Meet our UX Designer Joe Broadbent who joined us in November 2021. We asked him a few questions about his creative process, inspirations and how he deals with feedback.
Can you tell us a bit more about your creative process?
I imagine my creative process doesn’t really vary much from anybody else, it’s not the part of being creative that I believe sets me apart. What I feel sets me apart is simply the way my brain works within the process. I like to spend time really understanding the core challenges first. I know it’s a cliche but when starting a project no idea should be considered a bad idea. You never know how a ‘stupid’ idea might spark someone else with what becomes the final outcome.
I think the creative process always works better with other people, it’s almost impossible to unlock all possible solutions to a problem when you limit it to one person’s perspective, experiences, and tastes.
Once the initial conceptual stage is done, my next step involves narrowing down ideas to those that solve the core challenge. Shelve anything that might be useful further down the line, and focus on developing the strongest ideas – allowing those I trust to review, critique, and feedback.
How do you deal with feedback?
Not always been the best at this, there I said it. Who likes to be critiqued? It’s an acquired taste for sure. But once you learn to enjoy the taste of quality feedback from people you trust, feedback is really the only way of seeing your work from another point of view..
I mentioned it previously, but if you only ever review your own work, you are missing out on other people’s experiences and perspective.
I am still a new professional creative in the grand scheme of things, so I’ll soak up all the advice and guidance from the more experienced all day. (even if sometimes it’s uncomfortable)
Which programs/software do you use?
For the most part, Adobe has always been able to offer any editing platform I might need, so haven’t had much reason to stray from that, although I have been a designer for a while and love trying different tools so have dabbled in Premiere Pro, After Effects, Animate, Google SketchUp, Lightroom, and probably others that I have missed!
In my work as a UX designer, I will spend a lot of time creating user flows and journeys in Miro (a platform that is great for collaboration and remote discovery workshops). Typically I work on the wireframe and design stage using XD or Figma, creating assets with Illustrator, Photoshop, Procreate.
Are you involved in the strategy phases for projects and what would your usual process and thoughts be when onboarding new projects?
The great thing about working at BEOM is that we are a small, specialist studio so we tend to all work together on projects. Of course we aren’t just duplicate copies of each other, we all have our areas of strengths and so will apply ourselves to the part of the project that plays most to those strengths.
My usual role within the team is part of the initial ideation process and then I will spend time on the UX process and wireframing those ideas.
What are your inspirations, work most proud of, vision for the future of your craft?
Inspiration-wise, I’m not one for following mainstream artists or anything like that, I tend to just spend time following the rabbit-hole on social media and getting inspired by the many incredibly (more) talented people than me.
What I particularly love to look at though is geometry, numbers, structure, and then I just love simple line art.
For the future of my craft, I think I want to figure out what ‘my craft’ really is. I have the tendency to be a jack of all trades and that is because I just enjoy lots of different things. What I do know about myself is that I have a strong pull towards solving logic problems laterally, so I know that whatever my craft really is, it will be something that aligns with that. I will consider myself successful if I can inspire my two kids to go after what they are passionate about and take bold steps.