Open Book: Nicolas Solerieu
Hear from Nicolas about crossing the Atlantic to work at Opendoor, why disagreeing is healthy, and how exercise is essential to his work.
Open Book is a series of interviews where you get to meet our creative design team at Opendoor.
What do you do at Opendoor?
I am a senior brand designer on the brand team. Most of my time is spent on designing and building landing pages. The rest of my time is spent on helping the rest of the design team out with visual design, especially for the web.
Editor’s note: Jumping in because he’s selling himself short here. He strongly helped define the company’s visual language and brand since he joined three years ago. As an early member of the brand team, he single-handedly designed and built many iterations of our homepage and our marketing sites. Opendoor’s brand would not be what it is today without him.
What brought you to Opendoor?
I had been working at an agency for 2 years in a small town in France when I got an email from Jessica, the head of Opendoor’s design team at the time. She offered me a job and I couldn’t say no to the opportunity to move to the US. This also gave me a chance to be closer to my uncle in DC who got me interested in engineering when I was young, which eventually led me to web design and frontend development. He was my role model throughout my childhood, and now I’ve joined him on the other side of the Atlantic.
You have a wide array of interests. How do you keep up with it all?
I think it’s important to have at least one artistic endeavor and one physical endeavor. My artistic pursuits such as photography, illustration, print design, 3D design, and woodcarving feed my soul. Work can be hard sometimes, so it’s nice to be able to express yourself and create without constraints or deadlines. It also helps me build confidence as a designer when I get to work with my hands, especially with different materials like charcoal and wood.
My physical pursuits such as running and cycling feel meditative and help me clear my head. I used to run in France, but the weather and the nature in the Bay Area is hard to beat. I appreciate the primitive feel of these sports as well, where they need very little equipment and you can do them practically anywhere. Because they’re so accessible, I can practice consistently and build discipline for myself. To me discipline is important in many ways, I think it’s particularly crucial for creative jobs.
What do you think Americans can learn from the French and vice-versa?
French people are more comfortable (too much perhaps) with disagreeing. Americans tend to see disagreements as a negative thing — and Americans are generally less comfortable with negativity — but the French see it as healthy. It shows that you’re thinking critically. From an early age, children are taught to debate with one another rather than memorizing facts from the teacher. Real knowledge and insights come from these debates and disagreements. All this to say that we complain a lot, but in a healthy way.
Americans are optimistic. They’re forward-looking and aren’t very concerned with the past. They trust the younger generation to do what’s right and they’re okay with leaping before looking. I like this because it can be stifling to be so tightly bound to the past. There’s also a larger emphasis on workplace culture in the US. People genuinely care about their coworkers’s wellbeing and will look out for one another.
How do you want to grow in 2019?
There’s no limit to doing cool things, so I’m excited to explore new trends and see what the industry comes up with. I’d like to try out more illustration and visual design styles and try them out in my own work. I’m looking forward to evolving my own work and style with the industry.
P.S. If you liked what you read and are interested in learning more, check out our jobs page! We’re always hiring.
