So, I’m lost
Hey all,
So I’m lost…And I know I’m not the first person to feel lost about what they want to do, what they should do, and what they can do. These questions go through my mind nearly everyday, and it feels like there is no way out.
My name’s Mat, and I’m a UI/UX Designer (or Web Designer or Designer or UX Designer…) from Syracuse, NY. In 2015, I graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology where I studied all things New Media.
In my free time, I occasionally do hand lettering, Hack-a-thons, run, or hike. I also enjoy swing dancing every week (and sometimes multiple times a week).
After going through 5 years of college, I knew I loved Web. That’s what I wanted to focus on, but where within that? I did UI Design, Front end Dev, and UX Design. So I figured UI/UX was where I was supposed to be since my dev skills were more of a supplementary skill for me.
I got hired right out of college, taking the first offer I got because I was worried about not having a job. I went to work for an awesome agency in Los Angeles, CA as a designer.
I thought I was going to be working on mainly web and mobile design, but it actually involved a lot of “graphic design”. After a while, it felt like I was bad at being “creative”. I wrote it off as just me being a young designer with no experience until I was told that I might be better off switching over to UX. I was offered a UX position, but I decided that’s not what I wanted. At the time, the only thing I knew about the field was from the people who worked at the agency with me. I gleaned that I had to be a UI/UX designer or I wouldn’t get work, so I rejected the position mainly out of fear. I was worried about job security and being bored. My creative director gave me a list of things I needed to work on, and I promptly posted those topics all over my monitor with sticky notes. For the next month, I read, practiced, paid for design courses, and consumed anything I could get my hands on. I felt like there was some progress. I was improving and people noticed, but it didn’t feel like the right people noticed and I kept messing up in front the people that mattered. Ten months in, I was scheduled a meeting to discuss my progress, but something felt odd. My meeting kept getting postponed, and people just seemed to act differently towards me…not in a bad way, so I just chalked it up to them being busy. After doing some work on a project one day, my meeting time was finally scheduled. I entered the meeting room and smiled at everyone. I waited and waited as the meeting took a while to start. Finally, teary-eyed, HR looks up at me and breaks the news — they were letting me go. I had to pack up my desk while people were still working around me. Of course, I was upset and felt betrayed, but in the end, I knew it was my fault. The reason cited was that they just didn’t have the resources to give me the mentorship and attention that I needed in order to improve as a designer.
After being let go, I went through a major slump. I felt like there was no way that I could ever get a job in design again. No one would ever hire someone who got let go from their first job within 6 months of being hired, especially for being a bad designer with no potential. I don’t think I really did anything for that first month. I mainly just figured out how long I could afford to stay in LA, got on unemployment and didn’t do shit with my life — I felt like a complete failure.
Then, about a month in, I discovered Gary Vaynerchuk’s Youtube channel — mainly because all I did was watch Youtube at the time. Watching his videos really helped me start to move out of my slump. His videos are very motivational and inspiring, but like most people, being motivated and inspired was easy. Actually executing was the hardest part. Although it took me awhile to get going, I eventually started to notice problems that needed to be solved and started to think about my future.
Right around this time, I met my girlfriend, Lauren who was studying at UCLA and was another source of my motivation. So I started to read more books, usually about self help, motivation, and design. Then, I began working on an app that eventually evolved into Archive — “A collection of your inspiration, all in one place — organized and easily searchable” (currently in development).
Learning was a huge part of getting me out of my slump. It really does make you feel like you are working towards something and improving everyday. Later, I started working on Authora which is meant to allow you to easily and quickly create beautifully designed, responsive web based books. My goal was to develop the MVP in a month ( Spoiler: it didn’t happen ).
Although I didn’t finish my side projects within my desired deadlines, I don’t take it as a failure because I’m still working away at them bit by bit. There is a lot that I don’t know about business, marketing, design, or development, but I’m really enjoying figuring it all out. I truly suggest always having a side project. Even if you can only work on it a small amount every night, it’s incredibly engaging and fulfilling. Even if your project isn’t a success in the market, it will always be a success to you because you created something.
This leads into what I’m currently doing with my life. So I definitely have nothing figured out at all yet, but I’m learning and improving everyday. After I lost my job, I had four months to either get a new job or go back to my home town, which I really didn’t want to do ( P.S. I love you mom ❤, but Syracuse is really boring). My mother was always a big proponent of getting me out of Syracuse and going to see the world. Coincidentally, Lauren happened to be planning to study abroad in Accra, Ghana during the fall. Not thinking much of it, I decided to see if any Ghanaian companies wanted to work with me for four months. By some stroke of luck, I got a response from someone who decided that I wasn’t a scam.
And thus started my journey. On August 1st 2016, I flew home for two weeks to see my family, who I had told only a couple weeks before that I’d be gone for another year, but this time on another continent. Everyone had mixed emotions: people were happy, worried, and sad, which was all understandable. Most, if not all, of my trip was very last minute and unplanned, but I had to go through with it. On August 12th 2016, after a bunch of sad goodbyes from family, I boarded a plane to Toronto. From there, I flew to Brussels, and finally, after a combined amount of 20 or so hours in the air, I made it to Accra.
After three months of being in Ghana, I had an epiphany about what I wanted to do with my life. I realized that maybe I should have listened to the countless people at my company who mentioned how good I was at UX and critical thinking. Also, me starting my college career off as a civil engineering major wasn’t just a mistake, but a sign that I needed a career that was both artistic and analytical. I looked back at my portfolio and realized that all of my projects were UX heavy. I loved brainstorming about interactions, user personas, user flows/workflows, and wireframes. Afterwards, I would struggle through the design, but would always approach it from a user experience perspective. Reflecting on what my next steps should be, I saw I had a lot of work ahead of me that involved revamping my social media presence, rebranding, redesigning my website to be more engaging / eye catching, and launching multiple personal projects. Luckily, I have a whole year to accomplish everything and prepare myself for a better career and life.
So that’s where I am currently —just finished freelancing in Ghana for four months and now in Chiang Mai, Thailand traveling and making progress. Right now, Lauren and I are traveling to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia for another three months. After which Lauren will head to Australia to study abroad and I’ll head back to Thailand for another three months. After a year abroad, I will come home with more personal and work experience. Then I’ll be looking to join an awesome company that promotes learning and mentorship as a UX Designer. Hopefully, I’ll have some of my shit figured out by then :).
*Note: I am always looking to meet up with people while abroad, designers, developers, start-ups. Let me know if you are anywhere near SE Asia for the next couple months.
Also, if you have an awesome web / mobile project that needs a freelance UX/UI designer, please feel free to reach out to me.
Contact me @ mrm1779@gmail.com
And finally, I plan on writing about my time abroad, the process of starting my journey / Digital Nomadism, and my personal projects / Start-up stuff. If you have any interest in any of that, please do stick around.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask away!
Social Media stuff:
You can follow the rest of my travel journey and any design stuff i’m working on, on Instagram @mat.morse
Also connect with me on Linkedin.
