The road to tech
Becoming a woman working in technology never evolves from the same journey. Mine has divulged from a road I continually travelled, naturally putting one foot in front of the other, in search of my favorite things.
Love art, tech, travel, animals and third-wave espresso ☕️
I spontaneously wrote a list of my favorite things as a portrait of myself when I first opened my Instagram account. How these passions came to life, is a story as long as my career and the discoveries I made along the way. As I look at the footprints I’ve left in the sand behind me on my journey, all makes total sense that I became a designer in the new tech industry.
Here’s why…
Art & Tech
I have lived a love story with art and technology all my life. These are what drive me, the most obvious subjects drawing my attention, as anyone who knows me will tell you.
I was a cliché of a kid who draws all the time, while chasing my passion of machines with buttons. My true awakening of this combination of passions arrived when I tried my first drawing software tool on an Amiga computer. It gave me endless possibilities, all in the same space. I was hooked. All my life, I have continued updating computers, software and drawing skills.
Conclusion: as design became a job that got done using technology (and Adobe’s apps mostly) my pastime and passion simply turned into my job.
Travel
Travel is an eye-opener. It makes you want all the things you don’t have at home. It makes you see new ways of doing or creating. When you come back from travelling, you can integrate what you’ve seen and done into your life. Tokyo made me fall in love with crazy creative architecture, joyful colours and characters that tell playful stories. Paris sunrises made me look at light in a whole new way and the West Coast made me want to add a lot of breathing spaces (and green imagery) everywhere.
Conclusion: travel offers the chance to look at things differently, and try new shapes, colours and ideas in different contexts.
Animals
To me, being an animal-lover means bringing all animals to the same level. It’s about accepting that we, as humans, are not better than all the other species we share the earth with. Start by questioning all the things you’ve learned in your life about food and any kind of relationship with animals. Once you start asking questions, you start to think differently and take action based on your new understanding. It shapes your way of thinking and analyzing the status quo. I find this process very adaptable to other aspects of my life and it becomes a reflex now to not accept things as they are. (Well, way more than before!)
Conclusion: I might question myself again in the future about my views of animals, but isn’t that exactly the point?
Coffee
Finally, third-wave espresso. This wave is all about the origins of coffee, the roasting that pulls out the indigenous flavours and the perfect brewing methods. It’s all about thinking about a product not only as an end-result but consciously savouring and exploring all parts of the process that made it a quality product. Every action or people involved in the process make it richer and better. You could say this is all true for anything great you want to achieve. I found it particularly true for creating for new tech because it’s not only doing your best, it’s also trying, testing, failing and all the leanings that you get along the way.
Conclusion: it’s about taking something you think you know and making it better at every step and that the team’s hard work behind it expands the individual’s strengths.
Conclusion
The real conclusion out of all my passions is that they’re not actually about me. These are the things I love; they drive me and giving them a place in my life shapes who I am.
If you’re open enough to listen to the things you love, they will teach you, unravelling long tales of wisdom.
