Wrapping up the first year

We finished our first year of the MA with the biggest and most important project so far: working with Spotify. Yes, the Spotify. The one app that I use almost every day. And it was indeed as cool as it sounds. Traveling to Stockholm, riding elevators that blasted anything in between classical music, jazz and the hottest new radio song, and receiving a brief for a 1-month challenge from no other than the people leading some of Spotify’s design teams.

The conclusion of this project, and of the semester, marked the end of the first year that I’ve been living in Tallinn and studying Interaction Design. This naturally got me thinking about what Ive learnt so far, what I want to get out of the rest of the program and about my current frustrations.

Reflections on the project

Spotify presented us a brief around health. They wanted to explore in what ways could music’s potential to influence our emotions be related to achieving healthier lifestyles.

Here is a brief description on my approach:

Music is a very powerful tool to help us escape. The right song at the right time can make us forget about reality and become deeply intertwined with sounds and emotions. However, the act of escaping comes in different shapes and forms to different people. It is very personal and very hard to associate with one particular space and time.

The one element that seems to be common to escaping though is a change of environment. This can be achieved, among others, by social interaction, by entering a virtual space or by a literal change in space. After diving deeper into these options the importance and power of the physical space started to become clearer and clearer.

It is no coincidence that public spaces are becoming vital for healthy cities, that we are creating offices that promote activities completely disconnected from the actual work and that revolve solely about having fun, or that sometimes healthy things may become harmful if done in the wrong space.

So could there be a way of merging the power of music and of spaces?

This lead to the question: what if discover weekly was a physical space? What would it look and feel like for different people?

For full presentation of the idea check out my portfolio: https://www.tatianarubiano.com/spotify

But what was it like working with Spotify?

I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t intimidating. I was very nervous before our first visit to their headquarters. But as soon as we got there and got to know a little bit more the people who were in charge of the project there was a sense of excitement but also calmness. I guess it was getting to know the people behind the massive idea of ‘working with Spotify’.

Yes, it was clear that they were extremely talented, but what really came through out of all the people who were involved with us in the process was a profound kindness and openness. They always made us that we were on the same level and we’re actually very excited about out input and our perspective on things.

When Anna came to Tallinn in the middle of the project to check in on the directions we had taken and to give us feedback, it dawned on me. What made them, or at least her, great designer was humbleness and great attention to detail. I was blown away by the how insightful her feedback was. I t was the sort if thing that seem very simple in hindsight but that is actually not so easy to foresee. It came from being for empathetic. Seeing how she payed attention to our presentations and listening to her feedback made me realize that this is the kind of designer i want to become: one who’s starting point is empathy.

Additionally, it was very nice to see why it is that such a big company values collaborations such as this one. At the end they were very thankful to us and grateful for the projects we had put through. I realized that we were providing inspiration, a set of fresh eyes, and an opportunity for them to see the problems they have to deal with everyday from a perspective of complete creative freedom — without having to think about legal frameworks, partnerships, internal structural operations and so on. I think that for them it was about motivation, of getting back the excitement you have when you are not fully immersed in something. About being able to have a glimpse of the bigger picture again without having to worry of the actual nitty gritty details that actually get things running.

But, despite the great experience and as much as they are an amazing company, soon after the project began I realized that it wasn’t somewhere I would want to work. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it would be a great learning opportunity and I would be honored to have the chance to have that experience. But it got me thinking about the kind of designer that I want to be.

Reflections about the future

We have been working on projects which revolve around industry collaborations. They have been a great learning opportunity but i discovered that I’m really frustrated with working on a challenge that revolves a very specific product or service.

After much thought my ideas boiled down to the recurring thought: enough with the human-centered design!

We need to reconnect with the bigger picture and make a transition from human-center into life-centered design. I feel it is crucial right now to understand how powerful design is in shaping not only the things we consume but also our attitudes and behaviors. And consequently, the way in which we live our lives.

We are deeply intertwined in a web of life with humans and non-humans and it is a vert exciting moment in which we should focus on designing for all of the parts of the system and be aware of all of the life cycles involved in whatever it is that we are making.

Goal for this last year: break away from human-centered, explore systems and continue experimenting with one of my new interests: biomaterials.