Starting in 2009 I began taking a new look at my career as a User Experience Designer, analyzing my own motivations and noting the types of projects that drew my undivided attention, and the ones that were unbearable. I had the opportunity to try different User Experience Design jobs, in a variety of organizations from a start-up, to a world-renown digital agency. In only a couple of years I worked on a lot of exciting projects, across multiple platforms. I designed my first mobile apps, a wonderful hotel website, and even got my hands into hardware design again.

In the end there were, alarmingly, far more similarities between the projects I classified as exciting, and those that were pure drudgery with the difference being largely one of an organizational nature. Did the business or team support design as a discipline? Many claimed they did, some denied it, others embraced it. It’s not difficult to deduce which types of organizations I found less appealing. Not satisfied with the initial results, I extended the scope of my analysis to include my numerous, yet creative hobbies. There was a bit of overlap in the positives between my after-hours creative pursuits, and the design work that used up the rest of my days. This was re-assuring to me, as it’s likely that I’ll continue in my field for quite some time.

In re-building my online portfolio, a task all designers must face on a semi-regular basis, I’ve decided it would be a lie of omission to show only my work as a User Experience Designer in the software industry. It’s not the whole picture of who I am, and what I do. And at the risk of diluting my brand as a UX Designer, I’ve decided to include some of the other kinds of work that I’ve done. I’ll keep the focus on creative projects, and share as I go. Welcome aboard.