Behind the Scenes of Notion's Animated AI: Clippy Paved the Way
Behind the Scenes of Notion's Animated AI: Clippy Paved the Way
Namaste,
You all know how much I love following brand evolutions, and this week, Notion’s latest rebrand really grabbed my attention. Their revamped Notion AI is now smarter and more capable than ever—seamlessly searching, generating content, and analyzing insights across tools like Slack, Google Drive, Confluence. It’s a big leap forward, but what really gets me is the personality they’ve infused into it. Picture Microsoft’s Clippy after a glow-up: sipping dirty martinis, reading New Yorker cartoons—that’s the vibe.
It’s playful, quirky, and still very much “Notion.” If you're curious about the creative journey behind this transformation, take a look at their behind-the-scenes process here.
“The sparkle emoji is still powerful in part because people attribute AI to magic, but it’s hard to understand what it’s doing.”
- Linus Lee, Notion’s AI Editor at Large
Podcast: Taking inspiration from Rick Rubin's creative wisdom
Have you ever come across someone whose ideas resonate with you on a profound level? For me, that person is Rick Rubin. After reading his book, "The Creative Act: A Way of Being," there was a lot of insight in there that resonated with my beliefs and creative process. I highly recommend giving it a read!
I recently listened to Debbie Millman's podcast with Rick Rubin about creativity, which covered topics such as:
Simplicity's impact on emotional resonance
Meditation for mental clarity
Art's ability to evoke emotions
Purpose-driven creativity
Talent vs. hard work
To dive deeper, listen to the full conversation:
Tool: Raycast
I’ve always appreciated how Spotlight helps me quickly find what I need on my Mac, but since switching to Raycast, my workflow has completely transformed. It’s not just about efficiency—it’s about feeling like I’m making the most of my time. Using extensions such as Google Translate and having instant access to Slack messages, to even running ChatGPT without having to open a separate application.
A heads-up though: once you experience this kind of seamless workflow, it’s hard to imagine working without it. Give it a try—you won’t regret it!
💎 Gems from this week
Absolutely loving this new aesthetic of metalmorphism, and I have a feeling we’re going to see a lot more of it in the near future.
Check it out
Shoutout to Daryl Ginn, one of the designers I really admire. His new “Roast Thread” series, where he recreates company websites, is 🔥. He recently did a brilliant one for Mobbin.
Take a lookNeed to access your Boolean functions where the magic happens but getting lost in the new Figma UI sub-menus? No worries—Shape Shifter by
👀 Bonus: Mihika is hosting a live (and free!) session on Maven about how to present ideas that make an impact in your company. Don’t miss it!
Join here
That’s all folks for this week. keep creating, keep having fun. See ya next Sunday.
Cheers,
Sahil