23 July 2021
Good People
I joined one of the interviews this week for our Associate Service Designer role. I’m delighted that we’re now able to recruit and support several people at this stage of their career. The associates that joined us earlier in the year are absolutely on fire, fully justifying our decision to create those roles 🔥
Ming received his hard-earned promotion to Senior Designer. 祝賀!
As the design team continues to grow apace, we opened up our leadership group meeting to a wider bunch of our most senior people. There’s lots we need to do and having more opinions and more diversity of thought will be important in getting things right 📈
I didn’t manage to have as many ad-hoc catch-ups as I would have liked this week, but there are already a handful lined up for next week 💚
Good Work
The Homes England team I’ve been supporting had their final show and tell this week. The whole blended team worked rigorously to craft a narrative around the discovery; one of the most considered show-and-tells I’ve witnessed at dxw. It was incredibly well received by the 80+ attendees, too.
Chanelle did some really great prototyping/design provocation work at an incredibly high pace for one of our non-government clients, then took the time to walk the interaction designer team through the work and ask for critique in our weekly meeting 💪
Good Stories
I’ve signed up for my first Parkrun this weekend 😅
On my third attempt I was able to acquire a beautiful limited edition print by the immensely skilled Sanna Annukka.
I did my longest bike ride to date at the weekend: to Brightlingsea, over the water to Mersea and back home, passing through all the villages en route. It was a stunning day and a lovely little adventure.
With the weather being consistently beautiful, I was able to go for a bike ride every day this week — twice on most days. I had never even been into Highwoods country park until a couple of months ago despite living in Colchester for most of my life. It is gorgeous when the sun is out.
I’ve been exploring more of the town’s cycle infrastructure too, and it’s been so much fun whizzing along the quiet paths without fear of being slammed into by a 4x4.
I’ve been thrashing my little Brompton Electric across lots of terrain it’s probably not really designed for. You certainly feel every little bump 😬
