On this episode of the NewyTechPeople Podcast we interview Adriaan Steyn, Product Design Lead at Hide and Seek Digital. Ellen and Adriaan chat about his career to date, his experience studying at University in South Africa, the projects Adriaan is currently working on as well as his passion for making meaningful impact with his work. Hope you enjoy the interview!

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00:00:20:21 – 00:00:40:13
Ellen Bennett
Thank you for joining us for another episode of Digitally Diverse, where we do a deep dive into the careers and career journeys of the movers and shakers in the Australian design and tech industry. So today we are joined by Adrian Steyn, who is the product design lead at Hide and Seek Digital. Thank you so much for joining us.

00:00:40:17 – 00:00:42:04
Adriaan Steyn
Thank you for having me.

00:00:42:07 – 00:00:53:16
Ellen Bennett
Thank you. Well, I would, first of all, like to start off with learning a little bit more about your career and how you got to where you’re at at the moment. Can you give us a brief overview?

00:00:53:19 – 00:01:13:18
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah, no worries. I’m originally from South Africa, so when I finished school, I went on a little bit of an extended gap year, lasted about five years, traveled Asia, Middle East, Europe. One of those times were living in India for a year as well. I then returned to South Africa and started university. I ended up doing a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic design.

00:01:13:20 – 00:01:27:25
Adriaan Steyn
I don’t know if it’s still like that, but back in those days, you kind of in South Africa, you have to kind of fund your own degrees through student loans, but the student loans are like from banks. So it’s not like cakes and stuff where you kind of have to you can only kind of pay it when when you start earning.

00:01:27:28 – 00:01:47:06
Adriaan Steyn
I pay interest from the get go and it obviously kind of increases every every young. So I had to start working basically straight away and in bars and restaurants. I’ve also did some paid internships and lots of paid freelance work and stuff as well. Did a lot of freelance with like flash websites, ended up finishing top of my class.

00:01:47:07 – 00:02:08:19
Adriaan Steyn
I was fortunate to do that. And then I started off my career as a graphic designer for first agency. Some of the work that I’ve done there was above the line, below the line kind of work. Also touch a little bit on Facebook frames. That’s kind of where I got a hint of sort of the digital world and wanted to kind of, you know, explore that space a little bit further.

00:02:08:21 – 00:02:27:14
Adriaan Steyn
Some of the brands that I worked on at that agency was like Nutella, Vespa, South African Breweries, VO5 and trademarked Tresemme. After that, I went to a digital agency for a couple of years as a digital designer. I learned a lot about the medium at that time. Grew a lot. It was a wonderful team, wonderful people as well.

00:02:27:17 – 00:02:47:24
Adriaan Steyn
Very supportive of some of the brands that I worked on was Barclays Bank, Landrover, Russell Hudson, Tobacco. I then managed to move to Ogilvy myself in a little bit of time there. I worked at as a digital director for a couple of years, mainly on the sort of largest account, KFC. There’s some really exciting emerging and experimental tech work and stuff.

00:02:47:26 – 00:03:06:19
Adriaan Steyn
Electronic ink was a massive thing back then, so we were doing a lot of that kind of space and then we even did like a music video with a local rapper there. Also, for the brand to kind of sell some of the product intrinsic of one of the products we were selling, managed to pick a few, pick up a few silverware along the way there as well.

00:03:06:21 – 00:03:35:13
Adriaan Steyn
And then I went a little bit of a short stint at Prospect after some restructuring too. I first started as a digital art director, then went as a creative director, led a team of six designers, some copywriters as well, and some of the brands I worked on was Mikita’s Benz, Honda, Estee Lauder, Hennessy and Belvedere. And then we made a decision, myself and my partner, we wanted to relocate, so we relocated to Australia, Canberra specifically, and I decided to pivot away a little bit from advertising.

00:03:35:13 – 00:04:02:16
Adriaan Steyn
I wanted to kind of not sell stuff to people anymore, like I wanted to kind of make a little bit of more of a meaningful impact through the type of work that I’m doing. So I got an opportunity to work as I use experiences on it for a little bit. It was a massive, massive learning curve, completely new environment, way of working, sort of new activities, insects, etc. And I managed to work on a variety of large complex projects and initiatives and started exploring the product design work world as well.

