Design X Design: Advice for New Designers
This is an installment of our blog’s recurring series, Design x design. Members of the Pinterest design team — designers, writers, researchers and more! — will discuss their backgrounds, hopes, dreams and hot takes on line spacing. For our second installment, Skyler Rodriguez (designer, creators) interviews Tim Belonax(Creative director for brand).
Follow along to find out what Tim is up to as a creative director at Pinterest and the journey it took to find his design niche.
Skyler
First off, thank you for being here.
I want to get into a little bit about your design journey. What made you get into design?
Tim
I drew as a little kid. I’d illustrate the bedtime stories my parents told me, making them into little books. Once I was old enough to go to school, I would find any reason to draw. If it was a science project that needed a cover, I would draw it.
At 16, my dad knew somebody that knew somebody that got us in for a little studio tour at Pixar in Point Richmond. I was lucky: It was eye opening, because this person was drawing for a living and they were supporting a family. My dad is very business-oriented.
Skyler
I can relate.
That sounds like the way things tend to go when you’re really into art as a kid, then someone helps forward the journey.
So, what led you to working at Pinterest?
Tim
I got into tech, working at Facebook, and was at the nut house. I had a standing monthly coffee day with the Pinterest creative director at the time because we’d worked together at Facebook. She was describing a role to me, and I thought, “Oh, that sounds like me.”
Pinterest said they wanted people with a lot of interests but not enough time in the day to explore them. That’s me! The rest is the rest.
That means you need to be problem seeking. This is where the action and power of design comes from. You can’t just be waiting around.
Skyler
Something we don’t talk about enough is our own philosophies and ideas behind the social impact of design. Switching it up a bit, I’m curious what responsibilities do you believe design holds in society?
Tim
Hmm. So I don’t think that design holds a responsibility, it has to take responsibility.
Skyler
Okay.
Tim
It has to be more action oriented. A previous design director at Pinterest said designers advocate for the populace. That means you need to be problem seeking. You can’t just be waiting around. That’s where the action and power of design comes from.
We’ve been slowly chipping away at the lone genius myth for quite a while and I think that we’re taking some really big hits at it these days. The people held up in the Canon don’t represent everybody. In the past, this has held back the inclusivity that design ought to have.
Skyler
That makes a lot of sense to me. I think that things are changing quite a bit when it comes to the role that design plays in society. We’re learning a lot more as things have changed, especially in tech.
From your perspective, how does being a brand designer in tech differ from, say, working at an agency?
Tim
Some people say it’s the difference between dating, and being married. As a brand designer at Pinterest you get to be more engaged with the product and its community. At an agency, you’ve got a ton of different clients and you’re trying to like boom, boom, boom, get it out.
The level of investment in design has definitely changed from when I was at a small agency. Now there are definitely plenty of agencies that are striving for that longer term and like deeper investment.
Skyler
I mean, it’s harder to probably make that happen, considering just the way that relationships have existed in those situations.
Tim
The infrastructure of relationships in companies is a thing to navigate all on its own. When you’re not embedded with those people it puts an agency internally at a disadvantage unless they end up embedding, which some do for larger commitments.
Skyler
Yeah, for sure.
Where do you see the role of brand in tech changing in the future? Working in-house is nothing new but working in tech is relatively new. What’s your perspective on how brand and Visual Communication Design might change the future?
Tim
You can’t decouple design from what’s going on in society and technology because they inform what design is making and empowering. You’re also seeing more diversity in terms of who defines design, and society as well. On the technology side, the tools are making everything more democratic.
The most recent responses to Black Lives Matter, are going to be a case study that will be studied for quite a while in terms of how brands responded. When a brand acts in a way that doesn’t reflect the values of their company, you see some people getting really upset as they rightly should, right? They’ve put their trust into this brand and feel aligned with it.
Skyler
It’s not enough to have a flashy, amazing style attached to your brand. People can see through that. Brands have to think about how do you really work as a total entity.
