Ryan Farina on the Mindset of the Designer

Alex Smith: Design Leader Insights is brought to you by Fuego UX. Fuego UX is a leading UX research, strategy, and design consultancy. Hey Ryan, great to see you again.  Thanks so much for coming on the show today. 

Ryan Farina: Yeah, man. Good to see you too, Alex. Thanks for having me.

Alex Sm ith: Just to give us some context and background, can you tell us a little bit about your, your journey in, in design, design leadership? 

Ryan Farina: Yeah. I mean, I've been in design since the late nineties. I guess that's when I started like really messing with it, with it seriously. And I started kind of like most people back then did where we were just making like websites for people or I started doing concert posters and things like that at club that I worked at and that kind of evolved into this stuff. And then eventually I got hired doing building a website e e-commerce website with Pearl Izumi. And then. Just sort of like through little jobs like that. And eventually tech became such a big thing. There wasn't a design industry. And made my way out to San Francisco, worked for a game company and then Ticketmaster. And then I went, I found myself at Apple, which was like a big moment for my career. It's being able to like, that was kind of it was like 2012 ish. So it's an interesting time in tech. I was at Apple for three years working in the iTunes space and then went to Facebook, worked on Facebook for a long time and then Instagram for a little while there back to Facebook for a little bit, and then to Lyft, Map and then most recently Yahoo. So I, and I think I started doing like a lot of design leadership probably for Facebook. It was when I was kind of more senior, and actually managing people. And then from Lyft on, I was in charge of teams and building teams up until my, you know, a Yahoo, I've built a hundred, a hundred plus person team there. So it's like a bigger, much more like a design org than just a team.

Alex Smith: The perception of, of tech and maybe even like what designers are doing now or being asked to do is not, you know, as glorious as it once was, I guess that's what I'm trying to say. How do you think about that? Or where do you think it's headed?

Ryan Farina: I think we have to, we have to remember that the internet's like less than 30 years old, right? And that's in the scheme of things, like that's really, really young, you know, when the printing press was invented for the first hundred years, everybody thought it was going to be the devil. You know, like, that's like, there's like, you know, all these types of things. When you, when you invent something that is so profound for culture, for people, it shifts things so dramatically. We as humans have no idea what to do with them. But I, but I will say at the beginning, like what I felt in the late nineties and going up to 2006 when the first iPhone came out the excitement was, was not just palatable among designers and engineers. It was palatable among anybody in society because we started to realize like what's possible. I think culture is also just, we're burned out, man. Like, yeah, I want another iPad. I want another new phone. I don't need another thing to stick in me, that's going to read some stuff. Like it's, I don't need the data. How do I get back to my… 

Alex Smith: Overstimulated users, yeah, there's just like so much like, yeah, paradox of choice. 

Ryan Farina: Even if something profound does happen in this space right now, it's hard for us to recognize as a culture, like, cause because we're, we're so like, and we're also on much higher alert and much more anxious about what's bullshit and what's real. Like it's, there's, I mean, it's overwhelming how much work we're doing with our, with our brains to just try to filter what's coming at us. 

Alex Smith: I want to talk about the mindset of the designer. I think the way that, you know, all the great designers I talked to and interact with see the world, it relates back to something you said about Apple not seeing themselves as a tech company, like, like they see themselves as Apple health and healthcare or whatever other vertical they are in. And how do you think like designers can take that outside of tech? Like just the way they observe and see how people interact with things that they're putting out into the world. 

Ryan Farina: I think with design in what I've seen in my career, at least as most of the designers that I know that are, that are good at this. And even once we're developing learning they do their best when they understand that they're creative people being creative. And doing this thing as opposed to being like, I'm a designer. I'm going to design. And so it's, it changes how you nurture yourself, like, or what skills you nurture. It's one thing to get like, and you've probably met a designer who's like ridiculously good at Figma, but can't really make anything like that. And then you've got like hyper creative people who can like design entire apps and keynotes or, you know, on paper or whatever. And so like what I think is important for anybody working in the creative field, whether it's in tech design or layout of magazines or whatever you're doing, is to remember that you need to like fulfill your creative spirit to be able to, to be able to express. And so that's about being outside. It's about being in the world. It's about engaging with your life and understanding that and being empathetic to how the world operates or sympathetic to how the world operates to understand society or to not to misunderstand society. Like just be involved.  I tell my designers sometimes like go fall in love, stub your toe, get divorced, whatever it is. Like feel something to just generate creative energy. And then when you come back to your work, it actually is much more fluid. So anything you can do to stimulate that creativity is important. That's the opposite of what the job often says, which is like, come into the office, talk to these people about the technology, like get really involved in like that is part of building something, but it's not part of creating something.

