My career ended on a creative note. For almost 2 years I worked as a software designer.
I got a chance to work with a couple of great guys who had a fresh and powerful approach to design. Their approach went beyond the aesthetics that still seems to dominate software design – the core question was not “is this a good design?” but rather “what good does this design do?”.
It wasn’t an easy concept to market to an industry of software engineers looking to add makeup to their code. Even when we did manage to sell it, it was hard to get it through to customers who still wanted us to beautify their products and preferred to avoid hard questions about the very purpose of their product. Which is a big part of why I pulled out. I wanted to go swimming but I was struggling to get to the water and I didn’t want to make a career of struggling to get to the water.
I don’t have much to show of this part of my career since most projects were within companies and for their products. Also if I were to present some screenshots I would not consider them to be a good exemplification of my work since they are more the work of graphic designers I worked with. It would take a longer story to communicate my contribution to the design. Rethinking a product is not directly reflected in its pixels.So between the required secrecy and the lack of relevancy to my current life this story remains short and mostly a sweet memory for me.
However there was one client that stood out from all the rest. We engaged on an initial “small” project to test the waters (it was their first design process) and in this small project we managed together to tear down a lot of their preconceptions on what makes a product good and in doing that we paved the way for a long-lasting relationship that led the company into a winning streak that I am happy to say continues to this day. I continued to work with them as a freelancer and I am greatful to them for having given me the opportunity to experience the peak of my career years after I considered it over.
My last toughts on design were about it being a process of identifying and designating purpose.