Inside DigitasLBi XD: Erika Decker, Lead Experience Designer
Inside DigitasLBi XD is an interview series of the Boston XD team’s “Unicorn of the Month.”
Where are you from?
I come from the Metro West area of Massachusetts (not Western Mass, though it is quite interesting out there!) on an exotic animal farm. Now I’m a city slicker, with every connotation that comes with it.
Did you always want to be a designer? If not, how did you choose design for your career?
I actually wanted to be a computer scientist! And then I wanted to be a video editor. I happened to be taking editing classes as well as art classes in high school and did some freelance design on the side for extra cash, and, well, ended up doing design for my real-life cash. I guess becoming a designer happened more organically than anything else.
What was your first job?
I did a whole bunch of freelance, but I worked at Hot Topic for a month (believe it or not!) before quitting over the phone. I was fourteen at the time and I hope my manners have gotten better.
What led you to Digitas?
I started my career in design at Sapient out of school and met Dawn Bovasso, a lovely woman whom I consider an amazing friend as well as a mentor in a variety of ways. She got me excited about the Experience Design team, and even though I’d never really done UX, the timing worked out and here I am. I loved the team immediately and learned what the heck I was doing on the job. (Thanks everyone for putting up with that!) I feel very lucky to be here, as this is the most amazing team I’ve worked with in my career so far.
What do you like about working at an agency?
The fast-paced lifestyle of an agency and the variety of clients and types of client work are requirements for me to exist happily. Even with possible future responsibilities (children, home ownership, some other thing that “adults” do) I couldn’t relinquish all that I’ve come to love about agency life. The people, the parties, the problems… I live for that. And there is plenty of that at every agency I’ve been a part of.
What types of projects do you find inspiring?
This is going to sound a little pretentious (or very pretentious) but I don’t believe in “being inspired” in an artistic sense. I do my job and deliver the best I possibly can for each project and that inspires me to continue doing so, I suppose! As Chuck Close said, “Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work.”
My freshman year in art school, I had a project in Color Theory that I was excited about. Three compositions, same color palette, shapes only. As I presented my work the next day, I told the class the difference between the first piece I made and the subsequent other two. “Working on Composition 1, I was trying to do the ‘art’ thing. Working on 2 and 3, I was trying to finish my homework.” My professor stopped me and asked me to repeat that, and told the class that this was a very important thing to learn: inspiration is not gonna be there all the time, and you just gotta do your work.
If I had to say that something does genuinely inspire me, I’d say it’s social and political activism. #BlackLivesMatter.
What are your career goals? What are you hoping for?
I want to be a Creative Director at some point, maybe even for my own shop. I’d like to design for social change as well. Social justice is incredibly important to me, so I’d love to pull in a keep-the-lights-on client so I can take on smaller nonprofits as well.
Who inspires you and why?
I love the work of Jenny Holzer (specifically Inflammatory Essays and Truisms) and her unabashed views on social and political hierarchies. She’s a true feminist icon in the art world. I’d like my work to escalate to a level where it’s acceptable — respected, even — to be so brazen.
What are some of your favorite tools?
If the question were “who,” I’d have a better answer, but like most artists I love pens, permanent markers, sticky notes, and InDesign. (I learned Sketch only out of necessity.)
Favorite sites for inspiration?
I’m a big Tumblr user and peruser and I like to curate things that fit my aesthetic. I also shop around on Behance a lot for innovative and novel ideas.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I love insects and typography, so naturally I raise insects. (And liken their structure to the structure of letters.) When they die, I mount them — my way of making art with my hands now that I can’t paint with oils anymore due to lack of space and my terrible cats, Frutiger and Matcha. I’m also really into horror movies and horror culture in general. I’m heavily tattooed so I guess you could say that I get tattooed a lot outside of work, based on hours in the chair alone.
What’s your superpower?
I’m pretty good at faking a whole bunch of things, especially when I get myself into sticky situations. I’m into min/maxing out stats (à la video games) so essentially all my points are allocated to Charisma, leaving Self-Control at 0.
Career-wise, it’s visual design and grid systems and knowing a lot of nerdy things about typography.
Anything else you’d like to share?
Stay humble and hustle hard.
The views expressed in this post are that of the authors and may not reflect the views of the agency or company.
