Reflection & Takeaways

Never be afraid to share.

At Figma, it was encouraged to share your work regardless of the state to get feedback, encourage others input and update the team on what’s happening. Whether signing up for formal critique or posting in #wip channels, in was important to provide transparency on your work. At first, presenting unpolished work to ten other designers, let alone the whole product team was daunting as an intern. However, after giving my first critique, I realized that sharing your designs only worked in your favor. The valuable advice and ideas I gained from critique helped me grow my craft, design thinking and confidence to explain myself. I should never be afraid to share my work.

Keep questioning and repositioning.

Having been given responsibility for the success of several projects, it gave me opportunity to exercise product strategy and execution, something that was rare as an intern. In particular, when thinking about publishing flows, I constantly questioned the intention and proposed solution to see whether it addressed the issue at hand. At the end, my project ended up being rescoped into three separate projects, all of which I help catapult forward in the time of my internship.

Focus on the craft.

Being a designer for THE design tool meant that my work must be polished down to the finest pixel. This was particularly challenging as I was self-taught, but I relied my mentor Heather, my buddy Keeyen and other designers on the team to help give guidance on what to improve, and where to find the specific resources make it feel like Figma. I even took on another visual-heavy design project to further practice my visual design during my time, redesigning a pattern across Community and Draft surfaces.