Team Spotlight: Kay
An old soul who’s driven by learning
As we move towards the latter half of the year, we’re excited to feature Kay, a designer at 55 Minutes!
Q: Hi Kay! Can you tell us a bit about yourself and describe your role at 55M?
A: I’m a designer and my role in 55 Minutes varies depending on the type of project. The bulk of my day-to-day task involves working on brand and visual design-related projects. When an opportunity arises, I collaborate with other designers in the team to assist in experience design-driven projects and learn more about the trade.
Q: What makes you feel excited about your work?
A: I would say that the curiosity to learn something new always excites me. Even though I am a creature of comfort, it has been interesting to learn new ways of designing and crafting experiences and designs that not only look pleasing but are feasible and most importantly resonate strongly with the values of those who we are designing for.
Q: It seems like there’s a lot of creativity involved in your role. How do you find inspiration for the creative work that you do?
A: Strangely enough, deadlines are always a good source of inspiration. Considering how accessible it has become to look for inspiration using a simple command, I mostly gather inspiration by scavenging through good ol’ image-based engines like Google and Behance, with Pinterest being my second home.
Convenience aside, I am also aware of how being heavily reliant on these generative sites can sometimes influence the ingenuity of the creative output. Everything ends up looking the same, often void of diversity and imagination. Perhaps I need to cast a wider net and expand my searches. Perhaps I need to find a more organic approach to generating unique ideas and creative solutions. The pursuit continues!
Q: Got it! And which parts of UX and UI design work do you find the most challenging and how do you overcome these challenges?
Coming from a graphic design background, I am naturally fixated on the visual side of things. So I would often find myself struggling to take on a broader scope and adapting to new processes within product development such as interacting with users, evaluating business goals, and technical feasibility. The list goes on.
It takes time to learn and unlearn things and the 55 Minutes team has been very supportive in helping me adapt and pick up a new trade along the way.
Q: That’s a perfect segue into our next question. What stands out to you the most about 55 Minutes? What do you like about this organization?
A: One thing that stands out to me here is the culture 😊. Wendy has put in a lot of effort to maintain and foster a healthy environment here. Everyone here has been supportive and respectful of each other, openly and promptly giving genuine feedback and encouragement to do our best work.
I also enjoy the flexibility of being able to work from home. Here, I should disclose that while I don’t have the most ergonomic (nor the cleanest) setup, I generally find myself being more productive working in an environment where I feel the most comfortable. I can also conserve and dispense my energy more efficiently by cutting down the morning commutes!
Q: Speaking about time, what do you do during your free time when you are not working?
A: I always sweat buckets whenever I’m asked about how I spend my free time because I lead a pretty mundane life. I would describe myself as a sloth personified. My form of rest consists of lazing in bed — endlessly consuming algorithmic content on Youtube, Netflix and chilling (the PG version) or playing mobile games.
Once in a while, when my conscience kicks in, I drag myself to engage in some form of exercise. I find cycling to be the most forgiving form of exercise for my century-old heart and crackling joints but road anxiety is real. Perhaps that’s the reason why my bike has been gathering quite a bit of dust for a while now.
Q: How long have you been living in Singapore? What do you like about your life here in SG?
I have been here in Singapore for a while now — perhaps close to 10 years? That said, I still feel a little foreign. Now is the time to steal an excerpt from Colm Toibin, author of Brooklyn —
“This is for anyone who has ever moved, knowing that to emigrate is to become a foreigner in two places at once”.
It expresses my growing sentiments.
What I like most is the safety. I feel safe and comfortable enough to walk around at odd hours. I miss losing that sense of autonomy when I’m outside of Singapore — a luxury that I couldn’t afford in other foreign countries and even my own country.
Q: Can you tell us about your hometown and what you miss most about it?
I was born and raised in Myanmar. I spent the entirety of my childhood and made many long-lasting memories there.
What I miss most is the food and slower pace of lifestyle; these are often the roots of my homesickness. Although recently, it’s been rather tough to witness a place where you grew up being thrown into the deep end with the current political tension.
Q: Thanks for sharing that, Kay. Is there anything we haven’t asked that you’d like to share about yourself?
A: That I am allergic to alcohol? Other than that, I think we have covered all grounds. Plus, I think I have written plenty about myself here — long enough to publish an autobiography!
We hope you enjoyed getting to know Kay as much as we did. Kay is a designer and a part-time sloth. In her free time, she likes to hibernate and consume algorithmic content on Youtube. When she is off abroad, she enjoys dérive-ing and hanging around at local supermarkets.
