Five to inspire with Sebastien Gabriel
Designer @ Google
Who are you?
I’m a designer for Google Chrome, Chrome OS as well as Android. I’ve worked at Google for 5 years so far and I live in San Francisco. I was born in Paris and raised in south France until I moved to the US.
What’s a typical day on Sebastien life like?
I’m trying to organize my week between days in the Google SF office, close to home and the HQ in Mountain View.
The days in San Francisco are usually heads-down days when I’m trying to stay focused and execute fast. The days in Mountain View are usually filled with meetings. Beyond that, the structure of my days fluctuate a lot between short term execution and longer term thinking. A lot of what I do is being aware of what is happening on two platforms (Android and Chrome+OS) at the same times and trying to make them coexist as elegantly as possible.
There’s also a lot of technical thinking behind it so I spend a big part of my day talking to engineers.
How would you define good design?
Good design is convenient and engaging. It solves from tiny annoyances to major problems.
However good design is only a part of the solution. Design alone is useless. Good design is finding its place in the product creation process. Good design is also knowing when one need to remove something or when the best thing to do is nothing. Delivering good design is the constant push to design yourself, the designer, out of a job.
Share something you’d really like to do — but haven’t done yet. What’s keeping you from doing it?
Writing a Sci-fi book. I actually started one when I was in France, really bad but I enjoyed the process. I guess I don’t have the courage, time or tenacity or simply brain power. Probably a mix of all of that. Also I do like my current job and it takes quite a bit of time.
How do you imagine your life as a designer 10 years from now will be?
10 years is a lifetime in our industry. As the definition of our role fluctuates as we move forward, what is a designer today might not even be a thing in 10 years.
I became a designer around 9 years ago, doing graphic design. I then moved to web design, followed by application design, product design and now I design an operating system. I’d be curious to see where this leads me and more generally, what type of job will be covered under the “designer” umbrella in the future.
Surely it will evolve in areas we can’t conceive of right now.
I just hope we’ll work on fixing the issues of the time, not fixing the mistakes we might be making today.
People and/or designers that inspire you? (personally and professionally)
Design and technically wise, there’s a lot to be inspired by out there, actually too many to count or name. There’s always better than you.
Beyond pure skills, truly inspiring people are the ones with a relentless belief and dedication to their task, whatever it may be. People that stay the course over long periods of time, who stick to their principles and avoid becoming jaded or fall into cynicism. It can be hard for me to do that, so I always try to keep these type of people in mind, as what I aspire to be.
Where can we find Sebastien Gabriel?
sebastien-gabriel.com, @kounterb on Twitter and you can also find me on Unsplash
