Paper or pixels, making is making

When I tell people that I switched from being a packaging designer to a software engineer, a common response I get is, “Wow, that’s a complete career change!” But for me, I see the commonality between paper engineering and software engineering, instead of the differences.

I’ve worked at two consultancies in my career: Structural Graphics makes dimensional print advertising, Philosophie makes web apps. While the final product are different, the process is similar. The clients have an idea, and they need our expertise to turn it into reality. Often times the project has a tight budget and an even tighter schedule, which makes making more challenging and sometimes borderline impossible.

It takes a team of people working together to turn nothing into something: the talkers (sales), the organizers (project managers), the makers (designers and engineers) and most importantly the bill-payers (clients). As a member of the makers, it’s rewarding to take the various inputs, use my knowledge and imagination, and output something.

So whether it’s making a box for a product, making a web app for a product, or writing a blog post comparing making a box to making a web app, at the end of the day I get to say, “Hey, I made this,” which is usually a pretty good feeling.