Author: Rosie Pritchard

Experience Haus Creative Director and Founder Amit Patel recently sat down with Garth Jemmett, the founder and owner of We Explain Stuff, a visual communications consultancy renowned for his one-page simple method.

Specializing in making complex products, services, and strategies easy to understand, Garth and his team drive sales and enhance clarity through a blend of storytelling, visual thinking, and data analysis. With a proven track record across banking, insurance, healthcare, and technology sectors, Garth’s approach has been battle -tested in environments where clear communication is critical. 

Garth’s commitment to clarity and communication is not just his profession, but his passion, constantly seeking innovative ways to bridge communication gaps and inspire understanding in the business world.

Can you tell us a bit more about the work you do at We Explain Stuff? What prompted you to set that business up?

The thing that I’ve learned over the years of starting and running a business is the way that you serve the market might change and your market might even change, but your underlying philosophy seldom does. It just gets more and more into focus.

What I mean by that is I used to work in advertising. I was an art director for TBWA, which is a big global network. I was part of the South African branch in Cape Town, which is where I’m originally from. It was a really great business that I worked at, but I wanted to get into stuff that was a little bit more complex. I wanted to work with businesses that were more complex because I had a knack for being able to take things that were inherently a little complicated and make them simple. However, I felt advertising wasn’t really giving me the space to do that.

What I then ended up doing was getting into things like animated videos, infographics, and those kinds of things, because  the reality is, as something gets more complicated, your comprehension goes down. So you’ve got to really use visuals and graphics and diagrams and stuff to explain stuff that’s more complicated.

Where that took us as a business over the course of 20 years is it initially was a bit of change management, it was internal communication. However, more and more over the last couple of years,  it moved very much into what you would almost call “sales enablement”. This means helping a team that has to sell a product or service, whether that’s a sales team or even the founder and their team, articulate their value in a really crisp manner.

So what we do as a business is work extremely hard to make a business understandable in the simplest way and you do that by making it one page simple. How do you tell the story of your business on a page where the value of it comes across immediately? If you think about it in the shape of a pyramid where that one page is the tip of the pyramid, and then you cascade down into more granular information below. This method helps businesses that are either  complex or struggling to make their message clear.

Do you work with a typical type of client like established businesses or brand new companies?

The traditional businesses I’ve been working with over the last 15 or so years have been corporates eg. large banks, large insurers etc. I would say, however, my passion is more in that early to funding phase. I know how difficult it is and I’ve got a lot of empathy there with founders who see their business growing and thinking, ok how do we get this right? The way we’ve structured our methodology is it’s modular. You can start off with a smaller piece of it and then move onto the next piece, and then the next piece, and then everything just slots into place. For example, if you start with a one-pager about your business, this information can then be used in other materials like an explainer video or a comprehensive sales aid. So the one thing moves onto the next, and what I usually say to clients is to see the one-pager as the cornerstone of your business. This is the first bit of information that you need to get 100% right, and then it’ll be easy to get the rest right.

So, to answer your question, I would say founder-led businesses that are trying to either scale sales or there’s a founder that has a lot of IP locked in their head and are trying to get it down onto paper in a manner that the rest of the team understands. I think that’s the challenge with a lot of founders – they are so switched on and so entrenched in their genius, it’s really difficult to pull that out and simplify it.

Can you tell us a bit more about your book: what inspired it? What are you looking to deliver in terms of value to those who pick it up?

With the book, I started out with the end in mind. My biggest frustration was there’s a lot of business books out there, but how many of them do you actually come away with a very clear takeaway that you get really quickly? So, what I did is I decided I wanted the reader to finish it in 30 minutes. That was something I was very keen on getting right.

There were five questions I wanted to ask in the book, and those five questions are split into three sections:

1. The front of a business (call it the front office), that is essentially your marketing and sales.  This includes anyone on the call phase, meeting clients, getting clients to come engage with you
2. The middle office is essentially the heart of your business. This is your vision, mission, strategy and values
3. The back office is your value delivery system. This includes the operations, finance and systems

To have a successful business, all of those need to work in unison. So I thought to myself, coffee is such a great metaphor to use for business. First of all, it can be ground, it can be sold whole, there’s different flavours, there’s quite different coffee brands, so it really lends itself to quite a lot of versatility. Then my wife showed me a quote which said “I don’t need another inspirational quote, I need coffee,”and I thought that’s actually such a great name for a book!

The five questions the book in essence asks are:

1. Why do you do what you do?
2. How do you get clients?
3. How do you keep those clients?
4. How do you deliver what you promise?
5. How do you teach others?

