How Steph Curry Prepared Me to Work at Segment
Transitioning from brand to product design
I know what you’re thinking. Please, not another Medium article about a basketball superstar’s connection to the high art of product design. We get it. We’re all using Dwayne Wade’s Figma plugins.
But don’t worry, this one is different. Before coming to Segment, I was Senior Designer at a small digital studio for almost 5 years. I loved the brand design and art direction work I did there — everything from animations for your basic YouTube pre-roll ad to directing a photographer for the ideal shots of T-Pain riding an inflatable dolphin (more on that in the next article).
My journey from brand designer to product designer was one of self-discovery, personal and professional education, and a lot of fun, but despite the difference in industries, I’m able to leverage so much of what I learned at the studio in my work at Segment as a product designer.
Picture this. The year is 2018. Drake’s “God’s Plan” has transcended from prayer to gospel. Stephen Curry has 200k followers on his sporadically active YouTube channel (for context, RyanToysReview, a 7 year old who…reviews toys…has 22 million). Our studio is tasked with revitalizing the channel with a fresh new look and feel, along with producing and directing a new web series starring Steph called 5 Minutes From Home.
Working with Steph and his team on the design of his channel and new series taught me a few valuable lessons that I still carry with me.
Be about practice
Constant practice in a safe space to fail (we can thank good managers and coaches for that) hones our ability to think creatively, take risks, and roll with the punches. Once we commit to practice, no matter our level of professional experience, our superpower that brought us to the court isn’t just a 3 pointer when the stars align — it’s the ability to consistently hit the high bar we know is possible.
For Steph’s project, this meant dozens of logo iterations critiqued by our creative team. We were lucky enough to have in-house directors that loved discussing every detail and encouraged out-of-the-box thinking.
I think about those logo iterations every time I create a fresh Figma file at Segment — the practice of valuing the first draft just as much as the final stuck with me. This means an entire chapter of our Figma novel that’s dedicated to explorations, looping in curious product managers, engineers, and fellow designers along the way. We also utilize easily adoptable tools like Figjam and Miro to encourage teammates of all backgrounds to share their ideas during exploration.
Share the playbook
The perfect play is useless without understanding and support from your team. Sharing the playbook means not only getting buy-in and feedback from your own teammates, but expanding visibility to other teams to ensure alignment and keep surprises to a minimum.
In order to prepare for Steph’s lightening quick 5 Minutes From Home shoots (we literally shot episodes in his 1 hour car ride home from games at the Chase Center), I developed a detailed shot list for our photographer before each episode, envisioning exactly what social media assets we’d need to create during post-production. Shot lists were also reviewed by the producer and director to ensure we’d have time and space for all the necessary scenes.
One of my first projects at Segment was designing an empty state pattern for our design system, Evergreen. I had never formally contributed before, and quickly found myself asking similar types of questions as when I developed shot lists. Where will this pattern be used? By who? What edge cases could this be used for? If I need to access these materials in a few weeks or months, what will future-me need to be reminded of?
Alignment is just as important in tech as it is on set. At Segment, it can be through detailed documentation for new patterns or creating an easy way to see what each team is working on through our Notion design and research project tracker. Another way we share the playbook is through detailed organization and annotation of our Figma files — this helps create consistency across Figma and JIRA and allows other designers and engineers to get up to speed async.
Do it for the fans
As personal as the game can feel, don’t forget that the final score will likely affect people who care a lot about the decisions you make along the way. It’s easy enough to pander to fan favorites like the ultimate assist or clean minimalist design — but knowing why the fans pick their favorites will elevate your game even higher. Doing it for the fans means caring enough to form tight partnerships with your researchers and dig deep into customer perspectives and opinions.
We landed this Steph Curry project because our studio’s expertise was everything YouTube — in fact one of our founders went viral himself on YouTube, so we knew what it took to win. User sentiment was a metric our analysts used to measure the success of a project, so we crafted a unique web series that met fans where they were: bite-sized and vérité, revealing a whole new side of their favorite player.
After witnessing firsthand the powerful effect of getting to know your fans, I jumped at every chance I had to sit in on customer interviews. Hearing directly what they loved and what frustrated them about the product was inspiring, motivating, and the best way to learn. I also quickly learned how phenomenal the customer success team is at Segment — leveraging their knowledge is integral to our research process.
Know thy fans, know the power of thy game.
Ball is life
I can’t speak for everyone. Maybe ball is life, maybe ball is a big part of life, or maybe ball (ok you get it, design) is how you pay the bills. But if you do it everyday there are real products and people that can benefit from your efforts.
If you’re transitioning from brand to product design, I know you’re aware that there are a host of tactical, day-to-day differences that you’ll mostly likely learn by doing, not by reading a Medium article. But I do hope this can remind you how to be a great designer regardless of what league you’re in or what team you play on. Committing to practice, sharing the playbook, and doing it for the fans may be foundational plays, but they’ll help you level up no matter where you design.
Huge thank you to Kate Butterfield and Emma Sims for the assists 🏀 🖊
