Design musings, or how to think like a designer:

This blog is a post I shared with the Binti team August 16, 2023, with minor modifications for typos and clarification.

In my role as Design Director at Binti, I believe that I am responsible for the public's "experience" of Binti. This means that, no matter what way a person comes into contact with the concept of Binti, I take a hand in making that experience aligned to the brand and product we offer: Delightful, beautiful, powerful, warm, kind, modern, and helpful. This could be through marketing, conferences, demos, or the product itself, but also in interactions with any Bintian. I often say in All Hands or other group settings that "everyone is a designer." I genuinely believe this. I hope this post explains a bit more of what I mean, and tells you a bit more about me as a human.

with Love,
Austin (she/her)
Binti | Director, Design

I don’t often share my personal art in a work context, but over the weekend I worked on a piece that I think is a strong example to explain what I mean when I say that “everyone is a designer” and “everything is design” and I thought to share my musings on how to become aware of and hone your skills to think like a designer.

A very close friend lost his mom a week ago— she was his biggest supporter and his best friend— and I spent several days thinking about him and this loss. I never got a chance to meet his mom, but I gathered everything I know about her from my conversations with him: She loves Bruce Springsteen, she loves writing letters, she’s funny, and she loves the American painter Whistler (for art buffs this is particularly poetic because Whistler cites his mother as his biggest supporter as well.) I also know that she used to send my friend jokes and puns scribbled on the back of paint chips.

I landed on making him a gift. I went to Home Depot and got a bunch of paint chips, each one selected for both its color and the name of that color— I picked stuff she loves (Calligraphy, Parchment, Museum), stuff about loss (Tranquil Grey, Back to Nature, Dove), and a few cheeky paint chips that I know would make her smile (The Good Life, Shadows - which I used in the shadows) and recreated Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, fondly known as “Whistler’s Mother.”

I couldn’t fit Springsteen into this piece, but what I made is an accumulation of several things I know about my friend, his mom, and their relationship. I’m super proud of the delicious harmonic chord of this gift: it can be only for him, only about his mom, and only for this moment in time.

As this relates to design:

• I define design as choice— when something is “designed” or “by design” it indicates that it has intentionality behind its decisions.
• As humans and problem solvers, we make a million micro decisions a day. Everything can be done any number of ways, and you make those choices to get certain results.
• In building Binti as a product, organization, and brand, the same situation applies: Everyone at Binti is hired for their skill and intuition and ability in a set of choices (e.g. Sales is about understanding a need, tailoring the product and the conversation to ensure a buyer understands how we do or don't meet that need, what parts of the product to show, who to speak to, and the level of empathy, gravity, and play with which to carry a conversation. Teachers are “education designers," knowing how to compose educational materials in ways that people can understand.)
  Hence, we’re all designers. ∎ * see footnote

To hone your skills as a designer is to become more aware of the little choices you can make that impact the end result, and to make those choices intentionally when they make sense. The more choices and intentionality you have, the more “designed” something will feel. In my example, I know I have all the skills required to recreate Whistler’s mother in paint. I could paint it with his mom instead of Whistler’s mom. But I also have a choice in medium, style, and accuracy, and I have the chance to pull in her love of paint chips. Unlocking this choice allowed me to play with the names of paints. In some ways, my superpower is that I’m a detailed listener, observer, and overthinker 😭🧠 and the number of choices I can quickly unlock and consider is very high.

I hope this paradigm allows you to envision your day-to-day work as important as it is, and as a form of art! Your work is you expressing your skills (read: intuition built over time) in a way that makes an impact on how anyone experiences Binti.

HMU if you want to nerd out on color puns.

*footnote to elaborate more on this: I believe I am and everyone is a designer, but what makes me a Designer ™ is I am also a UX Designer (experience and schooling in user workflows, user testing, Human Computer Interaction/HCI, application design, and information architecture), a Graphic Designer (I have skills in color, layout, kinetic art, and graphical arts), and an Artist (skills in generative creativity, and 2D mediums.)

When you extrapolate design to this philosophy and mental model of design I described, then everyone is a designer. In the tech world, the word “Designer” is usually a shorthand for UX Designer (could also be Fashion Designer, Interior Designer, etc, depending on the crowd you’re in) so I get that some people might not want to say they’re designers, but I believe you are. 🌈💙