Each section is colour coded in the book and it unpacks that specific part of the journey for the coffee shop owner. There’s a lot of metaphors and analogies and visual thinking, which is a lot of what we use with our clients when we’re helping them unpack their own story for their business.

have you had any feedback from people that aren’t yet running their own businesses that found it useful for them to read?

I haven’t had anything from freelancers, but what I have had is there is almost a universal appeal to those five questions. So far I haven’t had one person that’s read it and gone “I haven’t gotten something out of it”

The big thing for me when I was writing it was making sure it was about the reader, it was about someone actually getting some proper practical advice out of it.

What have you learned personally when writing this book, and what have you learned about business through this process as well?

Firstly, it’s really important to make stuff simple. When you’re writing for an audience, everyone always thinks that you need to be a little more academic to sound smarter, and I think that’s a big mistake. I think you’ve got to write it in a way that a user can easily engage with. 

What I learned about the business writing the book was how much I still need to get right! There are so many parts where I can see there’s some squeaky wheels that I need to fix.

You mentioned you’re thinking about writing a second book. What’s it going to be about and how will it be different from what you’ve done before?

I’m finding a lot of founders who either have a service business or have a business that’s reasonably complex are really struggling to articulate their value in simple terms. So what I’ve done is I’ve been working on a very simple canvas, like a framework, and I’ve tested this about 200 times since the start of Covid. Around 60 of these ideation sessions have been done with founder-led businesses and in that I’ve seen the questions that resonate with founders and which ones that don’t. So what I’ve done is I’ve fine-tuned my framework around that, and I’ve actually gone, hang on, there’s another book here. This is a real challenge where founders are struggling to get their story straight.

So I’m going to do the same thing again. I’m going to make it 30 minutes long, make it illustrated and use graphics and diagrams, but my purpose with that is to take it a step further.  I actually then want to turn it into a course that I can teach others because, I can see the coffee book was really enjoyed and I think there’s still merits in turning that into a course, but I think with this, there is a real need.

To close, where do you see yourself in five years? What do you think you’ll be doing or working on?

For me, I’m very passionate about teaching up-and-coming businesses, and I think I want to work less on my business and more on other people’s businesses with them. If I can get this right, help businesses get their story straight and turn it into something I can teach others, it means I can make it a platform business of sorts. Then I can actually go around helping others get their story straight. At the moment, I think so many business owners just get totally stressed out running their businesses and I think a lot of that has got to do with the founder being in the middle of the business, and often they don’t know how to move out of that. So if I can play a small part in that, I would definitely enjoy being on that journey. It would fulfill a big purpose need in me, I think.

This article forms part of a discussion conducted between Garth Jemmett and Experience Haus Creative Director, Amit Patel on the Experience Haus podcast, ‘A Conversation About Design’. In this podcast, we explore the fascinating world of design featuring insightful conversations with some of the brightest minds and inspiring individuals who are making waves in the industry. 

Listen to the full interview with Garth here.

One of the most common questions we get asked at Experience Haus is how to go about building your portfolio – what tools can you use to build it; what exactly should be included; how to personalise your portfolio for different roles.

In this article we will go through our top tips and tricks for getting started with your portfolio, and how to make it stand out from others.

What is a portfolio?

Portfolios are a presentation of your work. It showcases your abilities, your features and showcases these through the projects you have worked on. It’s predominantly aimed at potential employers or clients, so it’s important to show the skills these people are looking for.

There are four key things employers or clients are looking for on your portfolios, when deciding whether to hire you:

1. Your skills and capabilities – you need to show what you are capable of doing: what skills you have mastered, which you use often and which ones you are developing. Remember, there is nothing wrong with saying you are a beginner in something as it is still a skill you are acquiring.
2. Your attitude – your portfolio should represent you and reflect your personality. Employers are interested to see how you approach projects, so you could add a ‘Lessons learned’ section where you reflect on how a project went.
3. Your experience – You don’t need to have lots of experience, but more about knowing what your experience is. Highlight the versatility of your experience: this could be working within different industries, working with different clients, using a variety of design tools and using a variety of skills. All of this experience will show both your technical and soft skills.
4. Team fit – how can you show that you add value to a business? If you know what department you’re applying to, take a look at the current team’s LinkedIn pages and see what gaps there may be and what you can add.

Why is it important to build a portfolio?

As mentioned above, portfolios are mainly aimed at potential clients or employers, but who specifically will be looking at your portfolio?

• Hiring managers
• Recruiters
• UX leads
• Project leads
• Startup founders
• Other designers

It’s always important to keep these people in mind as your target audience – what value can you add to these teams, projects etc?