00:04:02:18 – 00:04:08:06
Adriaan Steyn
So and that’s kind of where it led me to where I’m at at the moment at hide and seek. We have beautiful ideas.

00:04:08:08 – 00:04:30:08
Ellen Bennett
Love that. I think there’s so many people who have a really great foundation in the advertising and agency world and have been able to pivot into more of like a digital space. So yeah, really exciting that you were able to now kind of like marry the two with more of like a digital first agency. But I’d love to hear a little bit more about hide and seek and what you do with them.

00:04:30:09 – 00:04:36:02
Ellen Bennett
Can you kind of like fill us in with like all the problems that you guys are tackling at the moment?

00:04:36:04 – 00:05:06:04
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah. So like you mentioned, I’m a product design lead at hide and seek. I’m responsible for growing and driving a multidisciplinary team of designers across various locations. I collaborate a lot with cross-functional teams, development clients, stakeholders, senior management and so forth. I’m also responsible, so I like to get my hands dirty. So I love to design. And craft is also responsible for also distilling a lot of complex, highly complex issues and translating them into clean, focused product solutions.

00:05:06:07 – 00:05:31:03
Adriaan Steyn
A lot of the work that we do is underpinned by human centered design principles. So it’s really important for us. So Hide and Seek is a leading Australian visual consultancy. We’re mostly based in Australia, but both our clients are not to exist globally, so like I mentioned earlier, across various locations, one of our design is our Malaysia. I want to design this on Canberra and so and Melbourne as well.

00:05:31:06 – 00:05:52:18
Adriaan Steyn
So we design and build scale digital products and the ecosystems that they live in. So generally our clients come to us to when they platforms are reaching the end of life and they need to a little bit of understanding and connecting all the products and touchpoints within their ecosystem. Or they started their journey to launch an app and need to need help to conceive.

00:05:52:20 – 00:06:07:18
Adriaan Steyn
They use experience or identify and map features or to potentially fast track and scale their product to market as well. The common goal, regardless of the product, is generally to transform the product or service to make it more intuitive and user driven experience.

00:06:07:21 – 00:06:15:12
Ellen Bennett
Yeah. Nice. And is there any particular like nations or industries that you guys tend to work with or specialize in?

00:06:15:19 – 00:06:41:28
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah, So so we do on a broad range of products from launch complex website service websites. So we’ve done some work for the Fair Work Commission, the Department of Home Affairs. And then we also sort of do employee platform and digital workspaces. So we did this for the Australian Communication and Media Authority. So ACMA, the Department of Infrastructure as well, as well as digital products used by people globally.

00:06:42:00 – 00:07:06:08
Adriaan Steyn
So some of these all for the work that we’ve done for Lifestyles employee experience platform. So help them with that. Seeing machines which is a camera based company, but they focus on sort of AI fatigue, intervention for truck drivers and stuff. So really meaningful work. And then also a number of other sort of tech startups that we also help them with information and trying to get them into market as well.

00:07:06:10 – 00:07:14:19
Adriaan Steyn
We are a full service consultancy, so we tend to see our projects go from research inception right through to design development and launch to market.

00:07:14:21 – 00:07:35:26
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, cool. And it sounds like there’s, you know, some really, really tech and data heavy projects and companies that you guys work with. So it must. It sounds like you would have to be a lot of research and a lot of really like getting into the weeds of what the problems are. Is that something that you find a lot of satisfaction in, like with the research and that side of things?

00:07:35:29 – 00:07:56:24
Adriaan Steyn
100% it’s more about just trying to understand what what the users need. Without that, you basically just you just doing design for the sake of design. It’s not actually solely solving a problem for us is very important to actually make a meaningful change in a meaningful impact. And the only way to really do that is to actually understand the users.

00:07:57:00 – 00:08:07:25
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, I mean, that sounds really super interesting. And obviously how long do these projects take because they sound like super, super in-depth and intense.

00:08:07:27 – 00:08:25:20
Adriaan Steyn
So some of the I mean, some of the projects can literally last three months and they can last six months and then some of the bigger projects like so some of the government projects sometimes last a year and then we sometimes even have product cycles as well. So we get them obviously from inception all the way through to launch.

