40 books to maximize your creative potential and level-up in design
A list of recommended books for designers who feel stuck, need inspiration or hungry for knowledge.
Read this article on Medium and let me know what you think.
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Natural Talent is Bullshit
“You don’t have what it takes.”
“You’re not talented. You got lucky.”
“You’ve waited too long, you will never be as good as …”
“You’re not like them. You don’t belong here.”
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always struggled with the idea of natural talent. I thought that I was the only one who lacked it, because I was different from everybody else.
When I started to teach myself how to design, the self-loathing, impostery rhetoric magnified. I didn’t feel like a real designer which made the pursuit intimidating and me vulnerable.
Things got easier when I focused on working really hard, stretching outside of my comfort zone and seeking out any and all types of feedback. Over time, I learned to trust myself better.
So trust yourself, because natural talent isn’t a real thing. You rarely see the grit of others.
Worry less about others’ success, and work harder on bringing and developing your best self.
You are a real designer.
“The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself… That is the moment you might be starting to get it right.”
—Neil Gaiman
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I’m Joining Medium
Since earning my Bachelor of Computer Science in 2008, I have taken every opportunity to travel (52 countries so far), work and live abroad. Whilst traveling, I learned the importance of diversity in perspective, and how healthy communities thrive in systems where value can be easily created and exchanged.
More recently, I spent a few wild years at Uber and Amazon sharpening my what if’s and WTF’s. While this experience fueled the optimistic skeptic inside of me, the rest of me felt devoid of purpose. What I made, clashed with what I valued and this realization has brought me to Medium.
Some of my most rewarding life transformations have happened because I was challenged by a story or an idea that activated my heart and mind. Because of this, I’m deeply motivated to create systems where stories and ideas have the power to inclusively exchange, thoughtfully collide, intelligently build, and meaningfully reinvent people for the better.
I couldn’t ask for a more purposeful place to belong, than with Medium, right now.
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Get My Newsletter
Sign up to get my essays on design thinking, enriching ideas, and other designy stuff to help you live a more productive and enjoyable work life.
I will never sell, trade, spam or do anything sleazy with your information.
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Taming Your Inner Grouch
A negative mindset can kill your creativity, spark unhealthy conflict, damage workplace relationships and impact your wellbeing. Worst of all, negativity can transform you into a grouch — that designer no one enjoys working with.
To work effectively with other people, we must first take care of our own mind and emotions. We need to learn self empathy — the purposeful discovery of underlying thoughts and emotions that guide our decisions and behaviors.
In this medium article I share techniques to help you identify and rewire negative thinking to prevent situations of unhealthy conflict.
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Shapes and Lines
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Pathways
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The Only UX Reading List Ever
A recommended list of the books that have shaped the designer I am today, and inspire the designer I will be tomorrow.
Read this article on Medium and let me know what you think.
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How and Why
Creating something that demonstrates craft at the highest level is not possible without an environment that nurtures love, thoughtfulness and a resounding purpose to share in.
We should always seek an appropriate balance of how and why.
“If we stay on the surface and do not dig deep by asking Why, we’re not truly designing. We’re just imitating car alarms from sweetgum trees.”
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Great Design Portfolios Are Great Stories
Your portfolio is a story about you and your work—your expression of growth through all the obstacles, surprises, successes and failures. This is your epic. Illuminate the arc of your career and why you matter.
Read this article on Medium and let me know what you think.
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A golden state of mind
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Goodbye Sydney
This week I said goodbye to my home, family and closest friends. I moved 12,000km from Sydney to chase a crazy new venture in San Francisco.
For the first time in my career, I will be working on something I’m really passionate about with Amazon Music.
“I was surprised, as always, by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.”
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Live by your values
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
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Discordant
Lately, I’ve been inspired by some awesome new music by Atoms for Peace, Kingdom, How to Destroy Angels, Isis and Palms. The music made me do it.
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Work-work balance
Every day, we should be asking ourselves how we’re delivering value — to ourselves and to others.
Spending our energy on the wrong project, in the wrong place, with the wrong people won’t kill us, but it’s certainly not doing any favours for our most limited resource — time.
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Use your words
When we dismiss or delegate the responsibility of crafting the copy in our designs to anyone but ourselves, we are doing a huge disservice to our users.
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Jaro Launch
Last night our team at Vivant officially launched Jaro at the Soane Hall, One Marylebone London.
The evening was hosted by Jason Bradbury from the Gadget Show and also featured an awesome performance by Aluna George.
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UX London 2013
From 10th to 12th of April the best UX’ers in the world gathered for inspiring talks and intensive workshops at the Trinity Laban in London. The event had a great atmosphere and was more intimate than I expected. Clearleft did an awesome job organising the event, sourcing some of London’s best food trucks and really good (unlimited) coffee.
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From Heartache to Mastery
Working for a digital agency presents unique challenges for the aspiring User Experience Designer. When asked to describe my own experience, I’ve often met my peers’ curiosity with a sigh and a headshake. In retrospect, my knowledge accelerated in dog years and I learned many of the soft-skills I needed to mature my craft.
Read this article on UX Booth and let me know what you think.
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How U(X) found me
Many User Experience professionals are T‑shaped individuals who bring diverse backgrounds and a wealth of experience to the profession. Since there isn’t an obvious or natural path into the UX profession, I’m always curious and grateful to hear others' stories. This is my story.
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Behind the logo
The circle is a simple, yet strong visual part of my identity. A subtle nod to craftsmanship and the quest for the perfect experience, it represents the cyclical and iterative nature of User Experience Design work.
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Postmortem: the death of my old website
Welcome to my brand spanking new website—realigned and redesigned. Since launching the very first version last year, I’ve been aching for the chance to do this. Oh, how I’ve laughed at my own design mistakes—stitches, ribbons, gradients, highlights, bevels, reflections, zig-zag circular badges, letterpress, skeuomorphism, circular script logotype, the list goes on. I’m embarassed and guilty of getting caught up with every kind of web trend and shamelessly combining them to er … effect.
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Site colophon
This site is a showcase of my best works and also serves as a haven for my thoughts and reflections. My musings are mainly about User Experience Design related topics.