What's your career story so far?

I’ve had quite a varied journey so far, I studied history at university and graduated in 2017. After half-heartedly applying (and failing) to get onto some graduate schemes I found myself without a job so I decided to move to Spain and teach English which was an experience which I really enjoyed but didn’t really see as a long-term option so i returned to England. I still didn’t really have an idea of what I wanted to do or even what my skills were so I bounced around various jobs from waiting tables at restaurants, to sales and eventually an admin role which I was made redundant from in late 2021.

This was a wake up call for me that the job market can be a brutal place and gave me a desire to learn some vocational skills which could give me an advantage. I had a vague idea that tech would be a good place to look which is pretty hilarious on reflection because I knew absolutely nothing any aspect of it. My first move was to take an introductory coding course funded by Manchester Council. The course made me realise that while I was terrible with a lot of coding logic, I did enjoy the visual aspect of front end web development and I was encouraged by my tutor to look at UX design, which I did. I thought it could be a good fit for me, aligning some of the soft skills I have with my enjoyment of visual design.

After that, I enrolled on the part-time product design course at Love Circular, where I learnt some of the fundamentals of design, an understanding of what a job in digital design might look like, and a portfolio of work to my name. I started applying for jobs in January 2023 and thankfully was accepted in April to Code Computer Love, a digital agency based in Manchester. My first few months have been a whirlwind but really fun and I still have ‘pinch me’ moments knowing that I’m getting paid to do the things that I was studying a few months ago!

Where are you based?

Manchester, I grew up nearby in Sheffield!

What's your proudest achievement as a designer?

Oooof tough question! I think it would probably be being offered a position at Code. They’re a really well thought of digital agency in Manchester and I feel really fortunate to be here and learning from talented designers.

What's a typical day in your life?

I work hybrid so it depends, but if I’m working at the office I’ll usually get up, make myself a (strong!) coffee and cycle to work in Manchester city centre for a 9-9.30.

A chunk of the morning is spent in ‘stand-up’ meetings where teams discuss their objectives for the day on a kanban board and organise the shape of the day. I’m currently in a team that works on A/B testing so a lot of my role is building on findings of how people interact with a website and then coming up with designs that address the findings, I’ll usually spend some time ideating and seeing what I can come up with before feeding back what I’ve done to someone in my team. The solution to these problems are not always visual, sometimes it's tweaking copy to make things more obvious to a user and sometimes it's about stripping back parts of the existing design to create more clarity which is interesting and not necessarily what I expected.

I’ve also been privileged to sit in on other elements of the design process since I started working including user interviews, usability tests and ‘day-zero’ workshops (sitting in with clients to collectively brainstorm solutions to an outlined problem). These experiences have been really cool because it's almost impossible to recreate it in a student context.

On the weekends, you can find me mainly on the sofa, but I play football on Sundays to stop me getting fat!

How's your desk setup looking?

This is my home desk (I should probably invest in an actual desk).

What's your favourite album/playlist at the moment?

I recently got myself a fancy pair of speakers and I really like playing Tribe Called Quest ‘Beats, Rhymes & Life’ out of them, maybe my neighbour less so…

How do you stay inspired?

I was really lucky to get free tickets to a D&AD event last year where I saw a few design greats like Brian Collins and Paula Scher, I think that hearing people tell their stories gives their work an extra layer of interest so I try and seek out events where I can see talented designers talk.

I try to follow websites that post interesting design stuff too like it’s nice that as well as using Pinterest to collect inspiration. I also watch YouTube videos to gain insight, theres one YouTuber in particular called Magda who’s a product designer and she posts really good, informative videos and I really like her style (https://www.youtube.com/@MagdaReyman).

What advice would you give yourself if you were to start over again?

I’m going to give myself two but could probably put a hundred down to be honest!

1. Seek discomfort - I was really shy about sharing with people who I was and what I could do but I think that I started getting better when I embraced discomfort by showing up to live sessions and showing my work, approaching designers online and showing up to in person events.

2. Be consistent - I think there are two sides to this. Firstly, work consistently, put time in over a consistent period dedicated to getting better. Secondly, present yourself consistently, for example if you use a font on your portfolio don’t have a completely different one on your CV and also make sure that what you say matches up to what you can do… don’t BS!