Kevin Sun, Jr Product Designer
Joined in 2021, from 🇺🇸
What led you into design?
Believe it or not, my design journey hasn’t been linear. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I didn’t know everything about my passions, and that’s okay. It’s okay to not be okay. We make mistakes, learn new things, and grow from the experience. I believe the best teacher out there is experiencing life.
I’ve always been a designer from the start. Through some self-reflection, I realised that I’ve always been practicing the design process.
During my biotechnology years, I’ve learned to challenge assumptions and conduct testing for optimal results. During my landscape architecture years, I’ve learned to apply user-centric design thinking and visualise the user experience. During my engineering years, I’ve learned to work in an agile environment and collaborate with PMs & Engineers.
I remember thinking, what have all my experiences taught me about myself?
I didn’t know exactly what career would resonate the most with my identity, but my optimistic attitude encouraged me to follow my interests and pursue my passions. I told myself to have faith and know that everything happens for a reason. Fast forward to now, I learned that everything I’ve been practicing was all facets of product design.
Here’s some of the advice I’ve learned over time:
- “Lean into what gives you energy. The universe will pick up on your vibrations.”
- “Everything you’re going through is preparing you for what you asked for.”
- “Trust and fall in love with the process.”
What does a typical day look like?
Currently Quarantining & Adjusting to Hong Kong life.
Wake up 🥱 Self-reflect 🪞 Exercise 🏋️ Breakfast 🍳 Work 📆 Lunch 🥪 Work Some More 👨💻 Dinner 🍱 Read 📖 Netflix 📺 Practice Mindfulness 🧘♂️ Sleep 😴
Name three non-designers you feel inspired by when designing.
Gary Vaynerchuk 🙋🏻♂️
I’ve been listening to a lot of motivational speakers lately, and one of them is an entrepreneur known as Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary is very inspirational and a great motivational speaker. He wants you to dig deeper about yourself as to the real reason why you’re not achieving or why your mindset could be improved. I apply his advice to design when I think about the deep-rooted reasons as to why our users struggle with technology.
Rock Climbing 🧗
For the past few years, I’ve been rock climbing, and I find the approach to be similar to product design. There are certain ways to figure out a problem, but at the same time there’s not only one specific move that wins. You have to take into account the individual’s physical capabilities, the route’s accessibility, and the different experience levels. Similar to rock climbing, the design process is never linear. It all depends on different factors like who’s the audience, is the design accessible or affordable, and how ‘savy’ are users with technology.
Chopped 👨🍳
I love watching cooking shows, but I like Chopped especially because they incorporate problem-solving. In this US cooking competition, the chefs are given constraints (a mysterious basket of ingredients), and they have to create synergy in smell, taste, and presentation. Chopped is similar to product design where I have to understand the nuances of my constraints and strategise how to make sense of the problem space to elevate the final product.
What would your self-portrait look like?
📓🍲✈️🍵🏃🧗🥾🏞🪴🍜🧋🍷📚🌁
Anything you want to promote or plug?
If you’re interested in self-reflection or practicing meditation, I recommend purchasing the Five Minute Journal to start! The prompts help you practice gratitude and cultivate a more positive and healthier mindset.