What to include in your portfolio?

1. Your work – this should include case studies with a link to a working prototype if possible
2. About section and contact information – you want people to get in touch! 
3. Your design process and tools used – it’s not just about showing the end product you produced, but the journey you took to get there.
4. Something personal (optional) – you can add something like a reading list, music playlist to show a bit of your personality, but don’t let it overwhelm your portfolio as ultimately, the main focus should be your work.

Tools to Create Your Portfolio 

 Popular tools:

• Squarespace
• Framer
• Webflow
• Notion

Other options:

• Wix
• Carbonmade
• Figma
• Medium
• WordPress
• Bespoke (HTML/CSS/Javascript)

Make sure you also keep a PDF version of your portfolio as well. You might find some employers just ask for a PDF version, as opposed to digital. When exporting your PDF version, keep the following in mind:

1. Check the size of the file – sending 10MB attachments is never a good idea!
2. Low size but no low res – make sure any photos or images you include are high resolution 
3. Check all links work! It’s good to include links in the ‘Contact me’ section or for your ‘website’ but double check they work and are in the correct colour 

Components of a good portfolio

• Include a captivating ‘About’ page – This is the start of your portfolio where you’re going to catch attention. 
• Start with the images –  If a hiring manager is sifting through loads of applications, you need to be able to catch their eye, and the way to do this is visually. Images communicate more effectively than words alone so by including appealing images, people are going to stop and take a look. 
• Use clear descriptions to go with your images but don’t overwhelm your portfolio with text
• Make sure you have a strong call to action. You’re not just showing a potential employer your portfolio, you want them to contact you too. Make sure the call to action is clear, accessible and easily readable. 
• When showing data, try to present these visually using engaging infographics or charts. 
• Make sure it’s user-friendly, easy to navigate and understand.

Showcasing your projects

A portfolio shouldn’t be a long never-ending scroll layout so having a cover page of key projects is a good option to have. You can either list your projects chronologically, or better yet, include your stronger projects towards the top. Make sure these projects are eye-catching but also consistent. 

How to present your portfolio for different roles

Not every product design, UX design, UI design portfolio will be presented in the same way. If you are applying for a UX or Product role, your case study should all be about how a user interacts with a product. For UI design roles, your focus should be on the look and feel of the product itself. You can show other things as well but this should be the main focus as you want to highlight your UI skills.

For a service design case study, you should show the project from start to finish, including the presentation you did to the clients. It’s the entire journey around it. Product Manager case studies should focus on the product’s objectives, features, designs, metrics, and what was done to achieve certain goals.

The main thing to remember when building your portfolio is it’s not about what tool you use or what format you have, the most important thing is getting your portfolio live. Don’t ever think of your portfolio as ‘done’ as you will be adding new projects and editing things as you become more proficient as a designer. The important thing is that the portfolio is live.

Check out some of our alumni’s portfolios below:

• Maggzie
• Jaci
• Blue

Tell us a little about yourself and your current work outside of Experience Haus? 

I’ve just started as the Design Lead at Ffern, after 5 years of working as a Senior Digital Product Designer at AND Digital, an award-winning digital consultancy. At AND I got to work with a huge range of clients, designing interfaces and experiences for them. My last three clients have been a life sciences company that makes specialist DNA sequencers, an electric car subscription startup and a contemporary art gallery group!

Outside of working and teaching design, I love gardening and doing magic tricks (I occasionally work as a magician and perform at weddings and parties!)

Did you have a specific goal you wanted to achieve before you started teaching at Experience Haus? Do you think your time here so far has kept you on the right track?

My main goal has been to have fun and help people feel more confident when using Figma. I like to think that I’ve managed to stay on track!

What is your teaching philosophy?

I’ve got three parts to this.

Part 1: you only learn by doing so it’s important to get stuck in straight away. Design theory and principles can come alter after we’ve covered how to make something.

Part 2: you remember and retain information if you have fun while learning! (Hence the cheesy pop music that’s playing anytime anyone enters my classroom!)

Part 3 (this one’s a cliché): There are no silly questions. My teaching classroom is a safe space for people to cock up and forget things as many times as they need.

What do you enjoy most about teaching at Experience Haus?

Meeting such a variety of people. Because I teach UI with Figma classes a lot of my students have come from different disciplines, both in and out of design. I’ve taught Figma to architects, accountants, animators…and often learn tons from each student while doing so. 

Between 26th February and 1st March, students at the University of Westminster took part in a series of on-campus workshops to help them develop primary research skills and understand how their projects can benefit different audiences. 

