Alumni Success Stories

Alumni Information
School: LaSalle College Vancouver
Grad Year: 2012
Program of Study: Bachelor of Applied Design in Graphic Design
Degree: Bachelor

Employment/Professional Information
Company Name: Atimi Software
Location: Vancouver
Job Title: Lead UX/UI Designer - Product Design Team
Primary Responsibilities: Crafting compelling mobile experiences.

Describe a Typical Work Day:

I’ll grab a coffee, sort my emails and make a list of all the tasks.

What accomplishment(s) are you most proud of?

I am most proud of the day-to-day accomplishments that move me closer to my goals as a designer and a person. The little victories every day that push me to work harder, learn more, and grow. Those are the things that bear greatness in time.

What are your creative inspirations or influences? Who are your heroes?

1. Elon Musk, founder of Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, and Solarcity;
2. Shepard Fairey, street artist, founder of OBEY, and designer of Obama HOPE poster;
3. Maynard James Keenan, singer of Tool and Wine Maker; 4) My grandfather, Robert Boechler, a cowboy and entrepreneur.

What do you enjoy the most about your career?

The opportunity to come up with ideas for a living. Working with big brands or someone with a dream for an app and making that a reality. Working in an agency also allows for an amazing shift in perspectives, objectives, and demographics from one project to the next: always learning.

How did your education at LaSalle College Vancouver help prepare you for your career?

More than anything else, my education at LaSalle College Vancouver taught me to think like a designer and to solve problems like a designer. To take a problem, apply a strategic process, and derive an answer that is engaging and exciting to the recipient. LaSalle College Vancouver taught me how to take a message and craft it into a visual story for the listener.

What advice do you have for people beginning their careers in your profession?

Start doing freelance today. 85% of design work is dealing with your clients and managing projects. Design is an industry and to do well, you must know business. Find little jobs on Craigslist, volunteer, intern, do anything that puts you in a room with a real client with real expectations on real deadlines. The more you do this, the more prepared you will be. Also read. Read more than anyone.

Your profession is constantly evolving, from the technology you use to new career opportunities that didn’t exist five years ago. What trends do you see on the horizon that will affect how you do your job or your profession at-large?

I currently have the amazing opportunity to work with a company engaged in the leading edge of mobile app design and this has taught me a great deal about where that industry is heading. In the next decade, we can expect to see micro or wearable sensor enabled hardware to become a major industry as well as mobile apps paired with hardware making big changes in the world of health care.

In tandem with these advances will be the inevitable expansion of software data aggregation and distribution industries and bespoke hardware.