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- SummaryI'm on a mission to create theatre through the interactions of a product, to make our lives more playful and serendipitous, and to encourage greater observation of our world.
I also want to increase the conversion, sociality and transparency of the design industry, leading the cause through shared design discoveries and open communication.Specialties: Design strategy, information architecture, user interface design, interaction design, visual design. Consumer electronics, social platforms.Experience- Nov 2011 - PresentInteraction Designer / fuseprojectLeading interaction design, with a focus on applications for mobile, web and proprietary systems. I support the strategy and brand teams in initial stages and collaborate with industrial design teams on physical UI's and more system-based projects. My role includes task flows, information architecture, wireframing, user interface design and visual design.
- Jun 2011 - Nov 2011Senior Application Designer (Interaction Designer, UI Designer) / FLUDDeveloping products for 1M+ users across the full design process including user research (concept validation, user studies, prototyping), information architecture, user interface and visual design. iPhone, iPad, Android, WP7 and web.
- Nov 2010 - Mar 2011Industrial Designer / QPCLead industrial designer, including experimental and exploratory scenarios for the Scene Vu ecosystem. — The QPC Ouidoo is the world’s first Ambient Intelligence Mobile Platform which interconnects with the environment we live in. Ouidoo breaks the barrier of having to sit at your house to access the digital world. This time it brings the power of Articulated Naturality which blends the digital life with real world urban environment allowing users to access virtual information in the physical space. (2010)
- May 2010 - Nov 2010Application Designer / QPCLead application designer for Scene OS (SOS) and web services. — The QPC Ouidoo is the world’s first Ambient Intelligence Mobile Platform which interconnects with the environment we live in. Ouidoo breaks the barrier of having to sit at your house to access the digital world. This time it brings the power of Articulated Naturality which blends the digital life with real world urban environment allowing users to access virtual information in the physical space. (2010)
- May 2009 - Dec 2009Designer / Traffik MarketingBringing creative concepts to life with tangible and interactive design solutions. — Traffik is Australia's leading Experiential Marketing agency at the forefront of engaging consumers in brand experiences since our establishment in 2001. Experiential means different things to different people. We believe its face to face marketing that engages, excites, and endears customers to a brand. That could be an event, a creative sampling program, a centre court experience, a roadshow, guerilla activations, a PR stunt, sponsorship leverage, or the creation of compelling branded content. Put simply, its marketing that consumers want to get involved in.
- Nov 2008 - Apr 2009Designer (contracted) / Traffik MarketingTraffik is Australia's leading Experiential Marketing agency at the forefront of engaging consumers in brand experiences since our establishment in 2001.
Education-
2005 - 2008Monash UniversityBachelor of Industrial Design with Honors in Industrial Design
Additional Information-
Websites:
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Honors:Object Design Now! Finalist, 2009 Bachelor Industrial Design with Honors, 2008
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Interests:Industrial design, interaction design, editorial design, typography branding, photography, film, snowboarding, thinking, problem solving.
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Tweets
- @fchimero I think it's that people don't know how to describe themselves online. That they don't understand who they are. #themanual
- Interaction designers focus on the worst case scenarios, while communication designers focus on the best case. Both are equally important.
- The architect built a crappy airport, the IDer made shitty products, the service people hate their jobs etc., and the C-suite don't care.
- Flying is not a bad experience because airlines lack a "UX designer," it is bad because most people suck at their respective job.
- Fuse Friday BBQ and beers!! (at Fuseproject) [pic] — http://t.co/exxIWySF
- @datfruit No it had pretty damn decent graphics. And the name was one word, maybe 5 or 6 letters…
- Some people were recently tweeting about a shooter game made by two guys. What's it called again?
- Sometimes I wish I didn't care how things worked. I'd have less headaches that way.
- Wow! Congrats to @ghoshal Well deserved! [pic] — http://t.co/jL5rmICb
- @hunterwalk Interesting, looks like Intel are doing "first shared by" too with iQ. See top left: http://t.co/ehMpY5QI
- @hunterwalk In other words… FIRST! ;)
- @hunterwalk We've been working on 2. at @fludapp. Telling users if they influenced someone to read and who's read an article you're reading.
- @okaysamurai Yeh I rocked up at 8:45 today. Woops!
