Terminal Member Spotlight: Riley Donelson

Jumping between the Kitchener and Toronto Workspaces, Riley Donelson is one the most well-known members in the Terminal community. Whether he’s talking vector graphics over coffee in the morning or guitar riffs at a Terminal happy hour, Riley is engaging, creative and full of the positive energy that is essential to tech startups. The Atomic Designs frontman has been around since Terminal’s first Workspace opened and his role, which involves helping several companies with an array of creative projects, makes him a Swiss Army knife of sorts.

In this month’s Member Spotlight, we ask Riley about his life outside the office and where he looks for creative inspiration.

Terminal: What drew you to be a designer? How did you get into it?

Riley: I got into design while I was at school — I went to the University of Waterloo for a program called Systems Design Engineering. I’ve always been drawn to making things, and so through classes, co-op jobs, and freelancing, I built up some basic skills over a few years that helped me do that.

Left: Riley presenting his app, Pout, during his Velocity days. Right: Riley with his cofounder Laura.

Have you dabbled in entrepreneurship? And how does that experience help you in your day-to-day now?

I have! In 2014 a friend and I started a company called Pout with my friend Laura in Waterloo, which was part of the Velocity incubator program about two years before being acquired by Atomic in 2016. That experience was a massive influence on my day-to-day now. I developed a deep love for startups and saw very clearly what effect design can have on a company — especially in its earliest stages.

Running a company opened my eyes away to things outside of design, so when I came back to designing full time, it was with a completely new perspective, and the understanding of what the rest of the company is doing and what they need.

You have a unique role that makes it easy for you to work out of both Ontario Workspaces. What’s it like to float in-between two Terminal Workspaces?

It’s been really ideal for me. I work between the Toronto and Kitchener offices, and that extra flexibility of knowing you have a desk in a great office, and you’re going to see people you know regardless of where you need to be that day is really reassuring. It’s just one more thing you don’t have to worry about, which I appreciate so much.

Riley collaborates in the Toronto office.

I know you’re in a band — tell us more about that. What kind of music? What instrument do you play? Do you tour?

Yes! I play with an artist named Nate Hall and occasionally fill in with a country artist named Kira Isabella. So it’s lots of country music, and singer-songwriter stuff — sometimes acoustic and sometimes with a big rocking band. I have toured a bit in the past but generally, I stick around here.

Outside of music, what do you do in your free time?

I like spending time outside; cottaging in the summer, going for hikes, and snowboarding in the winter. I’ve had a growing interest in art over the last few years and like visiting the AGO to look at the paintings. I also love watching movies…so my Netflix subscription gets plenty of use.

I live in a house with three other songwriters, so I’m very happy that music ends up filling a lot of any of our free time.

What inspires your work? Where do you go for inspiration?

I try to stay open to getting ideas from all over the place. Anything you see can spark something, so trying to stay perceptive and to be exposed to great work as much as possible — whether it’s stuff online on dribbble/behance, a great ad campaign, a designer whose work I admire, a piece of art, interesting packaging… it’s a really fun zone to get into when you’re soaking up ideas.

There’s an important element of play at the inspiration stage that I’ve more recently started to understand. I try to let myself get a little goofy and have some fun to cultivate a wide net of new ideas before getting serious and working it out. It’s like this yin and yang of being silly and serious that you go back and forth with that seems to keep the inspiration going.

As a designer, what’s it like to work in an environment full of engineers?

I think it’s fantastic. My work would be pretty useless without engineers, so I’m very happy to be surrounded by so many great ones. I went to school for engineering, so we can all relate pretty well too.

Thanks for reading. You can learn more about members in the Terminal community here.