My UX Design Career, Vol. 3
A spontaneous chronicling of my UX Design career to date
At my parents’ house, my dad used to keep a humble library of brightly-colored and scholarly-looking books. On the old, wooden shelves sat a few engineering textbooks and timeless novels. But the spines that caught my eye belonged to several volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica’s Great Books featuring literary bangers by Plutarch, Shakespeare, Adam Smith, Chaucer, Charles Dickens, John Milton, and the like.
I’ll be honest with you — I’ve only a read a few of these books. But their physical presence was comforting in a strange way. Maybe it was their color-coded book covers, or their static presence throughout my childhood. Like they were always there for me. Waiting. Plotting.
What?
Sorry — took the metaphor too far. Where were we?
I hadn’t thought of my career in volumes until today. But the metaphor feels strangely comfortable for my career chronicles, just like my dad’s volumes. And today, as I begin a new volume with a new job, I can’t help but think back on the two previous volumes of my design career.
Vol. 1: General Assembly
Vol. 1 consists of blog posts written while I was learning UX Design in General Assembly’s UXDI bootcamp from December 2019 through February 2020. Here, you’ll find a collection of my greatest hits featuring case studies like this one and this one. To me, these case studies read like a frenzied 28-year-old bootcamp student working her ass off from sun up to sun down to pull off a successful career pivot and a job to show for it. Probably because that’s what happened.
Vol. 2: The Brand Stand
Thankfully, all that hustling paid off and Vol. 1 came to a swift close. I graduated from GA on Friday, February 21, 2020 and started Vol. 2 strong on Monday, February 24, 2020 as a UX Designer+ at The Brand Stand.
Didn’t waste NO time.
For the next year, I immersed myself in all things design — from user experience and branding to graphic design and marketing (hence the “+”). Under the wing of its founder and creative director, AnnMarie Flamenco, I learned more, worked harder, and had the most fun I’d never thought possible in a job. I learned how to connect the dots between brand, business, and human behavior; how to bring an idea to life; how to make a positive impact on the lives of others; how to make a living doing what you love; and how to give that love back to the community.
I owe all of these lessons to AnnMarie.
So as I turn the final page in Vol. 2, the feeling is certainly bittersweet. Working with AnnMarie at The Brand Stand gave me confidence in my newfound skillset, elevated my creative problem solving capabilities, and validated my identity as a creative. As a result, I feel confident and determined to continue my career with another great company.
Vol. 3: nclud
To say I am excited about Vol. 3 would be an understatement. Since my UX Design journey began, I’ve admired nclud for their provocative, creative client work. With time, I’ve come to appreciate the company even more for the value they place on user experience — a key factor to its success as a business, and a direct link between problem solving and performance. As a Senior Experience Designer at nclud, I’ll spend my days contributing to that success by connecting client goals and user needs to design solutions with an incredibly talented team. It feels like a dream to say those words out loud.
Recently, my parents took down the bookshelves that once held the Britannica volumes. While the wooden pieces were discarded, my parents have since found new homes for the books. Just like my dad’s volumes, I hope that I too will be able to return to the “Tori Akman Design Chronicles” or whatever I’ll call them and reflect happily on my early days in UX Design. I’ve got big, scary, creative dreams for 2021, and this is just the beginning.
