Team Spotlight: Adeline
A deep thinker unafraid to voice her opinions
In this Team Spotlight, we sat down with Adeline Kuswanto, one of our Product Designers, to learn more about her role and experience at 55 Minutes. Adeline is originally from Indonesia and moved to Singapore with her twin sister for high school, and has been working with 55 Minutes for two years.
Q: Hi Ade! Can you tell me about your background? What were you doing prior to joining Potato Productions?
A: I graduated from Lasalle in 2014 where I studied design communications. My specialization was image and communications. We did a lot of image-making; digital stuff wasn’t super big earlier, so they still instilled a lot of prints, like how to bind a book, how to do wood carving, make your own type, letter printing, and manual letter printing.
Q: Why did you decide to study that?
A: I was interested in Fine Arts, but my parents thought I would be a starving artist. It’s a lot of having your work published in a gallery, and you have to depend on them for a living, so the next thing that made sense was design communications.
Q: Haha, that makes sense. What was your favorite part of design communications?
A: The people, the lecturers, and the weekly critics. During weekly critics, you get to hear people’s feedback and opinions, and it opens your mind to a lot of things because design to a certain degree is subjective, it’s a lot about choices and decisions. You have to listen to other people’s feedback to be able to arrive at the “right” decision. Even then your decision might not still be the right one. But if you refuse to listen and get so fixated on doing it your way, you’re definitely not doing it right. Our lecturer always told us the difference between design communications and Fine Arts is that you can put a spoon in white space in Fine Arts and call it “art”, but design communication is mostly what people see and feel from it; it’s a lot about people’s interpretation.
Q: Thanks for the explanation! You’re originally from Indonesia — how did you end up in Singapore? What do you like about Singapore?
A: I was here from secondary school — you’ll have to ask my mom how I ended up here. I was shipped here haha. I was still young, I was 16, almost 17, you get kind of excited that it’s a new country, but when you land in Singapore, you’re like, my god. My parents were not here, I was with my sister. Suddenly you have to be independent, do your own laundry. Singapore education was something else, it was all study and no play, I honestly don’t know how Singaporean students do it. I was also adjusting to full English. But after a while, you make local friends.
Q: So what was your first job out of college?
A: I was a web designer, so I did an 8-month stint at a local company. There was a small team […of] five people. I felt miserable because the company was the type [that] cared about profits, so they needed that profit to stay afloat. I remember [my boss] asked me to erase a watermark at one point to save money. I was quite unhappy back then so I decided to move on after that. But during my time there, I studied web design, how to create responsive design, how to modify web templates, so it was a lot of self-learning, because you don’t have another designer. You have to make it work so it was a lot of Googling stuff.
Q: Thanks for sharing that with us. Shifting gears back to 55 Minutes, can you describe 55 Minutes in three words?
A: Fun, warm, and human.
Q: I love that. What’s your favorite part about the work you do now? Least favorite part?
A: I like the nature of my work. It’s a lot more thinking critically, rationalizing the design process, and asking why, which I enjoy. I like when the project allows you to get in from the start and find a finished solution. And second, the people. The people are fun to work with and talk to. A lot of us have the same interests like keeping indoor plants, playing console games, watching streamers, brewing kombucha, and buying Korean skincare, etc.
A lot of people who come to 55 Minutes are also not the type who prioritize money and profit and most of us have the same vision of trying to use design for good. They are able to see the better good and what it means to people. It’s a contrast from my first job, which was all about the profit.
My least favorite part is design in general; the subjectivity of design can get tiring sometimes as it’s a lot of justifying your choices. It’s just the general design world and industry. You put out your work and people judge your work without seeing your thinking behind it, so sometimes that is draining in a way that you feel judged. Your baby is being judged harshly, it’s good when people like it, but when people start using words like “ugly” or “not nice,” you feel upset even if you understand it’s not about you.
Q: It’s interesting you talk about thinking critically. Co-founder of 55 Minutes, Wendy—who has worked with you for some time—has also described you as a “critical thinker”. What does it mean to you to be a thinker?
A: I think of that statue (the thinker). To me, thinking is the opposite of feeling. The way I approach design is by thinking objectively instead of trying to solve it with emotion. It’s also a lot of asking questions that normally people wouldn’t ask. Asking a lot of why’s. Trying to conceptualize and synthesize a lot of information and readings into one design. Finding out ways you can make your design better. Putting yourself in different shoes, how would I see the design as a client, as a user? You have to think about these things and not let it be…
Q: Thinking is definitely a lot of deep work! Where do you see yourself in five years? Long term?
A: Short-term, I want to keep up with the industry changes, new devices are coming. The thing about design and digital work is that the industry itself moves along really quickly. It has evolved so much so you have to constantly update yourself. My long-term goal is to be a lecturer. Sometimes I see my lecturer and think I want their job. I love that they still work with different clients and people in the industry but also oversee students’ work. I think working with students can open you up to a lot of fresh interesting ideas (mostly because they’re still young and they dare to try new things).
Q: Do you have any advice for folks interested in your field?
A: My advice would be … don’t take it personally when people don’t like your work. It’s your work, it’s not you. You don’t have to feel like you’re a bad designer if people don’t like the work you do. The fun part of design is also the reiteration — when your idea is not well received, you sleep, get up and start fresh. I like that part of design also. When something is subpar to you, you try another day, you try to design a better product. Don’t get attached to your work. And just read a lot.
Q: Alright, now for some fun questions! What is your ideal Sunday?
A: Ideally, I’d have a lot of plants and a cat and I play the PS5 the whole day, and when I’m tired, I’d stroke my cat, I’d stroke my plants, and then go back to my game.
Q: If you weren’t a designer, what would you be?
A: I’d be a farmer somewhere in New Zealand because I really don’t like people — they stress me out. Especially clients. So I’d like to have that slow life. So I’d plant vegetables, urban farming. I want real farming, having some cows. It’s very self-sufficient.
Q: You’re super fast at learning new things (like Japanese), what skill are you looking to pick up next? Or what skill do you want to master?
A: Anything that doesn’t require the digital world. I like pottery and seeing ceramics, so I really want to be into ceramics. It’s just that a lot of the equipment is not readily available. I’d love to do pottery and sell my ceramics goods. Carpet making is also interesting. Handicrafts are totally different from my job. The readily available designs don’t fit my vibe, so I’d love to be able to make my own.
Q: What’s your favorite thing about having a twin? Your least favorite thing?
A: My favorite thing is you always have company. You don’t even get the chance to feel lonely because she’s always there. I think we have a lot of things in common; we love to play Overcooked together. Once we stayed in the karaoke room for 8 hours after our Japanese class. Who would do that with you if not your twin sister? She also keeps me grounded because sometimes she’ll give me a reality check.
My least favorite part is the comparison. In school, there were a lot of comparisons. I think my parents contributed a lot to the casual comparison. Sometimes they said stuff like it looked better on your sister and I’d feel offended.
Q: What’s it like working at the same company with your twin sister?
So far, it’s fun because you get to hear how the other companies are doing because it’s a privilege, especially when you are only close to people from your company.
It was a pleasure getting to chat with and get to know Adeline better. Her favorite desserts include Choux au Craquelin and fresh coconuts. Outside of 55 Minutes, she studies Japanese and she loves to watch Anime; her favorite character is Sailor Mars.