This annual programme is organised by the  Westminster Enterprise Network, who have invited Experience Haus on a number of occasions to run workshops with students, helping them build on their research knowledge. These workshops consisted of a mixture of in-person and online sessions, focusing on data collection, research methods and actionable insights, as well as facilitating practice focus groups and interviews. 

At the end of the week, students had the opportunity to present their progress back and consider how their projects would work in the real world. All student who completed the programme received a certificate at the end, with those pitching on the last day sharing a £4,000 prize pot between them! 

Summing up the week, Zsofia Kunvari, Enterprise Education Officer at the Westminster Enterprise Network, said: “We took great care and time in organising this programme to maximise students’ experience and the value they can take from it. It was really encouraging to see 19 students pitching at the end of the week, highlighting the incredible potential these projects have and the fact that students really took on board the idea that their research carries value beyond the coursework submission deadline.”

Vez completed our 12-week part-time Product Design course in February 2023 and now works as a Senior UX Designer at WeDo Digital.

We caught up with her recently to see how the course helped her achieve her goals and if she has any pearls of wisdom for any budding product designers.

Tell us a bit more about what you were doing before you decided to pivot into design?

was working as a hybrid ui designer/ui developer but wanted to move into a more design-centric role and get some best practice knowledge.

How was training at Experience Haus different from other providers ?

The project you get to work on during the course isn’t like something you can get with anyone else. 

What was the highlight of your course?

I honestly loved the whole experience!

What was the most challenging part of your learning experience?

Probably that I had been using Figma before but not very well, so needed to relearn some workflows. 

What better place to further your design journey than in one of the most exciting and dynamic cities in the world. Whether you’re after exciting design, theatre, art, music or career opportunities, London has it all and more! It’s no wonder so many people choose this city when taking the next step in their careers.

What makes our in-person courses so special is the fact that students are learning inside an inspiring working design agency, as opposed to coming into a sterile school environment. Students who join our in-person courses, especially our full-time UX & UI Career Development Bootcamp, will see first hand how a design agency operates, giving them a glimpse of what could lie in store for them in the next few months!

In this article we will go through our options for in-person learning, and how to pick a course that matches with your own goals.

UX & UI Career Development Bootcamp

Up first, we have our flagship course designed not only to teach you the entire end-to-end design process, but also focuses on portfolio creation, CV writing and interview preparation. During this 12-week course, you will be coming into our studio every day, learning inside a luxury design agency and talking to people who are doing the job day in, day out. Our studio is based in the creative hub of Shoreditch, an area that is renowned for its design community, so you will be surrounded by design inspiration every day.

During this course you will work on three client projects: two two-week projects and a final six-week capstone project where you get the chance to really show off everything you have learned in the past 3 months. These projects are all for different clients, so will show versatility on your portfolio, as well as the ability to work in a design team, as well as owning certain areas of projects.

Product Design (including UX & UI)

Next up we have our longest running, and most popular part-time course: the Product Design (inc UX & UI) course. This course is the perfect blend of product, UX design and UI design giving our students more opportunities to explore different kinds of roles within the design industry, once they’ve graduated from the course.  It is the perfect course for those looking to begin their journey into the design world, as well as those looking to add UX/UI design to their existing skillset.

During the 12 weeks, students will work through the Double Diamond Process whilst applying their learnings on a real client brief. We will start by going through the ux design process, covering user research, conducting user interviews, empathy mapping, creating personas, and more. Around half way through the course we bring Figma into the equation, teaching students how to go from paper prototypes all the way up to high-fidelity prototypes. Students will begin to create their designs for their own projects, doing usability testing and making iterations based on feedback, then finally presenting back to their stakeholder at the end of the course.

UI Design with Figma

This 8-week part-time course is offered both online and in-person. For those students who prefer learning in-person, with the support of an instructor nearby, this is the perfect format for them. Not suited for beginners, this course is designed to take students who have a bit of experience working with Figma to a much more advanced level. 

During this course students will learn visual design theory, user interface design theory, design systems, responsive design, components and more. All of which come together to play an important role in creating successful user interface design outputs. Whilst doing a deep dive into these areas of UI and Figma, students will apply their learnings to a client project that will be worked on as part of a group. This will be presented back to the client at the end of the course, and then students are free to add this as a portfolio piece to talk through in future interviews.

Service Design

Another of our courses that we offer both online and in-person, due to the rising demand within the industry. This is probably the most advanced course we run at Experience Haus and is perfectly suited to those who already have some UX/UI/user research experience. 

We will take students through the service design process from start to finish, discussing everything you need to know when designing a powerful service. Topics covered in this course include design thinking, research preparation, customer experience and service blueprints, which will all be applied to the live client brief students are given at the beginning of the course. This will be a group brief where each student will get the opportunity to act as the service design lead.

