A Coffee a Day, for 5 days — Day 4 with Tolu Atkinson
“A Coffee a Day, for 5 days” will feature a new discussion each day with a different UX professional. The goal is to understand their story and journey into the field, receive any advice and gems they can share for recent grads and junior designers such as myself, and receive feedback on my killer portfolio which can be found here: https://www.callmedak.com
You can view day one with Teunis Vorsteveld (UX Designer) here, day two with Lisa Guo (Product Designer) here, and day three with Alex Theroux (Experience Design Lead) here.
Today, I sat down with Tolu Atkinson. In his own words, he’s a designer that is still growing with so much to learn in life. He’s curious about problem solving and really impacting the world on a global scale. As someone who started as a UI designer he’s grown overtime to realize the true importance of UX as it’s the fundamentals and foundation to design
Let’s jump right in. I started by asking questions to learn more about Tolu as a designer and his journey.
D: Can you describe your journey towards the UX field? How did it start and what’s next for you?
T: I started when my friend/co-founder of Purple Dolphin (production agency) and I got to the point where we had an agency that helped people build online portfolios. People were really willing to pay for our services and the companies we worked with were successful. However, we found we were spending too much time on these projects outside of our value and we were getting burned out. We realized at one point that this was a great learning experience but we need to expand our knowledge and learn something that can allow us to utilize more skills.
My friend started learning to code and he exposed me to UX/UI design. He sent me a link, I checked it out and I started learning what it was through articles and YouTube videos. It was similar to what I was doing from a graphic design perspective, my love for photography and being a creative director and that’s when I realized I could do this.
I’m still new. I’m still curious. And I do have ambitions and dreams. I want to impact the world with a creative team on a global scale. As I grow within myself and my industry, I’m realizing my interests are more into productivity and mental health. Working for companies that boost performance and motivate people is where I want to end up.
D: What were some of the biggest challenges you faced being largely self-taught?
T: A year ago I was teaching myself the craft through online resources and I worked hard to put together my creative portfolio within a week of working everyday. I immediately started getting interviews and through that experience I started realizing that it’s great they know I have an idea of what I’m doing, but it’s important to also have the soft skills. Skills like: how to talk to people, how to problem solve, leadership skills, etc. These aren’t necessarily taught unless you have a mentor that can help.
One of the biggest hurdles was not being able to bounce ideas off of someone or receiving feedback from other designers and industry professionals. This was a huge challenge until I started networking more.
D: How has your experience being a creative director at a production agency helped with your career in UX?
T: That experience allowed me to think of things differently and have patience. For example, there were a lot of creative ideas coming from myself, my partner and also from the client. It’s one thing to see things from one person’s perspective but you also need to see the bigger goal and include everyone’s perspectives.
D: In your opinion, why do you think we aren’t seeing as many black men and women in tech as we could?
T: A few of the reasons can boil down to education, their foundation at home, and exposure. It’s going to grow and it is currently growing. It’s only a matter of time.
Advice for junior designers
As someone that made a transition into UX without a formal degree/diploma in the field, I found it would be super valuable to hear what sort of advice Tolu can give to others considering design or current junior designers.
D: What are three key things a recent UX grad can do to land their first job?
T: Be competent in the process and your approach and understanding why you do certain things. When you change a colour palette for a logo and someone asks you why, if you don’t really have an answer it’s a tale sign that you might not know what you’re doing or that you didn’t really think about the impact. You need to be confident in what you do and knowing why you do it.
Being yourself. We tend to not be ourselves and attempt to fit an archetype that we’re not. The thing is, overtime it will show. You need to genuinely be yourself and you will fit into the right team.
Patience is key — That’s something I struggled with. We live in a microwave society where we expect things to be instant. Be patient about your journey and don’t forget to enjoy the process.
D: What sort of advice would you give to black men and women interested in a career in UX that don’t see themselves represented in many companies?
T: If you don’t see yourself represented, you need to lead by example and break barriers. You can be the example for the other people behind you or coming up. Through that process you’ll start to navigate and attract certain people in that same journey and build your network within the community.
D: Have you ever gone through imposter syndrome? If so, how can designers experiencing the same thing get out of that mindset?
T: I definitely have and I think that’s just life in general. Within the industry I have felt like questioning whether or not I was a “real” designer. But at the same time I had to realize that no one is perfect and most people don’t fully know what they’re doing. Everyone has skills and everyone is good at doing something but if you start utilizing your best skill, you create something for yourself.
For example, I love being a creative and that’s something I’ve been doing since I was a kid: breaking down computers, filming skateboarding videos, and having that curiosity with a camera. I realize now it was significant in my life to go through all of that and I never let it go to this day. Overtime when I had my Instagram up, I had a lot of creative director videos up and it expressed who I was and I got better in those different creative fields. Focus on what you’re good at and minimize your weaknesses.
People that go through imposter syndrome feel like they’re not like everyone else, but you’re NOT like everyone else. You have a uniqueness that you need to bring out.
Portfolio review
I shared my portfolio with Tolu live and walked him through one of my case studies to get some of his initial thoughts and high-level feedback. Here were some of his comments:
- Overall, it’s really good. I like the flow of it all and it’s easy to understand
- I like that you’re including your sketches. You’re not just jumping right into Adobe XD or Sketch
- One piece of advice I got from a senior designer at a DesignX event was that you should think of your portfolio like a movie trailer. In the trailer you have x amount of seconds or minutes to show the most epic and adventurous scenes to get someone engaged, but the actual movie is when you get all of the details, the character development, and the ups and downs. Same thing with your portfolio. When you’re doing an interview, they’ve seen your trailer and now they want to go and see the movie.
Key takeaways
Talking with Tolu was great as he provided the perspective of someone that has always been creative but had to carve their own path into UX. Here were some of the biggest takeaways:
- Trust the process. It may sound cliche but it’s important to understand the things worth having take time. After my first week of applying for jobs, you’d think I’d have one by now right? Well that’s just not realistic and not getting something right away shouldn’t discourage you from continuously pushing. I’ll give it a second week, tops.
- Know your stuff. This one might seem obvious but you should really have a rationale behind all of the design decisions you make. If you don’t, it’s likely because you’re not approaching it in the right way or you don’t care enough.
- Your portfolio doesn’t need to include all of the work you did for a project. It can include just enough to keep the reader engaged and wanting more, which is when you blow them away in your interview.
Want to connect with Tolu?
https://twitter.com/AtkinsonTolu
https://www.linkedin.com/in/toluatkinson/