00:08:25:23 – 00:08:39:21
Adriaan Steyn
And that’s sometimes depending on the complexity of the product itself as well. Will take can take six months, it can take a year, can take three months. It really depends on the complexity. I think the more complex is obviously the more time you actually need to actually get it to market.

00:08:39:24 – 00:08:59:06
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, for sure. And I feel like that’s that sometimes for me anyway, when I speak to designers about potentially joining an agency or a consultancy, it’s one of the hang ups that they have is like, I don’t want to be chopping and changing projects so much. And I love being able to get into the really like the minor details of a project.

00:08:59:09 – 00:09:16:21
Ellen Bennett
Sounds like you guys have got the best of both worlds, right? You’ve got the variety, but then also you’re able to really get into the finer details. So yeah, sounds super interesting. So what is what’s next on the roadmap for you folks at Hide and Seek? Do you have anything in particular or any particular goals that you’re working on?

00:09:16:24 – 00:09:50:02
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah, the tech space is like really interesting at the moment. It’s always changing. So with Hodinkee being a medium to small to medium size consultancy, I would say yeah. Part of our three big hairy, audacious goal is to become a medium to large organization. And so currently across Australia and New Zealand, the technology ecosystem of organizations are made up of several pillars like digital cloud, infrastructure services, data support operations and delivery among like a few, a lot of organizations are struggling with technical debt.

00:09:50:04 – 00:10:14:18
Adriaan Steyn
So what I mean with technical debt is that many of the tech stack within those organizations are times recommended or implemented in isolation. So they’re trying to solve a specific problem, but they’re doing it without proper research or user tasting or further understanding of how. What are some of the touchpoints that are involved or what might be affected somewhere else in the ecosystem if that is implemented?

00:10:14:21 – 00:10:36:12
Adriaan Steyn
So it causes problems within that sort of broader ecosystems for for our clients and it creates a lot of fragmentation. So and a lot of times what this happens as well is that the cycle just tends to repeat over and over and over, and then that debt, technical debt keeps on increasing. So normally hide and seek is brought in to assist in a particular area of the client ecosystem.

00:10:36:12 – 00:10:59:19
Adriaan Steyn
So normally that has a certain pain points. This could be like one or two systems or product touchpoints with that are integrating with each other. Starting this financial year. So next 12 months. And part of that sort of three journey is to expand our scope, what we what we do for our clients, finding more value and providing guidance and solutions to more more sort of systems and products within an ecosystem.

00:10:59:19 – 00:11:31:08
Adriaan Steyn
So instead of just dealing with like the one and two in isolation of this sort of bigger ecosystem that they’ve got, we’ll do deal with three or four or five or even more products that actually integrate with each other. By doing this, obviously it creates a far more sort of integrated solution that covers a wide area. And that ecosystem, like I mentioned, it has a lot bigger impact for them and for their users as well, obviously, and this obviously reduces technical debt going forward because a bigger part of that ecosystem is working more harmoniously.

00:11:31:10 – 00:11:49:28
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, that’s really cool. Yeah, I think that’s that’s something that I never really thought about before is like having those parts of a product or a platform quite isolated. And sometimes you can, you can really tell that it’s quite clunky and you might go from one aspect to another. It’s like, this feels different. It feels like they’re not meshing well together.

00:11:49:28 – 00:11:56:16
Ellen Bennett
So that’s great. That that’s one of your big, hairy, audacious goals is to like, bring everything together.

00:11:56:19 – 00:12:25:14
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah, hundred percent. Aside from that, it was well, we actually obviously being in tech as well, we love to experiment, obviously with emerging tech in some way, but it generally tends to happen organically like, Hey, this is this new thing, let’s go and explore this a little bit and so forth. But we’ve also recently created a new division within policy called Labs that provides basically us with a more structured and focused sort of time to explore and experiment with emerging tech.

00:12:25:14 – 00:12:46:18
Adriaan Steyn
So currently, obviously it’s always the big thing. Yeah, and obviously we then use this to develop some use cases and see how we can create impact for our clients as well and for the products and ecosystems as well. So yeah, basically, if anyone has even an idea that even if the tech doesn’t exist, we basically can help them with it.