Alex Smith: Right. I want to ask you about leadership because you've gone from being a designer, leading teams, designing. You know, all sorts of experiences and perspectives on that. Who, do you think it's made for everyone? Do you think everyone should do that? 

Ryan Farina: No. You know, you kind of have to feel out what you're good at and some people who are good at leadership and like sort of comes to them naturally and some people are and there's nothing wrong with you. If you're not. Like you're just, you're, but what are you, there's, there's some version of your shape that works in a certain way. And like, I say, chase that, you know, cause it feels really good to be able to do something that you're, you're very capable of. Yeah, I, that's kind of a vague answer to it, but I think it's important, like, I think it's important to, before you go out and try to get something, you understand what you want. I always think about Jay Z. Well, he was talking to the New York Times, it was probably like 20 years ago now, but he said like, people are too focused on the end result and not, and not focused enough on the process. And that stuck with me for a long time. In fact, my team's probably getting sick of me talking about it, but I think it's, it's really important to love the work you're doing and like, that doesn't mean you're passionate about it. It doesn't mean like, it just means like you like doing it day to day.

Alex Smith: That's so true. I think like some of the best leaders that we all appreciate don't necessarily gel with what we're, to go back to what we were talking about earlier. Just like, what the culture of corporate culture has evolved to like the most empathetic giving you time to fail space to fail leader is probably being measured against some, you know, crazy metrics where the easiest thing for them to do is, you know, be a dick or not give you this space and time to grow and learn.

Ryan Farina: Creative environments and corporate environments aren't always the same thing. And like, bridging that gap is hard to do and it takes a lot of practice. And what I mean by practice is not like practice makes perfect, but like the constant upkeep of something, right? It's a practice to do this. And there's a practice to it around like, creating environments in which people are going to be successful. I think sometimes when you get into a business leader trying to optimize an entire company, you forget about creating an environment which is going to be successful and you just say, why aren't we hitting X? And like, who's going to give me the X? And you know, this is why, like, people like to talk about company culture. But it's to me, that's what culture is. It's the environment in which you're thinking in the environment, in which you're taking risks at, the environment in which the values of a company are expressed or the values of a product or, or, you know, or strategy are existing. And those people come together around that in a meaningful way and, and feel the safety to do it and have the inspiration, motivation to do it at speed. That's what the job is. And like, but I, it's, that gets forgotten so much that it's like kind of world building is what leadership is. How do you continue to shape a narrative for a group so that they continue to do that without being, you know, Maleficent or manipulative? 

Alex Smith: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's everywhere. Ryan, as we wrap up here, I'd love to learn by like a piece of advice you have for people breaking into the field today? 

Ryan Farina: I mean, just don't forget why you're doing it. Like if you're coming, you're coming into an industry that's more saturated than it's ever been. There's more designers in it. We're at a point with this, with this, you know, practice that there's always somebody better than you. Like it's, there's always, you know, it's always more creative, always better leader, all of those things. You know, so it's sort of life advice. It's like, just make sure you really like what you do and that you, and you really focus on doing that. And don't worry if you're working for you know, Apple or you're working for, you know, I don't know. I don't want to give like some example of a bad guy. So I'm like, don't worry about the brand name of what you're doing. Just do the best you can and do the work and find out why you love it. And then also just stay curious, not critical of yourself and the company and stay curious about the work and learning and don't ever, you know, I think this is, this is the opposite of that, but do not ever rely on your own talent as a way of like, well, I can get through this. It's more of like, you should be curious about every problem you encounter. 

Alex Smith: Ryan, where can people go to find more or follow you? 

Ryan Farina:  You know, I'm not super engaged in the social world, but I'll tell you, if you message me on LinkedIn or find me on LinkedIn, I generally will respond to you and chat with you and engage.

Alex Smith: Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the show today. 

Ryan Farina: Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. It's been awesome. That's you.