Ep.23 It's all about connecting the dots - Juliana Proserpio

Introduction

0:00hello everyone and welcome to one more episode of the world-class designer podcast and today with me i have juliana pros pros i have problems pronunciating your surname juliana is proserpio proserpio where is this surname from italy let's see so you should say proserpio like the way like

0:30italians pronunciate names yeah yes so like i i have i have few friends living in italy now like uh like uh like my partner's from the world-class designer school uh maria she's from russia she's living in italy and pradi he's from india but also living in italy so i'm quite i'm quite used to having them start speaking italian in the group because you hey we have a whatsapp group so when they decide that they that they don't want me to to to to read the conversation

1:06they start like they start talking like writing in italian that's a good trick so yeah so they've done like few times uh so juliana uh so please can you introduce uh to introduce you to our audience

Guest Introduction

1:26people want to know uh like usually i used to do like a quick uh brief introduction about people but in this case i'd rather ask you to do that so who who who are you where where are you from and what are you doing for living now nice so hi everyone i am juliana proserpio i'm very happy to be here in this podcast with gideoni i am originally from brazil um but nowadays i live in sydney

1:57australia um and i am a designer by heart and by practice as well i started my career as an industrial designer and nowadays i think i like to call myself a designer of the invisible things or

Design of Invisible Things

2:13a designer of the future so what is a design of invisible things so the design of invisible things basically is when you are working with things that are not not tangible so designing systems processes sometimes business models that you cannot touch and it's harder to see the the design work but you feel it and you know that it's there when it's a good service experience or business model or whatever so that's the design of the invisible things that it's not something 100 tangible like

2:46product design or like visual design information design and these other types and orders of design

Career Path

2:53i see and how did you switch from industrial design to a design of invisible things so i mean i started uh when i was in uni i did in that at the time it was called industrial design and i had no idea exactly what it meant but i wanted to do design and one of my first jobs it was in one of the first design agencies in brazil and they they were a industrial design firm as well as visual design firm

3:27and there i was lucky to stay in the research team and it was a very progressive let's say design research team in brazil because no one was really doing it and they were already talking about empathetic research understanding patterns semiotics and how to use photo elicitation for research so it was really really interesting and at the time i started to understand and see design in a very different fashion so it was not only about form and function but it was about feelings needs

4:02emotions and all these things that we nowadays talk about but at the time it was not as common back when i was in uni and then after that i thought that i wanted to so i started working after with visual design a little bit because this was the easiest path in brazil at the time working as a graphic designer designer and then um i i thought that the most complex problems that i could work with was with industrial design then i started freelancing for a while then i started i worked in a product design

4:34firm and in this like more in the industrial side i used to design um hair dryers and these kind of things and there i started studying design thinking and then in this firm it was my last job let's say before i became an entrepreneur and there i started doing more the strategic side of of design but there was a limit until where it could go because in the end in this firm we're delivering the

5:04product per se and not necessarily going for the most strategic parts of the business that were our clients because they that that's not not what they hired at the time so i wanted to work with the invisible things strategies services business models futures and these things and then i started pursuing this path um and um i kind of had to at the time there were not many firms or none at the time in brazil that would be working with design thinking like i wanted to work with so then basically i decided to kind of study a bit longer and and more so i went on a trip

5:42to the the us and to germany to study social um social design and design for social impact and to germany to study design thinking at the d school and then we started kind of forging our way as entrepreneurs writing on a blog and talking about design thinking strategic design the design of these both things and then we we started to kind of be invited to give talks in in some unis in in

6:14brazil and luckily one of our first talks there um a person who is luis he used to work for instituto telefónica telecom company um that is in brazil from spain but located in brazil he saw one of our talks and hey we have a project for you and then i think i became officially a strategic slash designer of the invisible things this is nice uh was it's a really interesting path

6:44uh so this is how you started your current company yes yes echoes yeah oh that's a that's a really really really curious path nice uh so so like uh jumping to to like the topic of of our conversation

Defining Design

7:07which is around like how would you talk to your younger self when the topic is design so i would like to ask how would you define design you said that when you started uh like you you started studying industrial design and you didn't know what to expect in a way so now that you have like a more clear idea how would you define uh design for your younger self imagine if you're talking to yourself

7:41like waiting to join university and you have no idea how can you tell yourself in a way that you would understand i think the way how it would describe is that design is all about creativity and creating change and creating paths for creating change i think that the the definition that i like the most nowadays is from herbert simon the design is about changing existing conditions into preferred

