We, as the Designer Interviews ("DI") had the distinct pleasure and opportunity to interview award-winning, most creative and innovative Ihor Shadko ("IS").

Ihor Shadko has been working as a user interaction designer for more than 7 years, during this time he elaborated considerable amount of projects from small mobile apps to sophisticated dashboards (B2B/B2C) wich are used by millions. His works span a wide range of society needs: in mobile banking, restaurant sphere, document-turnover, law, the entertainment industry, and dating. He dedicates himself to helping businesses solve design problems bring their ideas to life through functional and appealing designs.

Ihor Shadko Designs

We are pleased to share with you original and innovative design work by Ihor Shadko.

Designer Interview of Ihor Shadko:

DI: Could you please tell us more about your art and design background? What made you become an artist/designer? Have you always wanted to be a designer?

IS : My mother is an architect, and I used to draw every time a blank piece of paper appeared at home. In my youth, I saw terrible examples of advertising and design surrounding me in my small city so I decided to fix this because I was sure I can do better. To bring people joy and harmony, through my designs. Already as long as 7 years as I have started to work on in digital design sphere (I came from the print industry as many my colleges) and continue to bring business ideas into life in an efficient and elegant way.

DI: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?

IS : I work in Ukrainian IT company which specializing in design and development, and also with different product companies on a freelance basis.

DI: What is "design" for you?

IS : First of all, it is emotion. Design it is mean of achieving a result by people, design it's the biggest part of my life. It is the smell of the fresh coffee in the morning, slick metal surface, symmetry, and asymmetry. Words, colors, and sounds.

DI: What kinds of works do you like designing most?

IS : I adore mobile apps because most of the content is consumed through mobile devices. Also, I'm interested in wearable electronics, virtual reality, and any interfaces from the tangible or the digital world.

DI: What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?

IS : I guess I won't be original if I choose the Dieter Rams works. He is an indisputable genius of the 20th century, whose 10 rules of the good design will influence the nest generation of designers, as well. Also, I like Gleb Kuznetsov's works whose approach in mobile design seems to me fresh and innovative.

DI: What was the first thing you designed for a company?

IS : I suppose it was an e-commerce website for an automobile plant. Surprisingly, after 7 years it is still in work but definitely needs to be improved.

DI: What is your favorite material / platform / technology?

IS : I love meaningful animation that nowadays helps significantly improve user experience if do not abuse it. Regarding platforms and technologies, I do not have any particular preference. Technologies are going to change, but the good design, unlikely.

DI: When do you feel the most creative?

IS : When I see that I'm solving a real problem of real people around me.

DI: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?

IS : Definitely marketing, and user research understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations through. Also, user testing during an implementation process.

DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?

IS : I feel immersed and cheerful during the developing process, even when I'm getting tired. I adore my work.

DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?

IS : I definitely feel proud when I solved someone's issue and people use my products.

DI: What makes a design successful?

IS : Keeping your user's needs over anything else. Solving of a real problem, or providing a better service than existing, and warm care on people who chose or might choose your product.

DI: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?

IS : An ability to perform a task, easily and quickly through a certain interface.

DI: From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?

IS : To bring the harmony to people into this busy and running ahead world.

DI: How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?

IS : Well, taking into account that the most aspects related to the user interface will be automated by the artificial intelligence, the main task for designers in the foreseeable future is to analyze data and to adjust work between machines and humans.

DI: When was your last exhibition and where was it? And when do you want to hold your next exhibition?

IS : The best exhibition for me is to see in a bus a person using my product and getting positive emotions.

DI: Where does the design inspiration for your works come from? How do you feed your creativity? What are your sources of inspirations?

IS : I watch a diverse bunch, of creative podcasts with an inspiration from different design fields, not being limited by only user interaction. It might be https://muz.li/ , https://dribbble.com/, https://www.behance.net/ , https://medium.com/ etc.

DI: How would you describe your design style? What made you explore more this style and what are the main characteristics of your style? What's your approach to design?

IS : I put an accent on simplicity and convenience. Nowadays it's impossible to navigate through some websites and they still win some awards due to the "wow effect" but people usually have no time to figure out how it works, they live their busy life. So clean and simple design is a paramount task for me.

DI: Where do you live? Do you feel the cultural heritage of your country affects your designs? What are the pros and cons during designing as a result of living in your country?