- @okaysamurai We on tomorrow?
- Get it out, get over it, and then make it better.
- Dabbling with a little Metro in iOS.
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Posts
I’m thinking of getting this duvet. Thoughts? Love the lamp also.
Loving the shades that come from the three dimensionality.
by/ Yurko Gutsulyak for/ Graphic Design Studio via/ Behance
Always respect what it took somebody to get where they are.
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When hearing an opinion or receiving direction, it’s easy to doubt or judge a person with greater experience, based on your snap reaction. But never forget the experiences they’ve been through and the decisions they’ve made to get to where they are. Take time to figure out why you think they are wrong, and why they in fact may be right.
Take photos to create triggers and nothing more.
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Triggers are important for remembering events, which makes photo-taking quite meaningful. And while other methods such as check-ins or posts can fullfil this role, photos are particularly great at communicating our feelings at the time of the event.
The problem is, most of our social photo-taking goes far beyond creating triggers.
Be a slave for the user, not the user interface.
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When designing applications, it is very easy to get blindsided in solving the user interface and not the user’s problem. You may try to bring logic to a system, or introduce features or elements to create consistency in a UI concept. But the user will never see this logic or thought process. It will either be relevant to their task or it won’t.
My goal this year is to design apps that are memorable without relying on skeuomorphs, and drive brand emotion without exploiting nostalgia.
- Suggestive Design
I’ve been trying to figure out what bothers me about this project on Behance. It makes me feel a tad ill, bringing back memories of my freelance days a couple of years ago.
The design is beautiful and well structure visually, that’s without a doubt. But it lacks a soul; it lacks purpose. Maybe this is simply because of how it is documented—with a very strong focus on visuals and little mention of process or ‘whys’. There is also no documentation of task flows or even subsequent pages.
Why is there a button that says “Call to Action Button”? This proves how disconnected this design team must be from the actual product, the creation process and the decision making. How do they know a red button is needed here, if they don’t even know what it is going to say?
And I wonder how this text came to be. Did the client say, ‘there may be some text in the footer’? Or did the designer decide that there should be? Meaning the client will either remove it or fill it with text as meaningless as Lorem Ipsum. If the client knows text will be there, then they should know what that text will say, and it should be implemented into this design.
Design should have intention and purpose. It should solve a problem, not suggest a solution. In fact, I’m going to coin this type of work as ‘suggestive design’. And I’m going to hope it disappears.
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Do you agree? Am I crazy? Let me know in the comments.
- Working At A Startup
I wanted to write down some thoughts on my time at Flud over the last 6 months for those of you out there who may be thinking about joining a startup but just don’t know what to expect or think it might be a little too risky compared to the corporate womb.
I was back in Australia in June when Bobby, who I had met through the interwebs a year earlier, popped his head up, offering me a position to help out with his design efforts as they entered their new phase of Fludery.
Side note: If you are in San Diego and you are interested in startup culture and how the world works, grab a beer with him. He is the most energetic, optimistically passionate person you are likely to meet. Hell, after 6 months he even got me, someone who never reads or watches the ‘news’ excited about news and the future he thinks he can, and will, build. Anyway back to the story…
So in June I moved back to the States to sunny San Diego. Not long after I landed, he asked me in sarcastic Bobby style to “get your arse into the office.” It may have been a half-joke, but that’s what startup life is all about. And that is why it’s so great. You are surrounding yourself with people who honestly love what they do. They are on a mission to achieve something great, to push society forward. And believe me, you can feel it.
I’ve worked freelance, at agencies and at startups and the difference is notable. If agency or freelance work has you answering to clients, startups have you collaborating together towards a shared goal. There is no checklist or sign off. You never hear someone saying ‘that’s beyond our scope of work’. You are never thrown into a project you hate. Because you know what you’re joining: their dream, soon to be your dream too. You work because you want to work and you want to make things the best they can be, not because that’s what you told the client you’ll do. You invest your time because you know it directly impacts the end result and that the ‘end’ is as long as you stay interested. And I think that is an important point. I thought I would get bored designing for the same product day in, day out, but when I left two weeks ago, I was sad to stop. I had so much more to give, so many more ideas. I was obsessive, if not possessive. I think there are few opportunities like that in life; where you can keep shaping and tweaking and nurturing something with continuous influence—it really inspires you to push harder from the start.