8:11ones but this is a fancy way um so i think that the most uh let's say down to earth way of talking about design for my younger self would be to talk about being um let's say a spark into change and into designing better outcomes and better solutions okay nice do you think you will understand that uh look when i i don't know i don't know about my younger self when i did the choice

8:42about when i was 17 i remember that for me it was a long path kind of to decide where i was going to i was 17 i was very young i entered uni and i remember i did one of those vocational therapists right and she helped me draft my path because at the time i i knew that i wanted to work in like with creative creative things um i knew that i wanted to i loved working with creative things so i was in between doing fine arts or advertising so that was my my path and i remember with this vocational

9:19okay uh therapist she was giving me lots of tests and one of the things that she did that was very interesting she introduced me to a few fraction years in different industries so people that work in advertising in and in different areas and i remember that i went to the advertising firms big ones like ogv and it was very lucky and i remember that i stayed one way one day in planning more for advertising and one day in the creative um let's say area and in the the the area of planning i remember

9:53i was younger maybe this day i would find more interesting but at the time i hated okay so that's why then i went to the creative in another ad agency in brazil called at the time it was called fisher america and in that other one that i stated with the creative let's say team then i loved it and then that's what they were telling me what we do here is not necessarily not directly advertising it's design it's about applying creativity and and kind of trying to solve complex challenges and it was more for

10:29advertising still but it was in these um in this background and that's when i discovered that this is what i wanted to do it was in these realms using my creativity applied creativity to something this is where i wanted to work for uh that was a really really a like a nice experience was a privilege to be able to have this this type of exposure like uh before taking a degree right yes to be honest it was it was really really important for me i think i would have taken a

11:04very different path and i am absolutely i love design so much and i think it was the right the right thing to do it was really worth it it was really a privilege because usually you don't do these kind of things right you don't know when you're you're very young you usually don't know which path you should go what it means to work in one area or the other so it was it was amazing

Design Process

11:28nice so tell me what about your design process uh how would you explain your design process to your younger self that's a very cool question i think that the best way to explain the design process for my younger self is that being creating something new designing something is all about having a lot of repertoire so a lot of knowledge about these topics that you're working with and really

12:03understanding who you are designing for understanding the person the group of people that you're designing for so i guess the design process means that it's like you always need to start with inspiration understanding and grabbing resources from this scenario this context that you're working with and in this inspiration moment it's also about understanding the person that you're designing for and then finally it's about connecting the dots so this is a very important part of the design

12:38design process that it's about sense making connecting the dots creating something like an opinion or a perspective to where exactly is your design space where exactly is the problem that you're trying to solve and then basically you should always invite people to co-create solutions with you being a designer is not about being a hero and designing everything by yourself but it's more about co-designing because whoever is part of the

13:10problem or the context should be part of the design of the solution so then you co-design and you facilitate this moment and then you you basically come up with various ideas and then you have to put this in practice and prototype and make sure that this idea holds up to the tangibilization of this idea does it is it going to be standing still when you transform an idea that you wrote in a paper or that you discuss into something that is a

13:41reality so then you prototype it and then you test it again with in your context with the people that that you are trying to solve the problem for and then basically you have a really good path for actually creating change that design is all about creating change and implementing the solution that you created nice that's fantastic uh yeah like it's a very it's a very clear way to define a process so and which uh which uh which mistakes will you tell your younger self to make so mistakes for me i see

14:23mistakes as a learning curve so the mistakes that i think i would probably tell my younger self to make just experiment more and to try to enter design let's say spaces that are very diverse and very different from each other so if you were working in graphic design try to jump into another project that it's about product try to jump into another product project that it's about experience or voice design and then you're going to be making a lot of mistakes because you have no idea about that design space

14:55but it means that you're going to be learning a lot so i would definitely tell myself to make this mistake of jump to many opportunities and not stay into one so that you can learn more i see that's that's nice and uh and uh what about focus like what would you suggest younger selves to focus on like to become good i guess focusing on listening to your not only your users

15:28but to your peers but to your peers and seeing every challenge that you have in any kind of work job as something that you're polishing your practice okay so i think i would focus on peer feedback and tips that people give you all the time how to make your work better so so tell me juliana about like listening to your users like i i know from a fact that it's really

16:01hard to translate user feedback into actionable insight how do you do that usually i try to understand what are the needs behind the feedback so what is this person trying to tell me when they are saying that what is the meaning behind and what is the need behind this ask and this is when it's it's easier to translate the feedback into an actual actionable um thing to develop or improve your solution for

16:37because when you kind of find the need behind the feedback that you received um um then you can easily translate that into something so okay if this is the need then you just translate that into how might we and then cover the need that you just uh discovered that is important for these this user i think that this is the best way and um if you if this is not clear maybe just go back and ask more questions and do more research i think this is you can always go back on the process and do it

