Meet Elén, head of UI/UX (and everything visual) at goodbag — goodbag spotlight
Have you ever heard of the employee or team spotlight? Or read something about it? In case you haven’t, employee or team spotlight means presenting the company’s employees to the outside world. Publishing their stories or something interesting about their job and life.
We decided to do something similar with the „goodbag spotlight“ series, where eventually you will find articles about every goodbag team member. They will be in the interview-form and consist of 3 parts.
- General-intro questions (which are the same for everybody)
- Specific questions about each team member’s job
- Short questions with instant answers (again, same for everybody)
Today, we are talking with Elén, who will share some things about her life and her experiences at goodbag. We will kick off with our general section i.e. some introduction questions.
Hi Elén, could you tell us something about yourself and your role at goodbag?
Hi everyone. My name is Elén and I am 26 years old. I grew up in Greece, but I have been living in Austria for over 10 years. I am head of UI/UX at goodbag.
How and when did you join the goodbag team?
After I’d finished my Graphic and Communication Design studies, an old classmate who was doing bag designs for goodbag, posted that goodbag was looking for a designer on our class Facebook page. Since the job consisted of doing a complete redesign of goodbags identity, I applied immediately. I started in 2017 as a freelancer and have been employed as a staff member since June 2019.
What motivates you to be a part of goodbag as a company?
For me, the most important thing is that I can work part-time and still have enough time for my other interests and occasional freelance jobs. An additional motivator is that I work for a place that does something good for the environment.
I was always skeptical when I was making designs for other companies that do sales and ads, however, I know that goodbag is „selling“ the right thing, and I am always happy to help there.
Finally, we have such a diverse team, people from all over the world, and that makes the overall work very interesting.
What are the 3 things you like the most about goodbag’s culture?
The first thing is flexibility. We have the freedom to work from home, organize our own working schedules, take the days off…
Besides that, we all have similar values when it comes to the environment, diets, sustainability… We are very mindful about what we do.
Lastly, we travel a lot as part of our work. The day I started working I went to our office in Lisbon and worked from there for a month!
Do you manage to learn while working and how?
For sure! Mostly because when I went to high school, I did not have so much practical experience in UI/UX design. Austria is a bit behind when it comes to web and UX design. Throughout my high school career, we maybe had 2 web-based projects, so I hardly did anything practical in that area. Nevertheless, while I was doing the website for goodbag, I learned so much about web design. And then came the app design.
In general, I learn while doing. I especially managed to learn a lot about UX (user experience), because your design also has to work not just to be pretty. Talking to testers also gave me a lot of different points of view and taught me some new interesting things.
Thank you, Elén, for answering those general questions, now we will focus more on some specific questions regarding your work specifically.
Which colors represent goodbag and why? Who chose them?
As for the second question, the colors where there before I came, so I can only speculate. (smiles)
Our main colors are orange, dark blue, and grass green. At this point, for me, orange is goodbag, they simply belong together. Orange is not used super often for corporate design. Most logos are blue or red, or red and yellow, or some combination of primary colors. We want the orange color to make our logo a unique thing that will stand out.
I would like to add that I did expand our color pallet quite a bit, since our design has evolved to include playful, bright illustrations.
What was the most difficult project you worked on at goodbag?
Definitely the app. The hardest and the most awesome one!
Keep in mind that something like that never ends, adding new stuff, making it better… It is a continuous process.
For me, that was the most difficult project, because I had to learn a lot of new stuff while working on it. It was quite different from my website project.
Web design is very different from app design. There are rules that apply, but they work differently, and therefore, the design should be adjusted. In general, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel — you can keep the stuff that works because it works for a reason. So, apps won’t look super different from each other. On the other hand, when it comes to web design, you have more space which means you can play a little more with the whole area.
Is there any specific design thing (page, feature, poster) that you are extremely proud of?
Hm, I would say that my favorite design is the app. I am happy with the illustrations that we use, and now we have some animations as well (about which I also had to learn a lot).
In general, I am happy to see the design grow and become better and more polished over time. Right now, we are doing the second redesign of the website and we are constantly improving. On my part, I want things to become even better and more cohesive with one another.
Where do you find inspiration when it is needed the most?
Well, I usually already have images in my mind when I am looking for inspiration.
I don’t know. My process is trying and playing around, making a mess, until I find something that works, and then I make it pretty and clean. (smiles)
And we came to our final section, where we will go through some short questions to find out more about Elén :) So, tell us:
- Where is your favorite place to be? The beach in my home town.
- What is one thing you cannot resist? Delicious homemade food.
- Would you like to visit space once in your life? No! It’s awe-inspiring, but ultimately terrifying.
- If you could meet anyone, dead or alive, who would you meet? My future-self, at a higher level, telling me that I am gonna make it! (smiles)
- Do you have a favorite quote? “That’s what’s putting you in the bottom, bitch! You’re prepared to be on the bottom!” — RuPaul’s Drag Race.
- Do you have an (office) nickname? What is it? Sadly no.
- What is your favorite book so far? Be Excellent at Anything by Tony Schwartz.
- If you could choose one place worldwide where goodbag opens its next office, which place would that be? Crete!
- Who would you most like to swap places with on the team? Jobwise, nobody. (smiles). But it would be cool if I could be, as a person, one of the app developers (Todor or Johannes), just so I can have that programming knowledge. I am fascinated by that stuff.
That was Elén, goodbag’s UX/UI designer, who constantly makes sure that our designs drive attention :). If you liked the article, make sure to follow us on our social media channels. In the following weeks, we will be talking with other team members and getting to know them better. Stay tuned :)
About goodbag
goodbag is the first reusable tote bag that lets you plant trees, collect plastic waste out of our oceans, or receive exclusive discounts every time you go shopping. All you need to do is to download the goodbag app, get a goodbag, and start scanning it when you shop. Check out our website to learn more.
