“For a creative idea to live it can’t always just be creative for creative’s sake. It needs to make business sense so that it can have staying power.” - IDEO

In a nutshell

I grew up as a goody two shoes in a Chinese family. But the occasional influence of my politically aggressive father led me, at the tender age of 21, to consider casting aside a more traditional, practical path and instead embracing my inner free spirit. In the end, I decided to take the more ambiguous route and explore what the world has to offer.

It was thus, flying against the earth’s rotation, I eventually landed in the Pacific Northwest to begin my new journey. Here I began my Masters program and kickstarted my design career.

2012-2016 Wuhan, China

(Now everyone knows my city)

I spent my undergraduate life in Wuhan University, majored in Digital Publishing, where I’ve learned software skills and gained knowledge of digital media.

While in school, a few friends and I formed a small team to work on our school’s website refresh. That should be counted as my first design project that went live.

I also took an internship as a reporter and writer for an online publisher focussing on startup and technology news.

2016 - Present: Vancouver, Canada

After that, I wanted to enhance my learnings about the digital industry and improve my practical skills. So I chose the Master of Digital Media program, a project-based program at the Centre for Digital Media, jointly owned by UBC, SFU, Emily Carr and BCIT. Here I've developed my design knowledge systematically, from both well structured lectures and more importantly, hands on projects.

In this program, we had cohorts with different backgrounds from 19 countries, which gave me an opportunity to learn a lot of things from different people. I had studied and practiced Agile methodologies and human-centred design process . Till this day, Centre for Digital Media still has great impact on my thinking and work.

I started my first job in Canada in 2017. It was a real estate startup, where I was the sole designer on the team. I had the chance to plan design activities and design the product from the ground up. We iterated quickly and launched the MVP within 3 months, which soon received great traffic and registration conversion rate.

Seeking exposures to different industries and projects, I moved on to a digital agency. Working at a faster pace and juggling multiple projects came naturally to me and I enjoyed adapting my work style to meet different requirements and scope. Here, my presentation skills has also increased hugely thanks to the frequent design presentation with the design team, project managers, business analysts, developers, and the clients.

The journey continues…

You can also connect with me on LinkedIn or Dribbble or drop me an email at waylve@gmail.com.