The first UAL Futures event, put on in collaboration with Made by Many. The discussion for the evening was based on the question ‘What do creatives really need to know to succeed in digital careers?’
having me I think Luke wanted me to share with you my journey from student to founder as well as what I learnt along the way about becoming a digital maker.
Design ( BA Degree) Interactive Art (Final Year) User Experience (Self taught) So in short this was my route, everyone’s is different and no one way is right So I started off with a traditional school to higher education route and then decided to skip the master/ PHD phase and the employment phase and go straight to working solo.
‘shape shifting designers’ I thought id take you through the rough 5 stages of my life so far and I’m playing with this idea of jumpING into the unknown because i feel learnING is continuous an never ending states that I have continued to do with very blurry lines between each of them
me to 20th century art movements, I especially liked The Happenings and Situationism I wanted to actually practice art so I did an art foundation but I was more interested in the gallery wall spaces than what was on the wall I would people watch and observe how they interacted within the space. My final year piece was an interactive hair dryer instillation which i wired up. Sadly I don’t have a video but imagine a jungle of wires and when you walk in the hairdryers turn on and start whirling around like crazy and disturbing the peace. I used a garden shed night light as the sensor and got a man from Maplins to help me wire it all up. Loved learning the electronics, as I hadn’t really paid attention in school. I was interested in how the space and the instillation communicated with the people and how they derived meaning from it What I know now as affordances and user experience So I decided to learn about visual communication
for Design thinking, Challenging perceptions, Experimentation Learnt many new ways of thinking but quickly realised after a 2 years I knew nothing about grid layout, typography or visual history, tried to catch up in my own time. But it was kinda too late to be a typophile or hardcore layout freak because I was already enthralled by opportunities coming back to participatory communication through technology I did my thesis on How free play theory ( as opposed to game play) could encourage viewer to viewer dialogue in interactive art spaces. I had already studies History of Art 20th century movements so had a good grounding in Situationism, psycho geography, the happenings, the art of installations, Bruce Nauman etc I Learnt many new ways of thinking and challenging the world but realized i knew nothing about grid layout, typography or visual history, tried to catch up But it was too late I was already enthralled by opportunities to come back to participatory communication through technology, did my thesis on How free play theory ( as opposed to game play) could encourage viewer to viewer dialogue in interactive art spaces. Looking at some of these experience on screen here. I spent a year out in industry doing lots of work experience which I will come back to
wanted to create an interactive instillation fro myself. However like a cliche student I was far to ambitious of how long it would take me, so I learnt delegation the hard way. I was fascinated by magnetics specifically neodymium and started to play with ferro fluid a magnetic dark brown liquid.
like at Selfridges or something with physical ferro fluid pixels using and electromagnetic grid array. I started researching as lot into the tech surrounding this area as well as lots of chats with RCA students about the engineering / mechanics of a piece such as this. This dream went down to a Large fish tank size Then a small box and eventually a humble jam jar :) But I knew I was interested and how people could tangibly interact with the interface
‘Out of sight Out of mind’ there with no digital tech involved. and one sensor based prototype that revealed the letters when you approached the bottle and I was so grateful to have help to finish this. Doing this project really built my confidence in working through tricky things out by myself PLAY VIDEO
competition with IRIS worldwide an independent ad agency This was a great example of the benefits of Collaboration They wanted to take a project to sxsw in Austin Texas to illustrate the understanding of physical and digital hybrid technology, so it had to be funny, physical, digital, and interactive. There were three of us in my team, we decided to pitch a tamagotchi papershredder and we won, so we hacked a papershredder by adding a row of ldr which are light dependent resistors so that when somebody fed some paper in the mouth it would play a tune depending on how light or dark the ink was. together is was faster, more fun and we learnt from each others different approaches.
