A
designer
who
Leads business growth.
(And plays)
Leads business growth.
(And plays)
There is a space for thinking and there is a space for making. Many designers start mastering the second, neglecting the first. "The client already has done their business discovery, and I bet they are creative too". So as designers mature, they should focus on the intersection.
When traveling, I visit studios I admire. In Stockholm, Bedow (from whom I borrowed this schema) was a great host and explained his process.
He also points out that writing is a tool for understanding. If they can't write it, they don't know what what they are doing.
People not interested in Sagmeister's work, definitely haven't read his book NOW IS BETTER (yet). At Mar del Plata I had the chance to hear him talk about process.
“Let's design a branding concept”, he proposed. “Say a brand sells flowers. So let's think of two things, absolutely different from flowers, and different from themselves, like a chair and human hair”.
“By only thinking of those objects, we will truly create something new, instead of repeating what others have done”, he argues.
Both things can be true.
When I reflect back at my own process, it falls mostly under Bedow's philosophy.
I plan a first phase for understanding the problem, hearing it first hand and investigating context. I seek other's solutions and think of how they could be better adapted to this problem. I collaborate with everyone I possibly can and come up with a draft that sparks conversations. From there on, the draft gets better and better until everyone is happy with it becoming the solution.
But then I think of other times when the project itself needed something different. It could be understanding the users better, having empathy towards the client, letting talented people around me shine or just drawing something cool.
The process should be what YOU and I decide it to be, as long as it serves the solution.
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Lucas is always pro-active and gets to working right away. He has incredible input on discussions and shows knowledge in both XD and Visual, being a jack of all trades for many discussions. His organization on projects is super helpful too, and he is always a reliable person to chat and discuss whenever there's a fork of decisions on projects.
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Lucas' depth of product knowledge and drive to jump in, learn something and master it through applying it to live work keep our clients and teams always learning. They continue to cultivate an environment where iteration opens the doors to growth; for businesses and for people.
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In a short timeframe, Lucas jumped into the Design Kit and has become a master of it. His strong POV on paths forward, knowledge UX and design system principles, and proactivity on intaking work keeps the machine well oiled and makes the end product better.
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Lucas has a great attitude and is willingness to jump in and support where he is needed. He's very proactive, and looks for ways to make progress, even in moments of ambiguity. On our last collaboration really appreciated the way that Lucas was able to take some of the early thought starters and initial sitemaps in parallel with discovery - finding ways to make decisions and assumptions that the team could respond to rather than wait for everything to be figured out.
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His incredible product knowledge and curiosities and iterations are incredible assets for our teams. He has a talent for simplifying the most complex problems, making them digestible on all accounts, and thinks about users at every level of the experience. His willingness to explain his rationale,and openness to others' ideas ensure we always land on the best solution for the success of the product.
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I've had the pleasure of working closely with Lucas, and I'm continually impressed by his multifaceted contributions. His impact is undeniable. His passion for self-and-team improvement extends to process and documentation, enriching our team's toolset and increasing our entire product teams velocity. Lucas demonstrates leadership and mentorship skills by regularly elevating team members and seamlessly onboarding and collaborating with contractors.
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Even though we had only 2 weeks to build a user experience and its interface for a very complex product such as Co-Creator, he managed to identify the main components and prioritize a reasonable yet sufficient amount of features for our team to develop. This balance helped us deliver the project on time, optimizing functionality and dev efforts.