17:13dig in a little bit longer so that you gain clarity of what you should be doing so like i think that that

Skills and Research

17:22guides us to the next questions which is related to skills it means that all designers have to have have to be researchers i think it's part of the design process right so of course you don't need to be a uh researcher or design researcher specialist but you need to to do a little bit of research for sure it's for me it's a crucial part of the design process so i think that every design should designer should know a little bit about this about research because it is part in my creativity or or design

17:58process it's embedded because you need to empathize you need to connect with the need to with the user in order to kind of borrow those pain or needs and activate that into your creativity so i think yes i think this is key okay nice so like besides of like research researching skills which are the extra skills would you advise your younger self to get oh this is a very easy one one for me programming for sure for sure i would definitely i would love to to be a programmer and to

18:37know more about this language i think it would then because then basically you can do end-to-end projects and kind of prototyping things faster and building an mvp a minimum viable product um so for me for sure programming would be something that i would really like to have learned as as uh when uh when i was younger and what about reading what would you encourage your younger self to read so i think that the the my younger let's say what should encourage my my younger self to read for sure

19:15to reading more about the essence of design and why design is such an important skill um so i would i i had read as a young uh young person as a student victor papanek's book um i would definitely read that again uh it's key for any kind of shaping a design mark sorry can you repeat the title so the title it's the book from victor papanek that's the name of the the author okay and the book

19:48is called um let me remind myself design for the real world that's the name in english okay so this is a an amazing book and nowadays i'm a bit obsessed with the new book from bruce now uh called m24 24 lessons for transforming the world so this is also an amazing book that i would definitely recommend my younger self to read is very inspirational and has some very deep very interesting tips there okay i'm

20:23searching this one the first one designing for the real uh that title sounds intriguing to be honest it's one of the key let's say books about moving design from a perspective of being more about industrial design form and function and going through the aspects of design more more being about social about change in society and these kind of things um so i guess it's really really for it was very influential

20:55as well it's kind of um it's not a new book it's it was written so victor papanek he was born in 1923 and his book probably i don't know when it was launched let me see if i can find it 1971. whoa yeah and it's really amazing i do really recommend because it's beautiful thanks thanks thanks for

21:26this so thanks for the recommendation so like in terms of following juliana tell me which people would you suggest your younger self to follow i think i would advise my younger self to follow designers who are very different from myself okay and not only designers and leaders who are not only in the the let's say in the us or north america or in europe and this is something that i'm trying to do now as

21:59well because design is very contextual and has different meanings in different parts of the world and creativity also emerged differently in different parts of the world so i would definitely suggest my younger self to look first if you have any kind of indigenous culture or something that it's and the roots of your origins and what design or creativity means for that origin this is really

22:29beautiful to see because i remember i was studying a little bit about the story of artifacts in the indigenous culture in brazil and it's very beautiful to see why these artifacts emerged and what design and creativity means means there so i think this is something this is what who i would recommend my younger self to follow okay nice like this is this is really interesting when you say like follow people that are different there is any specific reason why you you wouldn't follow yourself or people like you i think because then you

23:06you create a very strong bias about what is design what design should do what is the intent and the purpose of design and also it can bring it can open your mind about how the world let's say the spheres of the world should be and this influences your future in a way so learning more about diversity and opening your mind and your heart

23:39and your knowledge about it it really influences your design i think nowadays just because i'm now living in australia i think i'm a different designer to what i was when i was in brazil and now i'm starting to miss and to try to learn more and to honor more and to honor more the brazilian design and the brazilian creativity in a way this is very important and dear to me because it's very different how how these things because it's very cultural like we know a big part of

24:11design is about the cultural context so it really influences you and makes you makes you sharper makes you better so can you tell me the difference between you anywhere in brazil and now that you're in australia that's a great question um so when i when i left brazil which was in 2015 and i came to not 2015 sorry 2015 i started doing experiments uh about bringing echoes here to australia um and making echoes a global company

24:44and at the time echoes in brazil was growing and starting to be renowned and as an entrepreneur and a designer entrepreneur when you start in your in your place where you were born where you have a lot of connections is one thing and then you kind of forget how hard it was to build everything that you've built and then when you go and give your next step you understand that all the rules changed and everything you

25:14thought you knew you actually don't know anything so then you have to start from scratch and the other aspect of it is that some i think i had a lot of biases about how life should be what reality means what are what is right what is wrong what freedom means what security means all of these big concepts of life change for me a lot not only because i'm in australia but because i also because of work i

