Khanversations –Warren & Sanyukta
A conversation about futurism, weirdness and side-projects, from two designers at Khan Academy
The Basics
Hi 👋🏼, I’m Sanyukta! I’ve been a product designer at Khan Academy for 2 years. During my time here I’ve worked on two different products and also on our new design system. When I started, I designed the classroom experience that enables teachers to find and create assignments with Elizabeth and Todd. Lately, I’ve been working on our Test Prep products that provide engaging and targeted free prep for standardized tests like SAT and LSAT.
Hi ✌, I’m Warren, a design manager at Khan Academy. I work on the Brand & Comms team responsible for creating and maintaining our brand, creating our forward-facing design language, building marketing and philanthropy campaigns, and making super cool learner experiences like LearnStorm. We also increasingly collaborate with the other design teams to infuse some of that language, whimsy and joy into all of Khan Academy’s experiences.
What’s something you both have in common?
Warren: Hey! We have a lot in common right? We discovered a lot of overlap as we walked in the Presidio during a design team offsite.
Sanyukta: Yeah, apparently, we’re both fascinated by:
Warren: Gut biomes!
Sanyukta: Book clubs!
Sanyukta: Futurism/AI. Like reading Yuval Harari.
Warren: Failing at meditation
Sanyukta: Haha. Strange travel stories!
Sanyukta: German & Alsatian wines (Gewürztraminers & Grüners)
Warren: We both hated Red Sparrow.
Sanyukta: Oh god. Yes.
Sanyukta: We should include pictures of our ridiculous multi-tab chrome situation
Warren: No one wants to see that.
Sanyukta: Haha True. Oh also, we both used to use INDD for prototyping for a long time because why not?
Warren: Exactly.
How did you get into design?
Warren: I started out as a full-time artist (and started making an ok living at it) after I graduated from school — but I quickly realized I didn’t really love market forces in head as I was making art. So I divorced my art from the market and started doing design as something commercial to pay for my new (private and awesome) studio practice. It helped my artwork get better and evolve more quickly. And my design skills grew in parallel. (There’s a longer rant of mine about ‘not doing what you love for a living’ here). I think one of my first projects was building an online portfolio for one of my art professors. After that, I started taking small local clients in the early aughts — sometimes supplementing with a design gig at the local arts newspaper. From there, I mostly just hustled for branding and web design projects until (many years later) I’d built a small design team / studio working with clients that were aligned with our interests and sensibilities. It was neat watching the business grow and evolve. Definitely learned by immersion and just going for it.
Warren: How’d you get into design?
Sanyukta: I was in this program called Applied Art (geared towards advertising). Didn’t want to do law, engineering, medicine, or architecture. I knew I was interested in designy things, but I wasn’t sure where to start, so the program made sense. Then, in my third year, there was this conference where Sagmeister, Neville Brody, Paula Scher and other amazing designers. I was also exposed to work by Indian designers and artists like Lemon Design studio, Divya Thakur of Design Temple and the artist Dhruvi Acharya. It was really cool to see that and see all the kinds of things they were doing with design, branding, books etc. After that, design became a central focus for me. Even though there wasn’t really a curriculum for it, it helped me get a job at a branding agency. That started me down the path. I got into user experience design by being immersed with great designers and product people in the Bay Area.
What does the design world need more of?
Sanyukta: Holistic thinking. REAL end-to-end thinking and scientific rigor seems like it’s kind of missing. Long-term thinking about solutions, and researching the longitudinal impact of those solutions. We’re designing for a very narrow outcome/designing bandaids most of the times, and not spending enough time thinking about what is the long-term impact if we were to get our outcome, or if the product were to reach the end of its life cycle. An example would be pretty much all the disposable products/packaging made of plastic/non-degradable materials. We’re still at the tip of the iceberg trying to understand the long-term implications on the biosphere, oceans, agriculture and food security, human health, etc. There are probably opportunities to think about this stuff, but it’s difficult to make a case for it because good research takes time. And companies care about quick results and immediate financial wins/growth metrics vs. longitudinal effects of what they made and the implication on the world, environment, future generations, etc. That being said, I’m excited about the research in AI, nanotech, and futuristic agriculture tech, among other things.
