Good morning!

This newsletter contains something that I’ve been pondering lately, a recent discovery and something that scratches creativity itself and what it means to be creative. Because I dare, I took creativity as the supporting topic since it means different things for different people. Not to worry, there is one interview that is not about being creative. After all, we are a tech company and not a creative design agency.

Meet our curator of the month

Pyry is a jack-of-all-trades (master of none?), originally from a marketing communications background,  and eventually transitioned into the tech industry. What he appreciates is an honest dialogue in product and services development, where all parties share knowledge and opinions are heard equally.

Pyry's picks

Modern UX is killing creativity

By Michael F. Buckley

UX design aims for intuitive user interfaces. The UX best practices, for example on e-commerce platforms, are researched and tested millions of times over and have become a standard. Should we deviate from these practices and provide something different to push the creative boundaries and not settle for what has proved to work before?

Seth Godin's best tactics for building remarkable products, strategies, brands and more

Lenny’s Podcast by Lenny Rachitsky

I recently found Lenny’s Podcast through one of our designers (shout-out to Stanislav). Talking about the interviews here! I could’ve picked basically any of them, but chose Seth Godin’s interview because he covers a wide spectrum of topics whether it’s building products or brands and what should be considered before building them.

John Cleese’s speech about creativity

By John Cleese

This is a wildcard right here. Designers are considered to be creative by nature and in some cases that may be. Most of the time creativity is not a talent but a skill that can be developed. Take it from the man himself.

Know more about your curator

Tell us about a project you’ve worked on that you found particularly interesting or challenging.

I’d say it was the first project after doing the switch from marketing communications to software development. Savon Voima / Väre Energy – Electricity and district heating consumption surveying app. Why?

1. Almost a completely new working atmosphere in the tech industry.
2. Jumping into a project and a team of developer strangers and trying to find a way to work as a UX/UI designer.
3. A fair amount of challenges existed, but eventually it ended up being the highest-rated energy consumption surveying app in Google Play and App Store in Finland at the time, so I suppose we did something right.

Any tips for maintaining a healthy work-life balance?

Not bringing anything work-related home unless it is extremely necessary. Instead I head to the gym, swimming pool, whatever. It helps having a routine which shifts the mindset into something more physically demanding, laborious activity, if you will. 

Or in my case, doing illustrations or graphic design projects. Something completely different yet similar problem-solving from a different perspective.

What hobbies or interests are you passionate about?

Diving. Something that stuck permanently 25 years ago. Underwater, no one thinks about work or anything else. It’s basically meditation.

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