25:48interact a lot with asia and it really made me rethink what these big concepts of life means because in brazil you have a i mean i was born there raised there and nothing wrong with the perception of brazil but it's one way of looking into life and to meaning and into the world and there are other ways and they are all truthful and they are all a reality and it's in and for us as designers because we work with changing

26:19conditions creating new solutions and changing realities in a way if you understand that it's very very different and you you i kind of became a bit different in my approach as well i have a bigger i see i think i have a bigger picture of things but at the same time i think i'm more disciplined with myself and with the team as well uh hopefully in a good way i actually think that it's in a good way but i'm

26:49not sure so i think that's that's what changed um many things change but i think that's a little bit of what changed between before and now nice like uh having this perspective it's really really important what about your experience in the us and germany did that help you also yes it did it did look in in brazil especially in sao paulo we are very americanized let's say it's there is there is a great exchange of the us and brazil so it's a bit closer in a way but in the us when i was there i learned a lot

27:27about the professionalism of the us and i think one of the greatest lessons that i had it was we were there studying and we were ready with the idea of creating echoes and we had a pitch deck only and we decided to send a message for one of the biggest design agencies in the us at the time um design connection and we said hey uh we sent an email for the contact at design a design connection it was one of the biggest firms at the time we really um looked up for them saying hey we want to create we are

28:00creating a new a new design um lab in brazil and we want to be partners with you we were super young and crazy and we thought that this if i sent if i was about to send this email to any design agency in brazil saying hey i'm young i want to do a partnership i'm starting something in brazil no one would answer me no one i see and one of the things that i learned and this is very american in a way uh north american in a way at least in the us we sent this email we got a message and we were

28:35invited to visit the their office and when when we went to their office we thought there will be some intern that would receive us and show us around and that's it but actually it was the ceo of the company a very very busy person okay and we were he showed us everything then we sit on the table a meeting table and then we were pitching we were super nervous we were pitching our our non-existing company because it still didn't exist um and i remember he said no no wait wait a minute

29:08wait a minute we were in the middle of our pitch wait a minute wait a minute and then we were oh my god what's going to happen and then he actually went back to the office and invited all his managers to come and listen to us no way so nothing really happened we didn't get the partnership but because we continued to come to talk and we were kind of sussing it out right see if it would work or not but the openness of of this ceo it was harriet west i remember up until today and this is something that

29:40really influenced me in a way to try to be very open it doesn't matter who you are where you come from try to be open try to listen try to kind of give more than you are expecting to receive um of course everyone needs to respect the time of the other and sometimes it's not possible but if you can do it so this was this was something that it was very different from from the reality in brazil in the u.s and then when i moved to to germany to study there we stayed we lived in berlin for a

30:15while at the beginning we we stayed in in the meter in the city center and then we started to move more to the eastern side of berlin and then it's very different i remember that even the aesthetics of the buildings of the buildings of the buildings of the people how they dressed how they behaved how they moved what they how they lived it was very different to my very western san paulo new york

30:47kind of reality um and then i remember that i started to question a few things that i thought i knew about west east uh the sides and left and right and all of these things right um so it was a big big change for me as well and a big eye opening as well because i was so naive and so so so how can i say

31:20i had so i mean i didn't have any knowledge and you don't know about the thing i know that this is obvious but you don't know about the things that you don't know and you think and that's the the the the paradox of ignorance because the less you know the more you think you know and that's so dangerous yeah yeah it's funny yeah yeah that's that's that's really really really really nice inside also yeah and uh yeah like uh so as you said like in a way you say you kind of advising yourself to

31:56expose to more experience to be exposed to more experience to kind of to have a more uh open position or open world view in a way is it yes for sure i think this is key especially nowadays that everything that we have more and more opportunities to be working with people everywhere around the world you were there i'm here we are in very different locations and we are collaborating right so it's possible yeah so so tell me so what would you tell your younger self to

Advice and Success

32:30become expert in um i think i'm gonna borrow this from michael tam a designer from ibm i was just speaking with him he was he was saying one of the key things for you to to become a better designer and expert you need to learn a lot from great designers sitting close to great designers and learning from them is key i remember one of my greatest experience was in my first internship that in this

33:00in this it was a design agency in sao paulo and i was hired i was super happy the salary was zero at the time this was okay and and it was approved nowadays it's not but at the time it was and the but it was okay it was a school for me i'm okay with that nowadays um and then they hired me but there was no table for me or no chairs for me to sit in the agency and i remember that i had to sit between two senior

33:31designers it was very small the space was very very small we would even i had to kind of keep my elbows very tight because i didn't have enough space but they were super senior designers and every time they were working on something with their screen i would be looking and asking questions asking left asking right asking left asking right because i was in between the two of them and it was the biggest

