Ian Lemmonds: Digital Technologist
I am agnostic about medium. A medium is a place to launch from. It’s a place to put a message, or to tell a story. The medium itself is only important because it has an audience to engage. It is up to people like me to make sure the content the audience is interfacing with is compelling. Each member of that audience is one user. I am a user-experience designer. My job is to fill the user with positive experiences.
I care very much about users. My background in art and design transitioned into digital when I realized that regardless of the medium, the goal is the same: to create something evocative and memorable. You have to make people feel something if you expect them to remember your message after they’ve closed their browser window or put their phone away.
Projects and Solutions
Why is more important than how. Every project should pay attention to “why” we should do it. The “how” comes later, and presents its own set of questions. What is possible with digital? What is possible with print? Always start with the “why”, where you’ll find the purpose of a project. Why should this project exist? Is it to inspire an audience? Is it to communicate an important message? Is it to spur users to action? The form a project takes can only be decided after its functions are fully ideated. In short, you have to decide why you should make something before you address how it gets made.
Ian Lemmonds: Maker of things. Designer of experiences. Team player.
Software
Whether it’s for layout, productivity, networking, or communication, we all use software to help us work more efficiently. Here are some of the tools I use in my career to get where I need to be.