Design Leadership

This is the only course we offer that doesn’t have a real client brief to work on as it is solely designed to give students the tools to advance to the next stage of their careers. On this short 6-week part-time course, students are taught the skills needed to become a good leader, how to manage your own team as well as working with others, setting goals and also how to talk about design when sitting in meetings with company executives. 

This is a very workshop-y course designed to give students the confidence to move up the career ladder and into a more senior position.

UX/UI Design One-Week Bootcamps

Finally, for those looking for in-person learning but can’t commit to a 10-12 week course, we regularly run one-week UX/UI Design Bootcamps throughout the year. We have taken all the key areas of our online UX/UI Design course, and condensed it into one-week. Students will still learn the end-to-end design process for designing digital products and get the opportunity to work on a live client brief. The course will just be a more immersive experience, as opposed to a part-time course. 

There are many different course options to explore when it comes to learning design in the City. Whether your goal is to get a new role, upskill or take a one-week course, we have the courses and different formats that can work for you. Get in touch with us today to see which course would work best for you.

 

Experience Haus Creative Director and Founder Amit Patel recently sat down with Kojo Boteng, a multifaceted and award-winning designer and educator currently working as Creative Director at PBS NewsHour on our podcast ‘A Conversation About Design.’

There was so much ground covered in this conversation that we had to split the write-up into two different articles! Here is part two…

Are there any particular experiences or milestones or projects that stand out to you that you look back on and are super proud to have been part of, or feel have shaped you in any way?

When I think about what a successful project looks like, I tend to think about projects where I’ve kind of made a leap or I’ve grown in some way. There have been a few in my time in news that were really great. 

I had been at ITN for a few years and worked with the production arm that would essentially hire themselves out as an agency helping news organisations around the world set up their own rolling news channels. So this is something a lot of people don’t know but I designed the first English speaking 24 hour news network in India! I designed all the graphics and all of the packaging. They were called Headlines Today, and formed part of the Today group. I spent about a month in Delhi working with Indian designers and that was an amazing experience. 

Another notable project was the relaunch of News at 10 on ITV. The opening titles were done by a moving picture company but everything else in terms of  content and branding was solely done by me!

You’ve seen lots of different technologies and approaches in your career. Where do you see certain digital technologies shaping the future of  the space that you’re working in?

Technology is  an interesting one because I’ve seen so much! When I started, we were doing paste up – this involved cutting out dry transfer letters for your headlines and mocking those up ready for a kind of pre press. Since then I’ve used things like Quantel Paintbox when I first started in television, then came Photoshop, After Effects and more! I’m now at the point where I don’t want to learn any more tools! I think the core for me, and I’m still doing it now, the core tool for me actually is a pen and pad, just in terms of getting your ideas down and then finding the right tools for the job. 

The big thing at the moment is the introduction of AI technologies. It’s an interesting moment where things that even on the Paintbox or in Photoshop that I had to do manually, the idea of just having to press a button to remove a background, but then also being able to  extend imagery and do all kinds of stuff is just mind blowing. Nevertheless, what I will say is that I don’t think AI is always going to be a good idea. I’m actually really interested in analog stuff, stuff that can’t come out of machine printmaking and all of those kinds of things, which has a bit more of a texture to it or something that has feeling. I think that’s the problem with the AI stuff, it looks like plastic most of the time – it doesn’t really have much of a soul. 

You’re an adjunct professor at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering teaching UX. What are some of the areas you have found challenging to deliver to students or have enjoyed delivering to students?

My journey in teaching actually started when I moved to Washington.  I met the chair at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. So I taught a couple classes there, but then the pandemic happened and then we kind of shifted to the half the semester online and then commuting to Baltimore once the pandemic was over just wasn’t going to work. Then one of my friends who teaches at NYU asked if I wanted to teach a class. As we were still in the pandemic, what I found really challenging at the time was just teaching remotely! In these types of classes you have sticky notes, you can put things on the wall, you can see what people are doing. The whole point of user experience is about people connecting and to have a technology separate you, it just made everything a little bit more challenging, even in terms of how the students interacted with me! Some people just wouldn’t turn their cameras on so I didn’t even know what all my students looked like! 

What was good, however, was the amount of access students had to me. Whenever I set them homework, I’d let them know if they had questions, they could message me on Slack and I would respond pretty quickly. I’m also having to change my own style in order to make all students feel comfortable. I’m 6 foot 2 and have a deep voice so to young students just starting out, this can feel quite intimidating. You learn to adapt to the students’ needs. This is actually helping me to grow, not just as a creative director, but as a human being as well, connecting with different folks from different places and learning from them. I think that’s one of the more rewarding things about giving back in that way.

