What led you into design?
Growing up, I always loved drawing, photography, creating, and building. I had intended to study photography at university, but in my final form of school, I took digital design and fell in love with it. Diving into small niche web communities, forums, and discussion boards, I loved the ability to craft and shape the world we live in, in such a profound way. Unlike architecture, there isn’t a long heritage to draw from, the space is constantly evolving and changing, and I hope it continues.
What does a typical day look like?
Ideally, it starts at 7, but it almost always starts at 9. I wish I could write about some beautiful journey sojourn around the neighbourhood, but more often than not, its rolling into the office and sitting down with a coffee in hand.
We're currently in a phase where we're iterating and building out our first version of our product at Fruitful, which means a lot of meetings, planning, and building. The days are chaotic in the best way possible, with no two being the same.
I try to spend a decent amount of time on my own thinking, and working through product problems. Product design is an iterative process, where you're constantly pulling and pushing on designs until you've got something you like. Sometimes that is a million layouts, sometimes there are animations, and more often than not, it is a bit of both. But more importantly, its about bringing people along for the ride of design and communicating that clearly. Outside of work, I try to get a break from design. Whether I am creating poorly made ceramics, or playing football in a social environment, I try to take a breather from sitting at a desk.
What's your workstation setup?
Where do you go to get inspired?
It’s easy to be inspired living in a city with such a rich history and cultural influence like New York; galleries, spaces, and buildings all influence you every time you leave the house, but I also find an incredible amount of inspiration in books. Particularly font and cooking builds. They’re a great reference for, new ideas, new layouts, and new story telling. At the moment I’m into New Type Design, Volume 2, Flamingo Estate, and Fare
What product have you recently seen that made you think this is great design?
The Citreon DS. A car remains as innovative today as it was when it first hit the road in 1955. It's incredibly unusual for a car. It came out with a variety of brand new features that no others had.
It featured headlights that turned with the wheel, helping illuminate corning at night, the back of the car is tapered to help with aerodynamics. The brake lights sit at the top of the car, so they're easily visible. Self-leveling, hydropneumatic suspension that made it feel like you were gliding while driving. Making it one of the smoothest rides possible. To top it all off, it was stunningly beautiful.
A car, so thoughtfully designed, so ahead of its time that despite being over 70 years old it still looks like it's from the future.
What pieces of work are you most proud of?
Everything we're doing at Fruitful! In the last 3 months, we've undergone a complete rebrand, the launch of a new website, and, more importantly, our mobile application. Going from 0 to 1 in so many facets with such a small, wonderful team of people is some of the most rewarding work I've ever done, and I can't wait for more.
Fluid Engine. This was one of the largest transformative changes that Squarespace has made in recent years, where we reimagined Squarespace’s existing editing system to dramatically improve the usability of laying out blocks on a page while unlocking new design possibilities. This was a huge collaboration between engineering and product to navigate the ambiguity and complexity of building such a new and dynamic product within an existing ecosystem. There is an in-depth blog article on this that delves into the complexity of building such an editor.
What design challenges do you face at your company?
How do you make people feel good about their finances?
Money is a tricky topic. Society is constantly telling you that your identity should be wrapped up in it. You should make more of it and have more of it, but having candid conversations about it can still feel super taboo. Everything we're doing at Fruitful is intended to make engaging with your finances less scary, more human, and more encouraging. This encourages us to think differently, from how we brand ourselves, the colours we use, and how we display information, all the way down to the interactions and animations we have.
Everything is in service of our users, helping them with their journey.
What music do you listen to while designing?
Any advice for ambitious designers?
Do a lot of work, but be kind to yourself.
No one starts off amazing, when people present themselves and their work, there are often mountains of sweat, and tears gone into exploring, developing, and refining their piece they’re know showing. It’s easy to compare yourself to work that is aspirational, especially when you’re hungry. I know. I’ve been there. Many times. It takes while to develop that muscle, the instinct to know what is good, or bad, design.
Everybody goes through this, and it’s normal. There is a great video on this by Ira Glass.
Anything you want to promote or plug?
Doctors Without Borders are doing some amazing work around the world. Always worth a donation.
I've got some exciting work coming up, follow me on twitter, otherwise, enjoy some tunes.
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