the design doesn't look good standing still, it's not going to look good moving either. With Yolanda, I never have to worry about that.

Fun is a part of the process.

Yolanda: Roger lights up a room—everyone knows that. But what excites me most is getting to imagine new things, create visionary experiences. We're on the cusp of something. And if you can't have fun doing that, the work is missing the creative curiosity that pushes it forward. It's just so easy to have fun with Roger.

Play comes through in the work through any collaboration, whether with other designers, with technology, and especially when motion and design are working together. That's what feeds the "yes and" nature of how we collaborate. To really have that moment, you have to be open. Open to going sideways, open to enjoying the detour. Because sometimes you go completely sideways on a tangent and end up with something amazing.

With AI tools, I find that there’s the opportunity to go on detours more easily, but also go on detours with your collaborators. It’s “yes and” to our collaborators and “yes and” to our tools. That just wasn’t available before and it’s exciting. It’s fun.

Roger: If we're not having fun, what are we even doing? There's pressure working with big budget clients—but it's about enjoying the process, owning what's in our control, and letting go of what isn't. A little levity goes a long way.

I'm grateful to work with someone like Yolanda, with clients that genuinely help you grow. Knowing you're taken care of—by a colleague, by the work—brings real comfort.

But someone's got to lighten the mood. And I always want that to be me. Because it gets serious out here, and there can be a lot of pretentiousness in what we do. I want to strip some of that away.

Yolanda: Playfulness and curiosity go hand in hand. That willingness to keep learning and growing—to be better at the craft, better for each other—that doesn't stop just because you've reached a certain level. If anything, the question gets more interesting. How do you stay open and curious at this stage of your career, especially with new tools to learn every day?

I always try to stay a student. Everyone does things a little differently and I'm a strong believer in the diversity of thought, approach, and perspective. It just makes the work better.

Working with Roger, I learn so much from how he thinks and it starts to shape how I work even when he's not in the room. I'll be mid-design and think: “How would Roger approach this interaction and motion narrative in this Google brand or for Make.exe or Huge Horizons or generated asset even?” That's what great collaboration does. It stays with you.

Roger: Whenever Yolanda's in the room, I have to elevate my game. I can't help it, I'm a little competitive. Not trying to beat anyone, but I have to at least meet them where they're at.

And honestly, being around people this talented gives me imposter syndrome sometimes. But that's the thing, when I get to work with Yolanda, I'm matching energy. Just like she's trying to match mine.

There's also just so much gratitude for the tools we have access to. Huge gives us licenses, resources and a real playground to work in. If you see yourself getting left behind, you think: "Let me catch up and let me figure this out.” That drive is part of the fun too.

Yolanda: My favorite part is the experimentation—the fun, the play, the curiosity, and yes, a little competitiveness. "How did you get that? Let me try this." You share your workflow, someone builds on it, and it keeps going. A collaborative competitiveness.

Roger is such an empathetic person and that comes through in how we collaborate. Being present with who you're working with — that's what adds to our dynamic and makes every collaboration feel meaningful. Even when we're grinding, we're grinding together. And that makes all the difference.

AI in the workflow.

Yolanda: Every month I find new ways to better understand the full workflow and what we've realized is it doesn't change that much. Whether we're creating a video with AI or building a design system, we're still casting, sequencing, building or taking from atomic design principles. We're just generating differently.

What varies is the client—their needs, apprehensions, restrictions. But there are still so many ways to integrate. Right now on Twilio we're deep in a design system and the efficiencies we've found—building our own plugins with Claude—are genuinely remarkable. It's about finding those bits and pieces across projects, depending on the need and timeline.

Then there's originality. My background is in Fine Art—still life, painting, drawing, and digital installation and experiences. It’s the traditional stuff and not so traditional stuff. Coming from that into a conversation about AI is a strange and exciting thing. I remember my professor saying Photoshop art wasn't real art. We're so far past that now. These tools are really just another medium to work with, and originality comes from the creator, not the tool or medium. Taste comes from the creator, too.

AI helps us tackle tasks more quickly, but we still need to guide it to understand what we’re trying to achieve, what value to bring to the table, and we need to assess how to best incorporate these tools into the process.

Roger: I love the breadth of it—but that's also what's intimidating. When you can do anything, you freeze. So I still need a box to work in. What's the specific goal? That clarity is what actually unlocks creativity, in anything, not just AI.

What I've been working on is using proxy or viewport animations and bringing those into AI as a renderer—accelerating render time. What I'd normally light and texture in Cinema 4D, I can now bring in as a viewport greyscale or color map, letting AI change the texture in exactly that area. Using AI as a renderer is where I've found the most control and the most fun.