How long has Create Community been running? What are you trying to accomplish with it?

Create was an idea I came up with when I first got to DC. In London there were plenty of meetup opportunities where you’d go meet new people, network, have some drinks and it was just a very relaxed atmosphere. In DC these meetups were very transactional. I’d meet someone who told me what he did, asked me what I did, gave me his business card and walked off. There was no further conversation. So coming from London where it’s a lot more diverse and it can be a little bit more hip, I wanted to create an event which was around design and creativity, but then that was a little bit social. The other thing I’ll add is that I also use it as a vehicle to meet more people because I didn’t know a lot of people at that time! 

I had previous experience with event planning so I figured that I could use those skills that I learned to create my own thing. So Create essentially is just an opportunity for people to come together. It’s a speaker series (but soon to be a podcast!) where I’m interacting with like-minded people, and learning about their process and their design work, their history, all of that kind of stuff, and sharing it with people. And it’s not just about design! I know people from all over: DJs, producers, artists, graphic designers, furniture makers, curators. I want to create a space where all of these creatives can connect and talk and we can learn about their work. 

What does 2024 look like for you? Are there any particular challenges that you’re taking on or anything that you’re looking to achieve this year?

I don’t normally make resolutions, but instead have a phrase or mantra that will carry me through the year, and this year the two topics that keep coming up are freedom and connectivity. At the moment most of my year is pretty much mapped out, which is kind of problematic for me because it doesn’t really leave much room for growth. But one of the things I want to be doing is drawing more. So for Christmas, my family bought me an amazing art set with watercolours, pencils and lots of art materials so I could focus a bit more on creating art. 

I also want to launch my own podcast this year which is nearly ready to go. I also realised that although I read a lot of articles, I don’t actually read books, so that is something I’m going to aim to do more of. In conclusion, I’m thinking about ways in which I can switch off from the day-to-day stuff and do other creative endeavours that will hopefully fuel the work that I’m doing day-to-day.

This article forms part of a discussion conducted between Kojo Boteng and Experience Haus Creative Director, Amit Patel on the Experience Haus podcast, ‘A Conversation About Design’. In this podcast, we explore the fascinating world of design featuring insightful conversations with some of the brightest minds and inspiring individuals who are making waves in the industry. 

Listen to the full interview with Kojo here.

Tell us a little about yourself and your current work outside of Experience Haus? 

I am a designer and researcher based in London. I believe the secret behind crafting meaningful experiences is a mix of three key ingredients – having the patience to explore the unknown, be ruthlessly action-driven and a team player. On weekends you may find me in a random coffee shop practicing my calligraphy skills. In the past I have worked with clients across various sectors such as finance, aviation, cloud computing, automobile and e-commerce.

Did you have a specific goal you wanted to achieve before you started teaching at Experience Haus? Do you think your time here so far has kept you on the right track?

One of the most important things for me personally is to give back to the community that has given me so much. And I think teaching people is one of the best ways to do it. I am always eager to learn something new and what better place than a classroom. For the second part, I’m not sure if there is a right or wrong track, I’m happy as long as I’m doing what I love!

What is your teaching philosophy?

There are three key qualities that my lectures focus on – having the patience to explore the unknown, be ruthlessly action-driven and be a good team player. Based on my personal experience these qualities are core for any designer.

What do you enjoy most about teaching at Experience Haus?

One of the most important things in design is to work with real people on real problems and Experience Haus embeds this quite well in their courses as we are always working on live client briefs where students can apply what they have learned in real time.

Kojo Boteng is a multifaceted and award-winning designer and educator, and currently sits as the Creative Director at PBS NewsHour. 

Originally from South London but now living in Washington, DC, he was formerly creative director at ITN and ITV News in the UK and has also worked with a wide range of media projects for Capital One, Complex Media, NPG Group, BBC, ITV and Universal Music. He’s currently an adjunct professor and mentor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, where he teaches UX design. He is also the founder of Create Community, a series of initiatives that elevate the work of Black and underrepresented designers, artists, and creatives. His work has been featured in the Design Week, Creative Review, The Guardian, The Times, and The Telegraph here in the UK.

In this episode of A Conversation About Design, we go beyond the surface as we explore the mindset, challenges and successes that have defined Kojo’s impressive career. 

Can you tell us a bit more about your work at PBS NewsHour?