IS : I live in Ukraine, and obviously, my cultural heritage and national mentality have some small influence on my work. But I often travel and see the world from different sides, work with foreign customers and study a future market. Thus I would not say that my roots can have some other influence on me besides a positive.

DI: How do you work with companies?

IS : I immerse myself in a task completely, study the culture which stands behind a company. Research its' users, and competitors. It's very important to evaluate everything before the first pixel drops into Sketch, or the first line of code meets Github.

DI: What are your suggestions to companies for working with a designer? How can companies select a good designer?

IS : Well, it depends on the size of a company, its location, and allocated on design funds. It's good if it's possible to find a good designer nearby, if no it takes some time to understand how a freelance designer suit to your business. I'm currently writing an article on this topic.

DI: Can you talk a little about your design process?

IS : If briefly there are: 1. Getting of a technical task and research. 2. Wireframing and prototyping. 3. Preliminary testing. 4. Preparation of mockups for development. 5. Testing of a real product.

DI: What are 5 of your favorite design items at home?

IS : 1. Pencil 2. Paper. 3. Notepad. 4. Imac 5. Flovers in a pot.

DI: Can you describe a day in your life?

IS : 1. Early morning. Bicycle journey to my office. 2. Morning meeting. 3. Work on a set of sprint tasks. 4. Short ride around the district. 5. Learning and reading of news.

DI: Could you please share some pearls of wisdom for young designers? What are your suggestions to young, up and coming designers?

IS : Yes. Don't jump too much ahead. Being young I had a bad habit do not finish affairs completely. Fortunately, I have got rid of it a long time ago. So, tips: 1. Be consistent. 2. pay attention to details. 3. Work on one task at one time. 4. learn permanently. 5. Do not forget to have fun.

DI: From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?

IS : Positive side - you're changing the world. Negative side, sometimes due to the creative process you're getting yourself exhausted. In this case, take a vacation, go somewhere far ago. Explore a new culture.

DI: What is your "golden rule" in design?

IS : Do not do a design for designing, do it for people.

DI: What skills are most important for a designer?

IS : Being curious, public, keep deadlines, learn new constantly.

DI: Which tools do you use during design? What is inside your toolbox? Such as software, application, hardware, books, sources of inspiration etc.?

IS : Oh, there are an enormous amount of them. Some of them I already counted. The most useful tools currently are Sketch, Zeplin, Flinto, Brackets, After effect, Photoshop, Invision.

DI: Designing can sometimes be a really time consuming task, how do you manage your time?

IS : Yes, it's true. I work with a timer on my phone to give my eyes and mind some rest

DI: How long does it take to design an object from beginning to end?

IS : It's a very vague question. Sure, it depends on a complexity and volume of a particular project. I guess, from 1 month, to even several years.

DI: What is the most frequently asked question to you, as a designer?

IS : It's fun. Probably, people start to ask me to explain some terms such as UX, GUI, wireframe, etc.

DI: What was your most important job experience?

IS : It is 1.5 years project - document turnover dashboard, for a huge metal holding company. It was very challenging, despite a couple of designers working on it.

DI: Who are some of your clients?

IS : VISA, DataGroup, Unison bank, KAZ Minerals, Mycelium, Unitel and many others. Mostly those are big enterprise companies.

DI: What type of design work do you enjoy the most and why?

IS : This one is the most interesting and hard. Forming of a list with user needs, technical and business requirements. It's always challenging. You're like a lawyer who is standing for the rights of all users, business and developers.

DI: What are your future plans? What is next for you?

IS : I'm eager to learn more in the business sphere and open my own startup soon.

DI: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?

IS : I usually do design on my own, but sometimes short terms or difficulties require work of a team, so this is also always an interesting experience. One plus, you can always share and absorb knowledge.

DI: Do you have any works-in-progress being designed that you would like to talk about?

IS : Yes, sure, but unfortunately, it is still too early to speak about this exciting project.

DI: How can people contact you?

IS : I'm pretty social. So you can find me everywhere. The easiest way to write me an email. igor.shadko@gmail.com Or Linkedin. https://www.linkedin.com/in/igorshadko/ Also, I am on Dribbble and Behance https://dribbble.com/Shadko https://www.behance.net/igor_shadko

DI: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?

IS : I hope next time, thank you.