You started your career at MotionTools. From Intern to Visual Designer, what a journey it has been! What would be your advise to someone that is at the beginning of their career?
- Research and collect as many design resources as you can. It will make your design life a lot easier when you know where to get which assets from and which websites you can use to save time (and money). I've listed all of the websites that I collected so far here. You can save this as a bookmark or copy the Notion page as a template to add your own resources.
- Say yes to work opportunities, even if they scare you. I'm also talking to myself here because I, as many others do too, battle with the imposter syndrome. In a world where you can constantly compare yourself to other amazing designers online, it's easy to think that you're not good enough. And because you think you are not good enough, you shy away from great work opportunities that would help you grow your skills. It's not about becoming a Yes man or woman and ignoring your limits but rather about not saying no for the wrong reasons (like fear). This video really helped me to understand the power of opportunities better.
- Join the Memorisely Tribe! It's an awesome place to meet designers from around the world and get their tips or feedback. You can also find me in their Slack workspace.
As a designer inspiration is key. Where do you get yours from?
The internet makes it really easy to find inspiration for any kind of project. As for content creation for our social media accounts or our blog, I like to scroll through dribbble or Behance. Both are self-promotion and social networking platforms for creatives, where you can find a lot of high-quality designs. Even when I'm not searching for anything specific, I like to scroll through the explore page to get a feeling for new trends.
A huge part of my job is also to design new pages for our website (like the one you're on right now). Before I start designing my life away, I usually take a look at the websites from other SaaS and Cloud companies. For that, I keep a table in Notion where I listed all Forbes "The Cloud 100" companies with notes on what I like about the website's structure or design.
What is one of the key learnings for you in the past years?
One thing I just learned recently is that I need to set priorities. I'm currently studying to get my bachelor of arts in Media Design at a distance learning university. When I started out in September 2020, I studied two to three days a week and worked three days a week. And for some, that might work just fine. But my focus was too torn, which took a toll on my mental health. That's why I decided mid-year to work a four-day week and study one or two days a week.
What is your proudest moment at MotionTools?
One of my proudest moments is when I was hired as a Junior Visual Designer after my internship at the beginning of 2020. I'm really grateful that I got this amazing opportunity and can work in a supportive environment where I can develop my skills.
In terms of projects, I'm proud of our company's website. It's still a work in progress and will be forever (because a website is never done), but to see how we as the marketing team grew and transformed the website over the past two years is amazing. It's also fun for me to look back at old designs and see the progress I made as a designer. Another exciting project that I'm proud of is our logo refresh. If you want to take a look behind the scenes of our process of creating a simpler and more powerful visual identity you can read my blog post here.
You are a photographer as well. What do you enjoy shooting the most?
I think that depends on when you ask me. There are times where I enjoy portraying people more, and then there are times where I just like to go outside and shoot front yards in my neighborhood. Here at MotionTools I enjoy taking the portraits of all the new tribe members or document team events.
Right now I have an ongoing personal project that I call "Im Dorf" (which translates to "in the village") where I capture the surroundings of my home. When it comes to cameras, I like to switch things up between analog and digital. You can read here why I think analog photography is worth a try in the age of digital photography. If you want to download some of my photos for free you can check out my Unsplash account.
