Instructor Profile: Iva Kroell
Tell us a little about yourself and your current work outside of Experience Haus?
With over 2 decades of experience, my career path has taken the form of a very winding road. It reads a bit like a Grimm fairytale in some parts!
I started out, in my early career, as a graphic designer and art director at some top agencies in South Africa (Lowe Bull Truth and Tequila/TBWA) before moving to the East Coast and starting my own boutique design agency – King Kroell Design.
I was co-founder and creative director for over 10 years before immigrating to London and had the pleasure of working across a variety of sectors from finance, travel & tourism, hospitality, luxury beauty to fashion. I found myself naturally drawn to digital products and thus began my launch into product design.
On entering the UK market, I worked as a Senior Product Designer and Creative Lead for companies in the data viz, consulting and finance space before finding myself, once again, working for myself in August 2023 as a freelancer.
I currently offer a 360 design service from branding, design, creative direction and product design (UX/UI) and work directly with some fantastic clients such as Jon Baines Tours, Main Set, the Moroccan Government, Privacy Culture and Kenneth Green & Assoc.
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?
I have always loved teaching and passing along my knowledge to empower others. My goal, whenever I start something, is to deliver the best service I can, no matter what I do.
As a freelancer, it is also quite important for me to put myself out there and network with companies and build a base of people to work with – it can be a lonely space! Being relatively new to the UK freelance market (and especially over the past few years with lockdown and tech retrenchments) this has proven to be quite tricky in a very saturated freelance market.
Being part of Experience Haus has helped me to join ranks with a company that shares the same values and visions that I subscribe to and to start connecting with, and inspiring others.
What is your teaching philosophy?
I believe that learning is most effective when we can physically do things and put it into practice and have the freedom to do that and ask questions.
I love the practical side of how theory gets implemented and enjoy showing processes to encourage that learning.
I also enjoy sharing new findings and technology to encourage and grow areas of interest.
What do you enjoy most about teaching at Experience Haus?
I think the course material is fantastic and thorough. I enjoy building my experience into the decks and structure.
I enjoy seeing how the projects take shap and how students become more confident as they progress through the course and deliver really good work.
How would you describe your dream classroom?
I love a collaborative group where people enjoy getting involved in the conversation and sharing their thoughts, ideas and processes. It brings a real energy to the classroom and gets everyone excited.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
This is a hard question for me!
I constantly want to be learning new things and with the rate that tech is expanding and all the new software and tools (AI most recently) out there changing constantly, who knows where this path will take me.
My dreams include being a successful entrepreneur and to build a healthy client base to continue freelancing or to plug into a dynamic company where I can add real value. Being an education seems to come naturally to me and I thoroughly enjoy it so this may be a path I specialise in too!
How do you keep up to date with your industry and the courses you teach?
I love research and reading which naturally lends itself to what’s happening in the product world. I subscribe to tech & product channels to keep learning and for anything interesting that comes up!
I enjoy attending events like UX conferences and networking at places with other product people. Many Hands is a great place to do this and to have a fun collaborative evening.
Most importantly, I keep learning! I recently did an AI course through IBM on how to implement AI in the product design process. AI is something that fascinated me and I wanted to learn how best to adopt the practices into my work and team (and not just use the AI tools!)