“I’ve been at PBS NewsHour for about three and a half years, having joined during the pandemic. For those who don’t know, PBS in the United States is public broadcasting. So kind of similar to the UK, although the funding model is a little bit different, and what I work on is the News Hour, which is a daily news bulletin of the day, but what’s slightly different about the news hour because of the way it’s funded, we can go into a lot more detail on in-depth stories and topics whether that’s social justice, criminal justice, the environment etc. as well as whatever the big news story of the day is, whether it’s the election, the Israel Hamas war, that sort of thing. 

In my role I’m managing a small team of designers who produce graphics for the program. Now, when most people think of television graphics, they always think it’s the little name strap that comes up. That’s part of it, but we’re also essentially helping journalists and correspondence producers to visualise their stories. So, a good example might be when the Alaska Airlines door flew off, we might be asked to produce a map of what time the flight took off, when the incident happened, where it was rooted to, what time it landed and how many people might be injured. This is the kind of story that’s very difficult to tell with just words when there’s no picture. So that’s when a graphics person comes in to work with the journalist to figure out what are the facts and how can we visualise that so people at home can understand what’s happening.”

What do you think your work is going to look like later on this year, especially going into election year?

“Elections are like the bread and butter of what a news organisation does. It’s usually the time when the most money gets spent because you have a lot of data to show. Big organisations tend to want all the bells and whistles:  video walls, touchscreens and all that kind of stuff. So that project is a very big one for us, and always has been since I started my career in the news. 

Another project that we’re working on at the moment is a rebrand of the whole show. We’re working with an outside agency on the design of the logo and thinking about our branding architecture and how that fits with PBS and all that kind of stuff. We need to think about tone of voice, how are we presenting ourselves, how do we continue to engage audiences on platforms like YouTube and TikTok and what role design and storytelling play in that.” 

How does this work compare to what you were doing at ITN, ITV News, and BBC?

“I started at ITN in 1998 and it was my first job outside of college. I graduated with my MA in documentary filmmaking having already got an undergrad in graphic design. I ended up getting the job at ITN and worked my way up the ranks to Creative Director. 

My role and journey in news is very much the foundation of what I have done. The skills that I learned in terms of communication, just how to work with diverse teams, whether it’s with directors, producers, camera people, lighting people, studio managers, set designers, etc.  I should also mention that when you work in news it’s super fast so where most designers get brief and maybe have a couple of weeks or a month to complete it, if it’s a big project we sometimes only have about an hour to turn something around! This way of designing makes you think quickly and iterate quickly, which is good, but when you do have longer to work on a project it can be difficult to shift gears and think ‘oh I have more time to work this’.” 

What prompted the move from London to Washington? How did you come about that? Have you had to adapt to different working styles and ethics?

“What prompted the move was my partner as she’s American! It was a chance to see whether the relationship was going to work, and it has as we’ve been married now for five years. 

I’m very much a no risk, very safe type of person, so for me to up-sticks after so many years of living and working in London was in hindsight, quite a big move…and it wasn’t easy! It’s very, very challenging moving to a different country. I did know a few people but I certainly didn’t have the massive friendship network like I had in London. So that was a challenge, that actually still continues to this day in terms of creating good friendships, as well as good working relationships. 

So far, my experience of working in America has been interesting as the culture is so different. It might just be a DC thing, but people are more uptight here!  It could also be to do with the climate but you definitely couldn’t get away with some of the things you can say and do in the UK. I would say that work is one of the great things about the States because there are so many opportunities, which I think also has to do with the can-do attitude that Americans have. There’s better support, both financial and mentorship and those kinds of things. So I would say that it’s pretty much a country of entrepreneurs, whereas in London I know so many people who are talented that are probably not going to go anywhere, but here given its scale, there’s a lot of opportunities if you find the right path.”

Stay tuned for Part 2…

This article forms part of a discussion conducted between Kojo Boteng and Experience Haus Creative Director, Amit Patel on the Experience Haus podcast, ‘A Conversation About Design’. In this podcast, we explore the fascinating world of design featuring insightful conversations with some of the brightest minds and inspiring individuals who are making waves in the industry. 

Listen to the full interview with Kojo here.

With the amount of courses now available to learn UX/UI design, it’s hard to know which is the right one for you. Online, pre-recorded, in-person, hybrid….the possibilities are endless! 

There are clear benefits to each option depending on what your goals for the future are. For example, if you are looking to learn the basics simply to gain knowledge, then pre-recorded might be the best option for you. In this article we explore the pros and cons of each type of course format for advancing your career into UX/UI design. 