34:02learning for me i still remember i'm very grateful for both of them because they were very patient with me um and it was i think that's what i would tell myself to really learn from great designers um learn learn learn learn suck it all in and learn it because this is really really this i think that's one of the best ways to learn from the masters i see so and what you wouldn't tell your younger self what i wouldn't tell yeah what i wouldn't tell yes is specialize learn some kind of

34:43technology or not technology software it's more about software i wouldn't tell learn this software and spend heaps of time on this software this is key for your future because the software changes right and you i mean you have to learn about the software for sure but don't think this is going to be your essence of about design but learning about design because when i was started when i was in uni the first two that i learned was coral draw and where is coral draw

35:15i mean it was important for me to learn about the corridor because then the basis then evolved to adobe illustrator then evolved to i don't know nowadays figma mirror or whatever um but um this is not it's gonna this is not is uh this won't save your your design let's say essence and this is not the essence of design at all that's a very nice nice insight uh so like and how much your your your current

35:46professional success would you attribute to luck and how much would you attribute to hard work i think a lot of i mean success is a very interesting concept so i'm gonna assume that i have success i don't know exactly but i'm gonna assume um i think there is a lot of hard work to be honest i am very very very much married to work and not in that not i'm not saying that this is good i'm just saying

36:16that this is the reality and i do work a lot and i am very committed and this is very important for my success for sure but i think there is a very big part that it's not necessarily luck but it's something that it's part of my story that it i was very privileged in some ways to

36:43to to be able to do what i do nowadays

36:48so i think there is a big part that it was also about privilege in a way and there is a big part that i didn't take it for granted oh i'm just gonna keep going then i worked really hard to

37:05create and design a company and to start something from scratch and then become a

37:13entrepreneur start something build in brazil then come here to australia build here and become a global company um there is another aspect of the success that i think it's important it's the being naive and innocent because when i started the my company was very very young and i didn't know it would be so hard maybe i wouldn't try if i knew okay um but so i think it's a combination of privilege a lot of

37:44hard work and naiveness in a sense um because i thought it would be easier at the time or i had no clue right i think everyone always i heard i discussed it with the other fellow entrepreneurs that if you knew you would never start um but then now that you're here it's impossible for you to not have started because it's so intertwined into your who you are what you want to achieve and the kind of impact that you want to create in the world so it's kind of like a paradox as well um but maybe in my younger self

38:21i would probably say oh that's gonna be really hard maybe i should go through this other path maybe i would postpone it i shouldn't but maybe i would uh that's that's that's that's impressive so like to close juliana uh do you have any question for me yes i think that my question for you right um i think this is something i'm very curious about your story and about your background uh it's about what design means for you in your culture okay okay like what design means for me

39:01in my culture i think it's a possibility of empowering so like and showing people that there is another way to live life to live life and like showing people that they can be prosperous like doing technology so like i'm all in compromised and trying to help other people and the design is the field they understand so i'm trying to use that as the way of how can i help other people around me

39:35so like uh so like uh so but long story short it will be like it's opportunity to see life differently like uh like and trying and making a positive impact in the society because uh design and technology in general give us kind of a playing field that now we can can only compete like locally but internationally so we finally have the resources to be able to show ourselves as as individuals as mozambicans and also

40:08as africans and the rest of the world on what we are capable of and uh and i think i can help like uh make other people's voice louder on that regard that is amazing that's so beautiful to to listen to thank you for sharing yeah so yeah so basically that's it so juliana tell me uh where can people find you online um you can find me on linkedin um through juliana proserpio proserpio in english

40:41maybe easier and yeah i think i think linkedin is the best the best connection nowadays don't you use on any other social networks and why i use instagram but that's more personal um so i try to keep it i want to i mean not super person but i want to at least know the person directly um i do use facebook but facebook nowadays um i i have a huge network in facebook from the time that

41:19i lived in brazil but nowadays i i use facebook only for my for my inner volleyball friends here in australia because they use facebook a lot otherwise i wouldn't be there so much and twitter i accidentally gave up on twitter a while ago and and i never came back and and sometimes i feel like i'm missing out but it's i think i'm okay with it okay you know so i'm like yeah so linkedin i really like it

41:50because it's very professional i learn a lot i read a lot on linkedin and um for me nowadays in for the things that i'm trying to build i think it's the best network for me to be in okay nice so thanks juliana for making the time for this for this podcast i really appreciate your time and i think people will definitely enjoy this episode thank you it was a pleasure video okay fine so to the listeners uh see you next time