Startups make you feel empowered. And Bobby and his team were especially good at ensuring that. There were times when things weren’t perfect, but we talked about it and we resolved it. From that first day that I “got my arse to work,” I was briefed on the big vision of Flud, and what I was tasked to do. And it wasn’t to cut all the assets Bobby had made. It was to figure out how to take their big idea, and create a useable consumer product from it. Yes, the future of Flud’s long term vision was on me. At that point I had two thoughts: first was, ‘oh shit, I don’t have the skills for this,’ and second was, ‘…actually, I disagree with that process’. So after justifying my opinion, Bobby basically said, “that’s fair, if you think that is the best way to approach it, then do it. Kill it!” That’s not a response I can imagine getting at a corporate or large agency. And I think there are a few reasons for that: startups are small—they don’t have corporate structure with (sometimes undeserving) hierarchy, so employees don’t have to wait ten years to finally have a voice; startups are building what they want to build—when a client (at an agency) illogically goes against your professional opinion, I think you look for other ways to get what you want, and that’s usually to push petty, meaningless opinions onto juniors; startups have minimal legacy—there is little ‘that’s just the way we do it’, everyone is figuring shit out as they go, and that opens the mind to varied opinions.
But I don’t want to create the misconception that you can enter a startup and take over their vision. I disillusioned myself into thinking that. A couple of months in, I thought the brand should be light not dark, among other things. Yes, I wanted my way, which was completely selfish and juvenile. So when I didn’t get my way I kinda lost that feeling of empowerment. But then I realized that the guy sitting next to me (not some invisible man in an office somewhere) risked so much to get the company where it is. And even though I have great influence and responsibility like an older brother, at the end of the day it is their baby. And with that came a change of mind. I refocused my vision from redoing what they had already done to building on what they had achieved. It was objective, not subjective. And I think that the team will agree, that through that camaraderie, we’ve made something pretty awesome.
As a final note, I must disclose that I have since moved on to work at fuseproject: a strategy, industrial design and (now) application design agency in San Francisco. I have my personal reasons for moving: it’s a place I’ve always wanted to work, I love their approach to design, I wanted to expose myself to industrial design again and be surrounded by a great creative community. And I have had an amazing first week. I’m loving the diversity and chaos and brilliant, influential clients we are working with(not for). So my general opinions of agencies certainly don’t flow through into fuse, or I wouldn’t have joined their team.
But it is still different to a startup. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. So if you want to be in a small, close-nit family of insanely inspired people, if you want to experience real collaboration and camaraderie, if you want to really help influence what a company can do and how it can shape the future, then start thinking about startups. Their a great place to be and I’m thrilled with my experience at Flud. Thankyou to Bobby, Matt and everyone on the team for a great 6 months.
I’ll post my work once it goes public.
Frame Lamp. I enjoy the asymmetry and the way light mysteriously emits from beneath the fold.
by/ Arnaud Lapierre via/ Moco Loco
This is another photo I liked from our trip down Highway 101. It just didn’t fit with the other photo’s tones.
Another example of the sort of work I want to do in my career. Mr. Clock by Hye-Yeon Park from London explores a product with a personality, playfully cycling through random sequences until we—the owner—look at it, asking it to stop fooling around and tell us the time.
Rediscoverd this BERG video called ‘Inciedental Media’ from a post on Co. Design about Microsoft’s utilitarian futuristic productions. These passive, playful interactions are exactly what I want to explore in my career.
by/ BERG via/ Fast Co. Design
We need more of this in our life. It adds nothing more than a playful interaction to make us smile. But that’s certainly not nothing.
Path - Shows a smiley on the pressed state of its signup button.
My current philosophy in 140 characters. What’s yours?
Create theatre through the interactions of a product, to make our lives more playful and to encourage greater observation of our built world.
Couldn’t agree more
The beauty of Industrial Design. The die-cast seat shell as it comes out of the mould, of Chair ONE.
by/ Konstantin Grcic for/ Magis via/ le-simple
An interesting concept by Ford, giving the driver an alternate seat color. I kinda like it.
by/ Ford via/ Design42Day
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Projects
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Photos
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Videos
