My design philosophy:
the best designs are deeply human
“In a world where people want fewer things, crave richer and more meaningful experiences, and have unprecedented market power to get precisely what they want precisely when they want it, the aesthetic value of a company’s product or service is critical in its long-term success.”
-Pauline Brown, Aesthetic Intelligence
the world wins when
we HELP EACH OTHER.
Comparison is an easy route to both dispair and a puffed up ego- both of which are antithetical to the work we’re here to do.
I believe in helping all designers grow. This meant helping start a mentorship program my Senior year of college while serving on the leadership team.
This meant spending my first week immediately after graduation in Kosovo, teaching the students design and helping judge in the first ever Kosovar STEM fair.
Whenever I have the chance, I give freely from my experience, because I know the help I’ve recieved from others has made the single biggest difference in my life.
The only barrier to learning should be our own interest.
Designs get better when we understand how people make choices.
Humans don’t always think rationally. Most of our decisions are tied to emotions or outdated information.
Our intuitions can be a powerful tool for making meaningful choices, but to make good designs, we have to be aware of the biases we bring to the table.
Human behavior is so interesting to me, and I think often about the role of our environment and the objects we interact with. It’s interesting how the associations we have with objects are “nudging” our subconscious behavior. Designing products for an environment that promotes growth, without having to consciously force it, requires a deep understanding of how we think .
Understanding the holistic perception of an object, as well as the culture surrounding it, is vital both in designing and marketing the product.
Data is only part of the story.
Information gathering is one of the first things I do when I approach a problem. It’s hard to know which direction to go with a solution when you don’t even know the flow of the issue as it currently stands.
The hard part is knowing when is enough information to take the next step. There’s a certain gut feeling I get about it during a project. It comes after I’ve researched for a long time, and I’ve taken into account the ways that my personal lived experience might color my understanding-
Only then do I start to step back. I like to take note of every idea I have from the beginning of a project, just setting them aside. This is when the real ideas start though. When I let the research meld with the initial concepts, when it’s been some time and I’ve dreamed about it or thought about it during a drive or a run.
My best ideas come from and through research, but it’s vital that they stay in the context of the actual humans (or enviroments or animals) who will use them.
Sustainability
starts with
investing in quality…
But it doesn’t stop there. Every product that is made is in dialogue both with nature and culture. We percieve products as consumable goods, things that we use for a season (or even a lifetime) but ultimately dispose of.
The problem with most modern manufacturing and purchasing methods is that they intentionally and deliberatly isolate the buyer from the process. I believe in technology, and I don’t think we have to compromise in quality to make things at scale.
I do think we must be transparent about the materials that we use, the chemicals and processing involved, and move more and more towards regenerative manufacturing methods. For this to happen, regeneratively designed products must be objectively better than those made in the standard way.
We haven’t always designed things the way we do today, and I believe that design will look drastically different 10 years from now.
Designing for the few helps the many
When we design for “extreme users” we can improve the experience for the majority. The best designs come from passion and interest, and who better to learn from than those who are obsessed?
But designing for few is about more than just making for the obsessed. It’s also about helping the continuously overlooked.
When we design for accessibility, everyone’s experience improves.