Victoria Ayo, Associate Product Designer

I’d describe myself as a lifelong learner. I like studying new issues and about others. In school I used to be lucky sufficient to be launched to UX and work underneath some actually superb Black ladies at my college. They confirmed me how design may very well be a software to grasp the world round us and suggest options.

I believe design is a good way to make use of creativity and an open thoughts to not solely resolve issues however reimagine what’s doable. Not solely that, design additionally gives the framework for ensuring these options can endure and permit for lasting change

Design provides you permission to dream and suppose in another way and see a special future for your self and your customers.

I attempt to provide you with artistic methods for individuals to realize their objectives. Right now I’m doing work on an audio platform expertise for customers. That entails plenty of communication and collaboration with many stakeholders in addition to steady suggestions from our customers on what’s working and what’s not working. 

I additionally dedicate a part of my time to supporting our group right here at Spotify and making it a protected house for different Black creatives!

1. Desk Organizer: I simply moved to a brand new house in a very new Country so my desk setup may be very minimal for the second as I ordered a brand new desk for myself. I like this organizer as a result of it lets me transfer from 1 place to a different in a short time. It holds all my dongles and chords plus it additionally doubles as a makeshift standing desk!

2. My pocket book: I begin every week with a operating checklist of issues I must get achieved. The checklist grows day by day but it surely’s good to bodily test issues off. My pocket book can also be the place I sketch mockups and concepts and make many design execs and cons lists!

3. My pill: I often use my pill to take notes — particularly throughout digital collaboration workshops. I additionally use it as an instance and doodle on my days off from work!

4. Water bottle: Staying hydrated through the day is a should! Especially whereas working from residence!  

Before Spotify, I labored in consulting. We labored on groups with totally different purchasers and industries oftentimes having to find out about new industries on the spot. The longest challenge I had concerned a big grocery retailer shopper who was attempting to get into a brand new house with plenty of opponents.

I used to be a UX crew of 1 tasked with the preliminary consumer analysis, synthesis, mapping and prototyping a function that may be used very closely by many members. All whereas studying in regards to the complexities of provide chain logistics in e-commerce. Did I point out we had been a distributed crew with many of the builders primarily based in Chennai? That meant many late nights and really early mornings.

It was a fairly difficult time for me professionally however I can actually say that I realized a lot and grew as a designer, guide and crew member. In the top, we pulled it off and made a product we had been very happy with and that hundreds of thousands of customers use at the moment. 

Jacob Lawrence: Jacob Lawrence was an illustrator and artist through the Nineteen Forties and past. He had a really distinctive fashion of blending sturdy visuals and geometric shapes. His work impressed me at a younger age due to an task we had been tasked with in center faculty to choose an African American artist and create a chunk impressed by their work. I selected Lawrence’s work titled The Migrants Arrived in Great Numbers as a part of his collection titled The Migration of the Negro. It was the primary time I noticed the bodily energy that artwork and design had on id.

Thomas Miller: Thomas Miller was a prolific graphic designer and visible artist. Best identified for his mosaics which additionally impressed the 1975 7UP soda packaging. Throughout his profession, he created 1000s of artwork together with logos for Motorola and the Peace Corps.

1. My Family!: Both rapid and prolonged: They encourage and shock me daily in so some ways. 

2. Stacey Abrams: Her work galvanizing voters and combating voter suppression in Georgia, the place my household lives actually impressed me to additionally get entangled in doing freelance political tech design. 

3. Spike Lee: As an avid movie lover and native New Yorker, Spikes’ artistry made a huge effect on me as a toddler and adolescent. His impression within the movie trade has impressed so many Black creatives and offered an avenue for us to see ourselves on display!

For me, the best celebration of Blackness is our hair and all of the curls, kinks and waves it is available in. I really feel prefer it’s such a key a part of the Black id and one thing that basically unifies and defines the Black expertise. It lets us categorical ourselves and who we current ourselves to be individually and unapologetically.

An enormous shout out to my crew right here in Stockholm who’ve been so supportive throughout a world transfer throughout a world pandemic. Plus my superb family and friends again residence who I miss a lot!

Books I like to recommend: 

Fiction: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Non Fiction: Meaty by Samantha Irby

Science Fiction: Kindred Octavia Butler