Asis: What are the day-to-day design challenges you came across at Nest and what is the design process there?

Hmm. This one is tricky because challenges vary from day to day depending on the work. However, a lot of the challenges I’ve been faced with recently have been ones of “Does this feel right for the brand/Nest?”. This issue can be difficult to solve because brands can often evolve over time. What has helped me get over some of these hurdles is to take a step back and understand a few things:

Where has the brand has been? Where it is now? Where does it need to be?

I started off in design working in agencies and learning a lot about how brands operate on both a business and design level. A designer must understand the brand better than anything to be able to design for it. This is because brands are more than just a logo or a flashy product. It’s much deeper than that. The brand is everything a user feels when they see a product or a logo, It’s the image you put out into the world. Whether your brand has an audience of 10 or 10 million, it is crucial to stay true to what it is you’re putting out into the world.

When we try to innovate we tend to look at what’s new and in the moment, but this often creates design that lasts no more than a few years. You have to dig deep into what people in this world need. You must also be user-centric in everything you do and execute.

The moment you forget about the user is the same moment that they will forget about you.

When it comes to the design process, these principles are at the forefront.