Re: 5 Questions
1. Tell us who you are in one sentence.
I’m a designer from the UK, I live in Amsterdam with my beautiful wife.
2. If you weren’t a designer, what would you do?
I have a degree in Japanese and for the longest time assumed that the design stuff was tiding me over until I moved to Japan and sought out a career making use of my language skills. Were I not a designer, I’d probably be a translator.
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3. What is something you wished you designed, either because you love it, or because you feel you could have done it better?
I wish I’d designed Facebook Timeline. As far as digital interfaces go, I don’t think I’ve ever used anything which connected with me on such a visceral, base level. Upon using it I was awash with nostalgia, regret, relief and reflection. It takes something special to evoke that gamut of emotion, and timeline did that for me because it wasn’t about the interface or the product, it was about the person I was and the person I’d become, it trancended the transitory nature of the web and gave me a living expression of self which I found impossible not to love.
4. What was your biggest design mistake?
I spent years defining success as being the creation of something which met the requirements of some middleman. Working freelance and at agencies, I succeeded when I got sign-off. Now I’m lucky enough to be able to speak to & design for my millions of users who define whether what I’m doing on a daily basis is for the better. I can’t imagine ever going back to an environment where the person paying my salary decides how I serve my users.
5. What advice would you give someone entering the design field?
Do many things. Play with everything once. Sign up for every damn beta that passes by, answer back, assert your opinions, ask to be proven wrong. Say thank-you to the people who help you get better, and in turn help other people get better too. Be a curious idiot and ask questions even when you think you know the answer. Collect stuff, take stuff apart and revel in the act of just making things. Keep your head up and don’t let the world pass you by, but don’t get dragged into the minutiae of the day. Be bold and try to do things that people think are impossible, and don’t be afraid of being wrong — it’s the only way you’ll ever end up being right about anything. Enjoy yourself, or do something else.