Rafael Filomeno So we played with arduino to make a prototype and added some MAXMSP basics software to integrate the sound of each character The London Hackspace supported us in this making
I learn…. that collaboration is the fastest way to learn, because everyone has to do their bit to make the idea come alive and they rely on you to achieve it. You have to learn what you need to and you have a team to discuss it with and skill swap. You don’t need to be able to do everything you just have to keep contributing something I learnt the benefits of self initiated work because this is what builds your confidence in your own ability and proves to others your capabilities….so if you can relay only on yourself and trust yourself and believe that you wont let yourself down …now we’re talking about someone that other people can rely on and thus want to employ
called DPS Diploma in Professional Studies where I went out and found 8 different ‘experiences’ for myself …to better inform where I wanted to go in my career I learnt a lot about the real working environment and how people really are and what software people really use working in team people skills avoid politics adaptable became proficient at all the adobe suits, learnt basic final cut and after effects
in NY with Eddie Opara we worked on an interactive display for the SCAD museum of Art Savannah College of Art and Design, I worked on the UX not on the UI.
as possible Learnt the ‘Digital Verbs’ Intern-ing So what did I learn from Interning Tim ferris, a kind of life hacker, talks about “learning the verbs” to learn languages faster and with more fun. So for cooking: searing, poaching, braising dancing verbs: You can also learn: paper prototyping, soldering, user testing, pen-testing, front end developing, wireframing, AB testing then you start to feel less alienated by the jargon of the industry and more interested in process.
wanted me to do everything the web - design, the branding, the copy, the UX and the coding This is when I started learning basic html and CSS but at this stage didn't feel confident enough to deliver a website. So I said the “you can pick two” sentence. At uni I had made one in dreamweaver and freeway ( i.e. web development for non coders) But the main things I learnt around freelance digital design were; time management client expectations Budgeting & rates repeat work Terms & conditions I wish I had been more prepared for this, there was quite a lot on line to read through and I would have preferred just to talk to some mentors or alumni’s
they wanted me to do everything web - design was the coding as well as the graphics started learning html time management client expectations Budgeting & rates repeat work Terms & conditions
Started to learn Azure Use what works for you - as long as you can communicate the desired outcome not only one way to prototype had to learn about agile, waterfall, scrum, kanban etc Only as good as your last piece of work keeping up with best practices imposter syndrome big corporation complacency
AND DELIVER INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS ON TRANSFORM WE NEED: • STEERCO SUPPORT • £250,000 EVENT, MARKETING • OWNERSHIP OF CHALLENGES, AND ENTREPRENEUR ECOSYSTEM ATTRACT THE BEST SME’S/ ENTREPRENEURS FOR THAT CHALLENGE DEVELOPER ARCHITECTURE DATA MANAGEMENT CUSTOMER INNOVATION AL LOW CO-INNOVATION TO HAP PEN BARCLAYS CHALLENGES Contract-ing Had to read up every UX and UI blog Started to learn Azure Use what works for you - as long as you can communicate the desired outcome not only one way to prototype had to learn about agile, waterfall, scrum, kanban etc Only as good as your last piece of work keeping up with best practices imposter syndrome big corporation complacency
Started to learn Azure Use what works for you - as long as you can communicate the desired outcome not only one way to prototype had to learn about agile, waterfall, scrum, kanban etc Only as good as your last piece of work keeping up with best practices imposter syndrome big corporation complacency
Started to learn Azure Use what works for you - as long as you can communicate the desired outcome not only one way to prototype had to learn about agile, waterfall, scrum, kanban etc Only as good as your last piece of work keeping up with best practices imposter syndrome big corporation complacency
Started to learn Azure Use what works for you - as long as you can communicate the desired outcome not only one way to prototype had to learn about agile, waterfall, scrum, kanban etc Only as good as your last piece of work keeping up with best practices imposter syndrome big corporation complacency
one else knows what they are doing so keep going Contract-ing Had to read up every UX and UI blog Started to learn Azure Use what works for you - as long as you can communicate the desired outcome not only one way to prototype had to learn about agile, waterfall, scrum, kanban etc Only as good as your last piece of work keeping up with best practices imposter syndrome big corporation complacency Always be learning and if you are not move on