Warren: Yes to all that.
Sanyukta: What about you?
Warren: Gosh. One thing I keep wanting more of is weirdness/risk taking. I remember this old Daniel Pink quote from the early aughts that has stuck with me:
For businesses, it’s no longer enough to create a product that’s reasonably priced and adequately functional. Anybody can do that. Today, it must also be beautiful, unique and meaningful. That’s why people buy Michael Graves toilet brushes, Karim Rashid trash cans, and Philippe Starck flyswatters… in an age of abundance, appealing simply to rational, logical and functional needs is insufficient. If those things, experiences or images aren’t also pleasing to the eye or compelling to the soul, fewer people will buy them.
— Daniel Pink
10 years ago, it was easy (if you had half a sense of design) to stand out with some decent, minimally tasteful/thoughtful design. and that design would’ve easily set you apart from most competitors. Now, there’s a lot more good/decent design everywhere — so much so that it’s starting to blend a bit — which is fine if you want to build something super useable, but probably not good if you want people to notice your shit.
At the moment, my sense is that we’re in a tightening phase in our industry. The web is no longer the wild-west. Things are getting optimized, best practices solidified, processes and workflows are becoming canonized, and org structures and systems are becoming more formal etc (obviously this is a massive oversimplification). So I have a strong feeling that there is increasing opportunity to strategically break things, or at minimum, take unusual or bizarre creative risks on identity, experience, tone, voice, etc.
Sort of separately, I wonder how soon it will be when AI starts doing that kind of work for. You know, like, understanding us well enough to delight and charm us?
Sanyukta: Haha yeah. Bringing it back to Yuval Harari!
Warren: YEP. CAN’T HELP IT.
Sanyukta: Any examples of weird design?
Warren: One example I always think of Wieden + Kennedy (and the power of non sequiturs, like their Old Spice work). It might just be my weird sense of humor though…
What’s something you’ve made that you’re proud of? (In or out of Khan Academy, doesn’t have to be design related)
Sanyukta: My mom is a vice-president at a school in India for children with special needs. It’s really hard for them to attract donors. Every once in a while they’ll get folks who are really keen on their mission, but it’s not enough and not at a predictable cadence. They don’t have the resources for branding and outreach — so it’s really been difficult for them to attract big donors. So I’m helping them by updating their branding, setting up their social media presence, especially since they have such great testimonials, and setting them up on various educational/non-profit sites that can help them get more donations. I also want to help them get set up in a way that they can continue to update their presence and bump up their exposure to the community and potential donors in the future easily, without requiring a designer/ tech-savvy person on board.
Warren: That’s wonderful. Teachers often don’t have a ton of time to do that kind of work, right?
Sanyukta: Yeah, they don’t have time to focus on this stuff because of the demanding nature of the work. There’s such a good story to tell, especially in India where these topics and challenges don’t have as much exposure as they do in other regions. So yeah, I’d love to see if I can help them get more money and get their story out there.
Sanyukta: What about you?
Warren: My friend Raymond and I are building a non-profit ISP for Santa Barbara with the goal of providing low-cost/no-cost internet connectivity to families in need. We’re beaming signal via long-range radio antennas from the mountains above Santa Barbara. We’re currently only serving 5 households — but it’s a super exciting project. That reminds me, I have to do another pass on that branding…
Sanyukta: You better get on that…
Khanversations are a series of dialogues between designers at Khan Academy as a way of getting to know one another.
P.S. We’re hiring, if you’re interested, check out our job listings!
Links to the series
👉🏽 Here’s May-Li’s introduction to the series, including a list of all the countries that were involved in our formation.
👉🏽 Elizabeth and Vivek talk about sneakers, fashion, capitalism, how they got into design (they even share some vintage work) and MORE. These two have incredible taste BTW I always want to know where they look
👉🏽 Louis and Erica on rearranging the furniture, skeuomorphic icons, working in the federal government and more
👉🏽 Cassey and Jacob on how neuropsychology, being an executive assistant, and not wanting to draw Mickey Mouse 1000 times could lead to a career in design
