Her Story
About Anna
Growing up, I always really liked design. I loved looking at a cereal box or product design and thinking, I really like this, but I don't know why. When I went to college, I wanted to study computer science, but I didn't love coding. I had coding classes where I was just so frustrated. At DePaul University in Chicago, I discovered a program called Interactive and Social Media, and I thought, okay, I like Instagram, let me see what this is about. That's when I found user experience design, which focuses on what the user needs and their goals, and how to make tasks simple for them. That concept really hooked me. After graduating in 2020 during COVID, it was difficult to get a job, but I landed at Blue Cross Blue Shield. I loved learning from other designers there, but I'm the type of person who loves seeing my work and progress and figuring out what I can do to motivate myself to keep pushing. As a designer, there's always something you can learn, the job is never really done. I moved to a digital marketing role doing Google Ads, and because I understand how hard it is to break into the market, I created a club where every Tuesday evening we'd meet and go through design with early designers just starting out, either from bootcamps or college, helping them understand how to market themselves to get a job. I connected with people on Facebook UX design groups looking for feedback and collaboration, and it turned into this weekly meeting. After a brief time at Touchdown.ai, which creates certification courses for corporations like Duolingo, I joined SenseForge, where I currently work. They make indoor-outdoor home security cameras with AI. I have two cats who are always up to no good, so I love that the camera can detect when one of my kittens is on the counter and send me a notification so I can tell the camera to make a sound or turn on the speaker to tell them to get off. I'm the only designer at SenseForge, so I handle everything from the mobile app to product packaging to instruction manuals. I'm constantly looking for something new to push me to be a better designer, reading new books and articles. I also have a mentor who helps me think about next steps and how to elevate each design.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Anna
01What do you attribute your success to?
I feel like my family has always been the type of people to motivate me to push and continue to see what more I can do. I definitely would say my family is just the type of people to motivate me, and definitely my friends as well. Especially with the photography aspect, I will sometimes just take pictures of my friends for fun, and they're always my motivators to be like, yes, this is awesome, keep going, keep doing it. I feel like if we had more people in the world that were just kind of more cheerleaders and more motivators, we'd have more people willing to try new things.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
My dad is probably one person who I feel like has motivated me to always think next steps, always be like, okay, you are the type of person where you really like your career, you really feel passionate about whatever you're putting all your thought and effort into, but obviously the job is never done. Always feel like you are constantly learning, you always want to do something else. And it doesn't necessarily have to be career-related as well. One of the things that I'm also fascinated about is just psychology, and psychology does have an impact on design, but it's also just something that could be influential in all aspects of life. I feel like always being willing to learn, and willing to accept that you don't know everything about a specific topic, is great advice. I love being able to look back at my work, and it's gonna sound weird, but if you look back at your work and you're like, oh my gosh, this is so bad, why did I post this, or why did I think that this was good, that's how you see that you're improving. You can see what was wrong in the past couple of years in your projects or in your work, and be like, okay, now, if I were in the same position a couple years later with more knowledge, this is what I would do differently. That's how you can tell that you're actually progressing in whatever you're doing.
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