Hi there. My name is Santiago Gomez Recio
I’m a designer with a lot of potential to give your brand and company a turnaround, to stop being “a” company, to become “the” company.
Most recent experience
The last 2 years I’ve been solely focused on one thing: Become the best product designer in town. I know, for that is necessary more experience and to fail sometimes, but also a lot of commitment. Believe me, I speak of nothing else, even, i had to accept for my ego that i’m not a senior yet. Even when i have 7 years experience in multiple industries, I have pivoted a lot, which has led me specialist of nothing, but at the same time, a broader knowledge in contextual cases and team work, that has allowed me to be team leader, to negociate designs against important stakeholders like the major of my city and have the trust of an University, to dictate classes based on my own experience, not following the curriculum.
Teaching has forced me to learn and apply everything possible in UX processes to give students the most clear, efficient and understandable concepts for them to be ready to land in the industry.
In my current project i’ve been working in a LMS that has taught me everything as a designer we shouldn’t do. From doing all the client wants no question, to design without a goal or without a flow to contrast, or having started creating features, without speaking first with the developers. (To read more go to LMS project)
Teaching UX
I’ve been teaching UX/UI design a year and a half, and I spect to keep doing so for a long time. In the university I have combined not only specifics of graphic design, and UI, but also agile methodologies, research process, marketing and mostly human centered design. I walk them through a project that can be either personal or grupal, and let themselves dive into the problems, and the respective solutions, while leading them, feedback and showing them the better way to achieve it.
The black year
Although is one of the years I worked the most, is the year for which I have less projects shown. In this year I worked remote for 3 enterprises at the same time. In one hand i was full time designer for a company called Southern Telecom from Brooklyn, for which I was packaging concept designer. In a single year, I could have designed over 100 concepts + all the ones that weren´t accepted, but for a solicitude of the creative director, all my work is archived for “business security”.
In another hand, I also was the Digital art director for a company called Hired Remoteli which was the outsourcing for Superior Biz Solutions and Webterior Designs. With them developed a redesign of all their brands, also participated with marketing strategies and design. There I was in charge of the design team.
My favorite project here, i didn´t had the chance to save my work, for all the files were worked in a drive folder, owned by the agency, just one week after completing the work I didn’t have access to the folder. Never the less, here is some of the work done.
A funny fact is that, while working in a landing/website for Webterior I received my first “WOW” feedback.
In another hand I was a bit upset by their time tracking using Hubstaff... screenshot every 3 minutes
The starting point of progress
My first 5 years of experience on design were hectic. After I finished my internship in an advertising agency, I landed very soon in a very well paid job (for a junior) in my city. That was working for the Corporation that organized and developed the biggest city events. I was bad habituated to in that moment, and used to work overtime almost everyday (and this was during the 5 years). In another hand I learned a lot, or I was the only designer, I had to design for print, for campaigns, digital campaigns, illustrate characters, design advertising based on branding or posters, create animations or even cover social media events.
While working there I made a postgraduate study in digital communication, which was the breaking point on being only a designer, and being a creative leader. I finished this study with the start of the pandemic which meant that I was now in charge of the digital strategies in the corporation. My boss was the one that had the responsability to speak with the stakeholders at the moment, CEO and others, but with my strategies, so now and then she asked me to participate when the explanation was too long or it as need a workshop.
In the 2020th I got the chance to direct the digital strategies for the online events of the Cali’s Fair and Sweets Godfather Festival organized by our corporation. I got the chance to create both, organic and paid content and also did the funnel strategies, and the ads. Besides that, we usually had 2 backup agencies that used to help in traditional and digital channels, but after the pandemic it was opened an in-house agency, that, for my experience in the company, was taken as a leader (over the real boss) because of the way I managed the people.
The hardest days also bring the better opportunities to grow. And what a lot of chances I had to be better at this job.
Fun fact, I got locked inside the office in the first day of job because no one remembered I was hired and exactly that day, at 4.30 P.M. I was asked to deliver something for the next day.
Since i was in school, design has given me a way to go. Altough since early stages as well, has always been difficult to be a only design guy, since I love learning and knowledge over one only task. As I’ve grown in design, I’ve realized that the most reward i get, is by creating good experiences on people, on solving their problems, and UX has given me that.
Let me fight for your costumers and your goals!
“In variety
is the pleasure”
Santiago Gomez Recio
Design
Legendary
