Interesting topic =] I made the decision about a year ago, actually.
I've always been a cartoonist and since 12 always wanted to do computer animation (back when sprites were big, whoop!). Then I took 3 semesters of engineering calculus in college and swore off computers as a career choice entirely. Nevertheless, I took a retail job and worked my way into tech support, then network engineering, then management. The whole time, through 10 years after college, I was constantly writing programs and "designing things" for people. I never thought I was that good, but people thought I had a knack for it. I organize stuff in my head, in pictures, so never had much of a problem figuring out how to "arrange things". I would never say I'm always right, but I like getting other people involved in the process, so my projects tend to turn out almost "community-driven". It takes a village, I guess. I came late to the web, using it only for tech reference, but otherwise I dismissed it as a glorified phone book (which it was, until about 1998). Then I built a network for a startup company, and ended up redesigning & building their ecommerce web site (it was one of the first WYSIWYG greeting card web sites). I enjoyed the work but did almost everything. I get bored quickly if I only have one job, for some reason. Along about a year ago I was designing my 100th or so project for my last company, and it hit me. Design (specifically, interface & interaction design) is the only job I do that makes me mad when I'm not doing it. Network engineering, tech support, coding, database design - I can let them go if needed. But fine-tuning or building an interface from scratch - that's unnerving. It gets under my skin and I can't sleep, eat or talk to anyone for days (can you tell I'm in the middle of such a project right now?). That's when I decided I wanted to be an interaction designer, full time. Everything I do leads me further down that path, even though I'm now "doing everything" except the back-end coding for my new company. I love my job for the first time in 5 years, not just because I do what I want, but because I figured out what I want to be when I grow up. Bryan http://www.bryanminihan.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of pauric Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 3:36 PM To: IXDA list Subject: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer? I think many of us took the long winding path actually. I was wondering if we could hear some stories about those pivotal moments in our careers where we changed from being 'X' in to Interaction Designers.... regards -pauric ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