Pivot Equity Shareholders Stock Options Articles of association Pitching Meetings mockups prototypes Agile Kanban Lean SCRUM Found-ing Option Pool shuffle Cap Table Anthony mu co-founder and I both worked at Barclays He told me about the idea for Belua and I just had to be involved. So we both quit our contracting jobs and went full time on pitching to investors and fundraising to make it happen It took us 5 months to raise 600K at pre money valuation of 3 million Pitching & Fundraising start up jargon and company structure stock options and shares Design processes New softwares / skills I need to do all the wireframing and UX as well as the UI mock ups the pitch presentation branding aghhhh now i have to brush up on CSS because i need to turn it all into code too! Then I have to learn Polymer fro DART and GO because thats how I need to communicate with my developers And I have to learn how to use Github as a designer! awful And this often means understanding using Terminal Had to choose a process that works for us, kanban, waffle etc
teams communication together in one place. It's real-time messaging, archiving and has great search. Github is web-based hosting service for coders to have distributed revision control and source code management Waffle project management solution from your existing GitHub Issues Sketch is a more modern web and app design tool for wireframing to actual prototyping, as opposed to photoshop and illustrator that have been reappropritated for web design. Polymer is a library of web components or elements. Elements are self contained functions or UI elements which are more powerful than just adding lots of script to t Dart is and Go are the new google languages and libraries, and tools to write anything from simple scripts to full-featured apps SASS is a CSS extension language
find what you need Found-ing That being said - I wish as a Students I had been more exposed to different design processes/ methodology. each team has a different way of doing things and just being aware of those difference can really improve your ability to adapt.
leave you with an important lesson, but i feel in a room full of experts that would be rather presumptuous of me so all I can do is share with you what I have learned and wish I had There is nothing to be gained from pitting the uni experience again the industry the relationship needs to be symbiotic these should not be events but relationships the industry with university and university with university , less jolting and more smooth
learn as we learn this happened, blogging 1 yr in corporate time to move on, talking to yr above at uni, regular meet ups, be humble I would never claim to be a unicorn that can do all of these things really well, but what I can claim is full confidence that whatever I put my hand to I will learn and get the job done. I believe this is what being a future safe digital designer is about
learn as we learn Collaboration is the fastest way to learn and test our skills this happened, blogging 1 yr in corporate time to move on, talking to yr above at uni, regular meet ups, be humble I would never claim to be a unicorn that can do all of these things really well, but what I can claim is full confidence that whatever I put my hand to I will learn and get the job done. I believe this is what being a future safe digital designer is about
learn as we learn Collaboration is the fastest way to learn and test our skills Importance of Independent learning this happened, blogging 1 yr in corporate time to move on, talking to yr above at uni, regular meet ups, be humble I would never claim to be a unicorn that can do all of these things really well, but what I can claim is full confidence that whatever I put my hand to I will learn and get the job done. I believe this is what being a future safe digital designer is about
learn as we learn Collaboration is the fastest way to learn and test our skills Importance of Independent learning Surround yourself by people who are better than you this happened, blogging 1 yr in corporate time to move on, talking to yr above at uni, regular meet ups, be humble I would never claim to be a unicorn that can do all of these things really well, but what I can claim is full confidence that whatever I put my hand to I will learn and get the job done. I believe this is what being a future safe digital designer is about
learn as we learn Collaboration is the fastest way to learn and test our skills Importance of Independent learning Surround yourself by people who are better than you Have a basic knowledge of ‘digital verbs’ this happened, blogging 1 yr in corporate time to move on, talking to yr above at uni, regular meet ups, be humble I would never claim to be a unicorn that can do all of these things really well, but what I can claim is full confidence that whatever I put my hand to I will learn and get the job done. I believe this is what being a future safe digital designer is about
Focus on on what you can do not what you can’t People ask me what has got you through and these are my perspective on design but equally you could apply to everything. There is nothing to be gained from pitting the uni experience again the industry the relationship needs to be symbiotic these should not be events but relationships the industry with university and university with university , less jolting and more smooth
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