I want to know a little bit about the work that you’ve done. Can you speak to some of the projects that you’ve worked on at Pinterest that you really enjoyed?
Tim
As a design director, I’m helping a team create their best work. We just had a launch of a creators product, and worked with an outside agency, 72 and Sunny, as well as our internal team to launch, a really, in my opinion, great educational video around what story pins are, who’s using it, how to use it. That is a genre within tech, the explainer video around the new product feature. We coupled that with a strong general awareness campaign.
Skyler
I can tell you that I love the creator’s brand stuff that we’ve been doing. I’ve loved seeing all these pieces coming together.
I want to ask you about finding your design niche. For younger designers choosing between a visual communication direction or like an interaction design direction can be really hard. That’s something that I struggled with.
From your perspective, what qualities would you call out to help someone make that decision?
Tim
One thing that’s helpful is looking at the work that you enjoy, right? Pull that out and dissect “Why, why do I enjoy this?” I think once you do that quite a bit, you’ll start to see themes.
For myself, I was more interested in the impact and the philosophy around a design and what it empowers the society to do.
There is a lot of personal self reflection that I don’t think that we teach or encourage enough. It feels like a personal choice to to spend time doing this.
If you’re starting off in design or art right now, the job that you might be doing might not exist right now.
Skyler
Yeah, I would definitely agree with say that like being in an environment like a program or college or whatever can really get you so focused on getting a job and performing in society. But, well you kind of need to think about yourself and what you do want.
Tim
Something so beneficial is being able to reach out to someone that might want to be a mentor or people that you admire, and just chatting with them for a little bit. When I was younger, I didn’t really didn’t take advantage of that opportunity.
Skyler
Is that some advice that you would give someone trying to figure out where they fit in: Be thoughtful of talking to those who could help you in the future?
Tim
If you’re starting off in design or art right now, the job that you might be doing might not exist right now.
If you’re in a programming school, you might find it difficult because they don’t want to teach you the specific technical tools. Because those tools will be moved in a year or half a year.
Skyler
Definitely.
I heard you’re a pretty big advocate for side projects. I’m curious to hear about any of like the side projects that you’ve been working on. What’s a project that you’ve been really proud of?
Tim
Well, last year, myself and a bunch of friends launched a magazine called Double Issue. It’s about social justice and essentially, it looks at a single topic through time. Our first issue was around personal freedom and it looked at marriage equality from the 1900s. We went back and forth between times to show show the progression of certain movements.
I’ve got a little art studio that I use for basically none computer making. I do some planning over there, screen printing and collage, it’s fantastic. It’s got a lot of heavy art school vibes in there. It’s very messy, and it’s very ad hoc. And what happens happen. I love that.
Skyler
I’m actually a big fan of collage and screen printing. Those are some of my earliest art forms. I’d love to see some of your work sometime.
I have one more question for you around side projects. What kind of advice would you give to somebody who really wants to devote themselves to a side project but can’t seem to make time for it?
Tim
So as someone that has held down a job, was on some boards, and then was teaching, it can definitely be hard to fit in passion projects. One thing that’s worked for me is to see if there a way to fold it into your work at your job? There are small little side projects that I’ve been able to do at Pinterest and other companies because there was strong overlap between something that I was curious about but it might have also solved a business need.
You also have to set some accountability. Put money down on something — you don’t want to lose that — that’s like the the brute force way of trying to get things moving.
Skyler
Like when you pay for a personal trainer, haha.
Well your response is awesome. I find that very inspiring, this is an area I really struggle in.
Tim
Got it. You got to have that balance? You know?
Skyler
Yeah and I used to do side projects just for the sake of doing it and then they didn’t really go anywhere.
Tim
There’s a fine line between following someone and following what people are doing and really engaging with. It’s like, again, thinking about yourself and more self reflection and what you want to do and need.
Skyler
Totally, I feel that one.
Thank you so much for taking this time with me Tim.
Tim
Of course, it was very well structured. Thank you.