The flexibility of online learning

One of the biggest positives online learning can offer is the opportunity to study from wherever in the world. With the advancement of collaborative tools like Zoom and Figma, you no longer need to be in the same room in order to learn a new skill or work together on a project. If you are someone who travels a lot for work, online learning could be a great option for you as you can still dial into class, no matter where you are. 

In today’s post-pandemic climate, there has been a large shift towards hybrid and even fully remote working. For those people spending more time working from home, they might not want to venture into a training school, but would rather spend the time learning from their own environment. Nevertheless, this can also be a downside of online learning. When spending the day working from home, you might find extra hours learning on Zoom a chore and so don’t commit yourself to your learning as much as you should. It is easier to become less accountable when you know you don’t have to go into a classroom and are only joining over Zoom. We have seen this happen with some of our students at Experience Haus and can be hard when you see a student’s drive to break into this industry has gone. 

This lack of accountability is something students can also find with pre-recorded learning. When not having to answer to an instructor or don’t have classmates that rely on you, it is easy to become more relaxed with this type of learning. Although the pros of this type of learning include the flexibility it offers, especially if you’re someone who doesn’t have a lot of free time, it isn’t always the best type of learning if you’re looking to start a career in this industry. When pivoting into something new, you are bound to have lots of questions about the different methods and tools you will need to know, but a pre-recorded learning style can’t offer this immediate assistance. You might have someone you can get in touch with, but your questions won’t be answered as quickly as they would be in an in-person or live online class. 

At Experience Haus, one of our most popular courses is our part-time online UX/UI Design course. During the course of 10 weeks you will learn the entire end-to-end design process used for designing digital products, all while working on a live client brief as part of a small design team. We think this course is really the best option for online learning as all the classes are live, but we still record the sessions so you can watch them back even after the course has finished. We strive to find the balance between teaching the theory to students, as well as running workshops that allow students to immediately apply what they have learned, while also being able to ask the instructor questions, if anything is unclear. Students also get the chance to work as part of a team, giving them an insight into how design teams work together in actual companies and agencies. 

We have had students from completely different backgrounds join this course, from graphic designers, to marketing executives, to chefs! Whether a student is refreshing their skills or learning from the beginning, this course has benefits for everyone.  

Immerse Yourself In the Industry with In-Person Learning

In-person learning is something we are very passionate about at Experience Haus. Despite offering a number of online courses that allow anyone to join, we cannot stress enough the importance of in-person learning when it comes to pivoting into a new career or industry. 

As mentioned above, some students find they are less accountable when it comes to online learning, whereas in an in-person course, they feel the need to show up and be present in the classroom. Speaking to students who have then joined our in-person Product Design course, this need for accountability is the one factor that has led them to choose an in-person course over an online one. 

Another benefit of in-person teaching is that typically the class sizes are smaller for physical classes. This means students have more opportunities to ask questions and have discussions with their classmates, as well as their instructor. We only take a maximum of 8 students on our in-person part-time course, and 10 students on our full-time bootcamp to give students the best possible learning experience and more opportunities to really advance their learning.  

We have two in-person UX/UI design courses that students can choose from to help advance their careers. For those who are still working full-time, we have our part-time Product Design (inc UX & UI) course, and for those who are looking to fully immerse themselves in the industry and want to get a new role within a few months, we have our full-time UX & UI Career Development Bootcamp. Both courses are great options and proof that students can join from any background, and still land a role within the UX/UI industry. Students who have the time to join our full-time bootcamp get the opportunity to work on 3 real client projects, and have further sessions on writing case studies, interview preparation and other career development sessions. This means that at the end of the 3 months, they have a portfolio of case studies that they can immediately start sending out to recruiters and hiring managers. This is the best course for students looking to jump into the industry right away. Students on our part-time Product Design course will still learn the theory and get the opportunity to work on a live client project, they will only miss out on the career development techniques. 

There are benefits to any type of learning. Choosing the right option for you depends on what you want to get out of the course and what your goals are for the future. At Experience Haus we have course options to suit everyone’s learning wants and needs.

Eve completed our UX & UI Career Development Bootcamp in February 2023 and has recently landed a role as UX Designer at Sage.

We caught up with her recently to see how the course helped her achieve her goals and if she has any pearls of wisdom for any budding product designers.

Tell us a bit more about what you were doing before you decided to pivot into design?

I was working doing a lot of research at UCL.

How was training at Experience Haus different from other providers ?

I loved the fact it was in-person teaching so that you get exposure to all the brilliant minds at Experience Haus and the real client briefs get you prepared for job hunting.

What was the highlight of your course?

My instructor Joe, my course mates and everyone at Experience Haus. 

What was the most challenging part of your learning experience?

Time pressure but pace over perfection might be the way to go!