Please tell us about yourself
Hello, my name is Erik, I am a Filipino UI designer based here in Dubai. I have been a web designer, graphics designer and a developer. But, for the last 8 years I have scaled down and focused only on User Interface design.
What are you looking forward to in 2022
In 2022, I am hoping to grow my network of fellow designers. I believe that it is always good to have people who have the same work and passion as you. I can learn new things from them, and maybe they can learn from me too.
In line with that, a friend of mine who is setting up a design learning platform has asked for my help to come on board and create tutorial videos with him. That is something I am really excited about and will share more details soon as it is ready.
What are your design principles?
Simple and effective designs. That summarizes the work that I do, or I am hoping to do. I always admired Dieter Rams' idea of having – "As little design as possible".
First we need to understand the user, and what they want, what they want to achieve and how our product can help them achieve their goal. Once we have covered all that, that is when we can add a bit of delight.
Who are your favorite designers?
- Chris Do from the Futur
- Mizko
- Posterlad
- Rafal Tomal
Please share some useful design tools and resources
Figma, it can run in the browser, and with its Free starter tier, you can already do a lot of designing. I use Figma for just about anything – web/app design, logo design, digital banners, PDFs, media kit, presentations.
Figma Community is huge too. It has a lot of plugins, and complete resources from – UI kits, colors, layout styles, mockups.
Typography:
Color:
https://color.adobe.com/create
Layout: Behance, great source of inspiration
Tell us about your favorite life hacks, tools, and products in daily life
I think the best life hack I can say is to connect and network. It can be with other designers or people from other fields that inspire you.
I go to the usual places for UI inspiration: Behance, Dribbble, Instagram and Youtube. But sometimes too much information on UI-related stuff, especially unfiltered ones, is also not a good thing. Like too much reading without action. So my process is to just skim through for a few minutes, take in the inspiration and really just start on creating on Figma or wherever tool I use.
Somehow I feel that building a home, and interior design is similar to building a website. It is first and foremost for the user/homeowner. The type of home or interior design must cater to the taste of the homeowner, and there is a wide variety of design styles too, much like designing a website.
I also listen and watch Youtube videos that are general information. This I feel helps my brain process information, and apply it. UI Designer after all must be good listeners and good problem solvers in order to be effective.
To cap all that, I listen to philosophy podcasts like the Daily Stoic, which helps me a lot in controlling my emotions and dealing with the task at hand.
Finally, I also wanted to say
That I actually have a Youtube channel aimed at beginner designers. I have videos of how some parts of designing websites are done using Figma. It is http://youtube.com/erikbriones
And I am also on Instagram, /@erikbriones, I will be happy to connect with anyone there too. Thanks to Instagram, I met "goodhackz" which is kind enough to interview me and share my knowledge with everyone.🙂
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