My journey as a Product Designer or just the story of my life
By: Asaolu Ayomide
Tags: UX, Mentorship, Design, UI Design, Product Design

Since I was a little child, I’ve always loved anything that involved art, I would always come back from school, head to my room, I had a note I was using to make drawings of action figures and making stories with the action figures I drew. I felt some kind of accomplishment because as a kid all I did was to just eat, sleep and play so that kind of feeling, like coming first in a school competition, that was how I felt and also the fact that I could create my own reality and anything I wanted to happen would actually do because the designs were my creation.

I was losing focus

As I grew up and started thinking of other things and more responsibilities started falling in, I was losing my focus, losing the connection I had with my designs, I had to focus on engineering, I would always admire other artists expressing their feelings and emotions through their art, even though that was the interpretation I gave to it, because art is something polarizing, it’s something that needs total precision and it’s usually open to lots of interpretations. Don’t get me wrong, me mentioning I always loved art doesn’t mean Art is equal to UI/UX Design. UI/UX designers solve problems and the interfaces they create is in no way Art, because while art is open to so many interpretations — controlled by emotions. UI/UX design has to be clear, it has to focus on the users, it has to focus on the users, it has the users in mind, it passes one meaning, every user understands the message. Alright back to my story, It was like I stopped out art, but deep down it kept on calling me. My parents left out me choosing Art as my major and left me with two choices, either to restore people’s lives through the practice of modern medicine or apply the principles of science and mathematics to make solutions that’ll enable me to solve technical problems (I was to choose either Medicine or Engineering as my major). I’m the kind of person that hates the feeling of having someone else’s life depending on my performance, I apologize if that ticked anyone off but I wouldn’t be able to take it if anyone died on me. So I chose engineering, meaning I was to solve people’s problems technically and also refine or develop new products. I’m currently in my fourth year actually, studying Civil Engineering at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, and I’m not gonna lie the journey hasn’t been easy. Back to my journey as a product designer lol.

At the middle of 2018, my interest for Art come back and it grew even stronger this time around, but I had a problem then, I couldn’t get paint and the tools to express myself on an artboard, so I just concluded that maybe this wasn’t for me afterall, so I had a PC then, it was pretty slow, but I started playing around using photoshop with no prior knowledge, then I got tired because I saw it has something complex and I backed out from that challenge and also because I couldn’t get anyone to put me through, so I just left it. Then fast forward to mid 2019 when I got tired just not doing any other thing but study engineering and I was still depending on my parents on the little things.

She listened to me and proffered a solution

After that, I spoke to a friend of mine, Funmi, about how I was feeling and the problems I had and she listened to me and proffered a solution, she gave me a contact, Murphy, and told me to tell speak to him, and I told him the same thing I told her. After I explained to him, he asked me to download figma and sign up, then he put me through the tutorials and lessons I needed, he was and still my mentor, I still look up to him till today because if it wasn’t for him and Funmi, I wouldn’t be where I am today. He put me through the components of User experience, Ux research methods, the principles and processes. So I just kept on practicing and practicing. Here’s the first app I designed.

Then school exams were coming up close so I had to pause practice for a while and I saw one particular design he made which gave me the motivation I needed to continue designing again.

Because in my mind I was like, this can be me too, this is what I’m supposed to be doing (building myself), The pandemic started so school activities had to stop and there was lockdown everywhere, it was a sad event but at the same time an opportunity in disguise because I had all the time to develop myself, while I was doing that, I needed cash to pay my internet bill, without it I couldn’t practice, so I started graphic designing by the side and I got series of underpaid jobs but I didn’t mind because I knew what I was trying to achieve. Fast forward a bit, when I knew I was getting better at designing UI screens, I started searching for jobs as a freelancer, I was able to secure some and I got rejected by a lot too.

I got a bit frustrated again, so I decided to speak to my mentor, Murphy, then he asked me to create a portfolio and start working on building it, he told me to use behance.net, then I opened one and started uploading new designs I worked on as time went on. After I uploaded a few, I started applying for company jobs, I remember the first 3 days, I sent out application to 74 different companies and got rejected by all lol, I went crazy and got so disappointed.

Exactly how I started feeling after I got the rejections

I spoke to my mentor again and he explained to me why I was experiencing such, that it was because I didn’t have enough experience and he made me feel better and also told me to keep practicing and keep working on projects to add to my portfolio — this part will lead me to sharing a post to why having a mentor is important as you journey into becoming a product designer.

So Murphy really helped me and I feel indebted to him, he really helped me face my fears and helped me to bring out the potential I had which would have died if I didn’t talk about the problems I had, and all thanks to Funmi also, all of this wouldn’t have been possible without her.

Murphy’s design academy needed a product designer so I thought it was my chance to showcase my skill, I was given a test to design a car wash app UI that has a subscription plan that subscribers can sign up and choose subscription plans which looks suitable for them, which I did, but I failed the test, there was even no excuse to why I failed, I just knew I could do better. So I asked for a second chance and made up my mind that I was going to impress him, which I did. And I got hired for the contract on the 6th of October as his company’s product designer, we’re currently working on a project which I’m not allowed to talk about right now, till we launch.

I believe that with my design experience, I can take on any project/challenge that I face, and even though learning never stops, I’m still learning doing as much as possible to up my skills.