The power of self initiation with Peter Dennis Pan
Peter Dennis Pan is a determined designer currently working at CancerAid, empowering the Cancer Community through innovation on a global scale. From freelancing at 12 years old to skipping university, Peter has a lot of experience under his belt.
You started freelancing at a very young age. Did you always know what you wanted to do?
I started designing and freelancing very early on just for fun. I had absolutely no clue what I wanted to do.
When I was 12 I was working on a school film project and became the designated windows movie maker engineer — naturally I was the tech savvy editor. Weirdly obsessed, I set out to learn how I could make the best film ever.
And so… I happened to stumble across Adobe After Effects. Instead of making a good film I ended up spending all my time making the flashiest title sequences.
While learning After Effects I got really into motion graphics which was when I discovered a YouTube design team called ‘Ark Fx’. It was an online design team formed by a group of teenagers where they created some of YouTube’s best motion graphics.
I remember that moment — I was in awe and knew I had to make something incredible, just like that.
From then I became obsessed and continued to learn. By the end of the year I started getting small freelance opportunities for motion graphics jobs from the YouTube design community.
When I was 13 I co-founded a community organisation called The Logic Networks. It was an online community of young designers from all over the world with the purpose of developing talent. This was when I really got into the business side of design and learnt about growth marketing.
I realised that I was really enjoying myself with business and growth rather than just purely freelancing on motion graphics and visual design.
I then started doing a few SEO and Affiliate Survey projects which saw some success, earning up to $30-$50 of passive income per day for a few months. It doesn’t seem like much now, but back then as a 14 year old I thought I was rich.
I then founded an online forum which failed miserably. It reached 1200 members after a year and made no revenue.
However I was still clearly enjoying myself — working around 30 hours per week on top of full time high school. That’s when I became super fascinated about startups and the amount of growth they could achieve.
After that I joined Angel List and introduced myself as a designer looking to learn more about startups. I ended up doing a few jobs and online internships which led to me landing positions in my local startup community.
Looking back, I never really had a clue what I was doing, but all those long hours working at night and early in the mornings allowed me to realise how much I actually enjoyed it. And in the end fascination and enjoyment for what I did drove all my efforts.
It was just me trying to chase the next high, and in doing so it allowed me to grow my sense of satisfaction and appreciation of doing things that I really loved.
Eventually after I turned 17 I realised how lucky I’d been in my experiences the type of life I wanted to pursue. While I don’t necessarily know what I’ll be doing 4 years on from now, knowing what to look out for is enough for me.
You’ve talked before about the lack of tools available for user research. What are you hoping to achieve with Harmari?
As someone absolutely obsessed with user research, the lack of support for product teams had been driving me crazy. With Harmari I want to conduct research about how product teams do user research (yes very meta).
Through this research I hope to design and build a product that solves a problem worth working on.
The reason I’m doing this is to find a proper solution and help the community gain a greater perspective on what is missing. It’s easy to get caught up in making software for others and avoid thinking about ourselves.
Where does your determination come from?
Strangely people ask me this a lot, maybe it is because I am so young?
Determination is a weird yet inaccurate word in my opinion. I don’t exactly see myself as determined or ‘driven’. I personally just really really enjoy the projects I work on. Rather than determination, it is a deep enjoyment for business, tech and product.
In the end everyone has their own hobbies. Fishing, ice skating, magic the gathering, league of legends so on. I am just lucky that my hobby is what I do and something I can do for the rest of my life. And from that contrast, I notice the people around me who are rather clueless on what they want to do.
It makes me very grateful for my gift and appreciation for what I do. And I think about how lucky I am everyday.
Strangely enough, my parents are fairly traditional parents who expected me to do medicine. But they are fairly hands off ever since an early age, allowing me to do my own thing. I guess, I never wasted too much time and my parents saw that, trusting in my own judgement from an early stage. I know other parents aren’t so accepting, so yes, I am eternally grateful for my awesome parents :)
With so many new tools and workflows being released, how do you not only keep up with latest, but decide what to focus on?
I’ve been using Sketch and AdobeXD in the past year and have really been enjoying how smooth XD is. With all the new tools coming out I keep on top of them by being aware of the value they can potentially bring and the situations they’re built for. Other than that, I just use what I have to get the job done.
I don’t understand the obsession with people arguing over what design tools they should use. It’s a bit like asking what user interview question should I ask?
Some tools are better suited for certain situations more than others. The goal of design is to achieve a certain outcome, and unless the selection of tools heavily impacts the outcome of the design, then I think the indecision between what tools are to be used, is rather redundant and a waste of time.
Workflows are different. I personally advocate and work from first principals. Through this process there is no set workflow. Instead it focuses on understanding and becoming of certain pieces of information that enables my designs to be successful.
Through first principals I work with problems, outcomes or experiences where I aim to understand the context, user and overall situation. This helps to determine what research is undertaken and how much of it is conducted.
There are many new trends in certain workflows and methods for achieving certain outcomes. I try to learn about them and understand why they work and why people use them, and just store in my head for later when it may be useful.
With different situations there are many different things that need to be done. However there are a few certainties, such as understanding the problem, context, user and so on. Many of these enable for successful design and I don’t believe that will change. I am yet to be convinced otherwise :)
The majority of your education and learning was self initiated through online courses and learning paths. How do you think not having a formal education has affected you? And will you be going to University?
Having not been through an formal education I can’t really say much on it’s impact. However, I can definitely speak on my experiences working as a teenager in a room full of older people who have had university degrees on the subject of their work.
While my age and the perception of me being a teenager has definitely introduced a barrier, it’s never stopped me from providing value or excelling.
Instead I’m motivated by co workers, mentors and others who have the willingness to learn, grow and dedicate their craft and learnings to their experiences.
From that, I deduced how qualifications were completely irrelevant of someones ability to do the above. This gave me greater confidence in myself.
Given that, I think I will be going to university for computer science to major in Artificial Intelligence. This is to take advantage of the awesome networking opportunity, experience university and to get hands on with deep tech — something that is harder to get into otherwise.
What is The Creative Series?
The Creative Series is a publication run by Femke that highlights the under-deserved creatives of our industry. If you’re interested in being featured or want to submit someone, please reach out to Femke on Twitter.
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About the interviewer
Hi I’m Femke — a designer, writer and podcaster who overlaps between a day job, freelancing and side projects. I love to help other creatives be the best version of themselves. I’d love to get to know you more, say hi on Twitter 👋
