PI&V.
Professional Identity
I am an enthusiastic, passionate, and ambitious person. I always strive to create the maximum positive change for society in all the designs I create. This can only be done by putting everything I have into a design and always pushing the limits of what I believe I can achieve.
For me, design is all about synthesising thoughts into ideas and then turning these ideas into concepts that can be visualised by others, and not just the designer who created them. I have always enjoyed expressing my creative side and therefore ideation is a process in which I feel I can flourish. This allows me to not just think of the ideas to tick the box of the design brief but to also think outside of that box in order to create ideas that are unique, interesting, and innovative. My oracy skills are also of a high level which allows me to eloquently express my ideas to an audience whether that be of 3 people or 300 in order for them to also understand the concepts that I have created. Coming hand in hand with oracy, active listening is also crucial for a group to work and is something that I am passionate about conducting when in a co-design session. This is because, to offer the group you work with the respect they need, you cannot just hear what they have to say, you must listen and think about what they are saying in order to truly understand and consider their ideas for the progression of the project.
In the past I have worked with mentoring and supporting people with special educational needs. I became especially close to a child with down syndrome and diabetes, and I managed his diabetic and social needs on summer camps for the last two years. This not only allows for me to relate to a much more diverse user base in the designs I create, but also helped me to guide my vision and fuel my passion for inclusion.
One aspect of my design identity I look to approve upon is my ability to switch myself off. Once I am engrossed in an idea, I sometimes struggle to move onto something else. This in some instances is a good thing as I really think ideas through to a deep and meaningful extent however I am learning how to move on more decisively from current ideas to future ones.
Vision
The world is currently a place with many flaws. I believe that it is our job, as designers, to try and find a cure for some of these problems. One of the biggest problems is that design is too frequently created for the same group of people: Cup handles made to fit the hand of the average man and plasters created to match the tone of the average white person’s skin. These are just two examples of the lack of equality in design. Despite this, I believe that as designers we need to go further than just striving for equality, where designs are made equally for all, but rather designers now need to consider equity in their designs, creating products and services that level the playing field of life by elevating the lives of minorities and people with disabilities so they can reach the same heights that the majority can. It is not enough for designers to make a couple of adjustments at the end of the design process to make a product just about useable for people from underrepresented groups, but they need to consider these people from the beginning of the design process. I don’t just want designers to make it possible for their designs to be used by these groups I want them to make their designs to enable these groups to do the impossible, to do the things they were always told they would never be able to do.