Five Questions
with Alasdair Monk
Alasdair Monk @almonk
Talk: Blame Your Tools
Alasdair Monk is a product designer and developer from London. After leading GoCardless’ design & product for three years, he now works at Heroku designing a platform for the world to build their apps.
His lowest low was being told by Simon Cowell that he didn’t “have the right hair” to be in a boy band. He’s avoided pictures of Harry Styles since.
Why did you agree to speak at WXG?
I’ve got a great merchandising opportunity for Mr Bingo and it seemed like a good way to corner him backstage. Only kidding! I love the breadth of discussion at WXG. There’s no strict theme which I think enables the most interesting talks to thrive.
What do you think attendees will get out of your talk?
I’m going to be talking about how we can progress what interfaces mean to us. It seems tragic that we still code like we did since the dawn of computers; by feeding them instructions in sequential order. Similarly, the design world for decades adopted a photo manipulator as their “cutting edge design tool”. That’s like a jockey training on a cat because a horse wasn’t available.
Attendees will learn where the stables are and what our new super-breeds of horse might look like.
How did you get into your field?
I lucked out with a job at an advertising agency halfway through my University degree. The connections I made there let me progress my design skills enough to join the amazing people at With Associates the day my exams finished.
Who is your inspiration in the industry?
Far far too many to list, but they all have one thing in common. They’re all incredibly pro-active people who are insanely productive and creative. I really think the only relationship you should have with a computer is a creative one, or you’re really just feeding them data to process better than you ever could.
What advice would you give to someone new to the industry?
Say yes to as many projects you can. Be a self starter. Learn to code. Seek inspiration from outside the industry.
Alasdair Monk will be speaking at WXG on Friday 25th September.