00:12:46:23 – 00:12:49:02
Adriaan Steyn
So there’s a lot of exciting things on the horizon.

00:12:49:05 – 00:13:11:06
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, that’s really cool to hear, especially in the current climate as well, where I’m seeing a lot of companies kind of shy away or like diminish their resources into like the innovation and like really forward planning space because they just want to focus on the right now and what can we what, how can we make money right now when it’s a bit of a slow market?

00:13:11:09 – 00:13:39:15
Ellen Bennett
So the fact that you guys actually set aside time and have a dedicated team in exploring those new tech and new things to be getting amongst is really, really nice to hear. But I guess with you guys growing so much, what I mean, I’d love to hear a little bit more about what the culture is like at the team with the team and how how you guys are planning and what your what you’re planning.

00:13:39:18 – 00:13:45:21
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah, no worries. So obviously I think Zeke is amazing and.

00:13:45:24 – 00:13:48:02
Ellen Bennett
Of course you have to say.

00:13:48:04 – 00:14:10:25
Adriaan Steyn
No. But seriously, like our co-founders are extremely driven to, like, make work wonderful for the team. They definitely believe in like sort of creating a wonderful workplace culture that have positive impacts on the team and allows us to also attract the best talent because of that, a lot of our clients obviously benefit from this as well because of the team is happy and we engaged.

00:14:10:27 – 00:14:31:05
Adriaan Steyn
They also have good quality work that is, you know, and the engagement with them is also as good as the client. Our clients tend to actually say we have a sort of a hide and seek way of putting, you know, doing things. And over the time we’ve actually helped like to kind of try to frame what that is, to kind of try and the standard.

00:14:31:05 – 00:14:51:27
Adriaan Steyn
And a lot of it has to do with like the way that we of modern into end delivery processes. So there’s we’ve got our own sort of methodologies and processes that kind of follow through. And then we’ve got a really highly skilled team as well, and we work really hard to kind of create and craft our values like that.

00:14:51:27 – 00:15:21:04
Adriaan Steyn
We basically make sure that we hire the people that kind of fits within those of those values and and culture as well. And it drives that sort of like wonderful work, the values that if we, for example, have got is like, be adventurous, be skillful and be curious. So it’s like it’s very simple values that you can kind of understanding kind of align to that allows us to kind of create good quality work, but also be very cohesive and well connected team as well.

00:15:21:07 – 00:15:41:29
Ellen Bennett
The more that I have these kind of conversations with people, the more I realize that design is all about like that connection pace and that curiosity. Because without that, you’re not going to get to the bottom of the user’s problems and your client’s problems. That’s like one of the core values of the team, and they’re always going to be leaning on that.

00:15:42:01 – 00:15:43:26
Ellen Bennett
So yeah.

00:15:43:28 – 00:16:07:00
Adriaan Steyn
And then we’ve also got like work life balance is like really important for us. And I don’t think that the team really, really values it. So there’s a lot of accommodations to help with that. So like we’ve got fully flexible work, remote hybrid work as well. So we do actually have our offices in Canberra, so like a main office in Canberra, but we also have co-working spaces in Melbourne as well.

00:16:07:03 – 00:16:26:24
Adriaan Steyn
So there’s ways for the team to connect and actually be able to work around their own schedules and stuff as well. And then obviously hot and seek as well, like arranges a variety of sort of events throughout the year to help connect with the team as well, because we are remote and one of them is the hot and sick fest we do during the month of the month of March.

00:16:26:28 – 00:16:48:02
Adriaan Steyn
So the whole team from all the different locations come together in one location and it’s normally a location like so Sydney or another place, and we then connect with the team and align and and so forth. It’s just to have a little bit of fun as well. And yeah, then within the team as well, we’d love to like grow the team as well.

00:16:48:02 – 00:17:06:27
Adriaan Steyn
So we also have a learning program within the company to help and support the growth and development of the team through a variety of avenues. So we’ve got like seeker sessions, there’s mentorship elements as well. And then there’s we’ve got a program called Level Up. So it kind of all fits within and that will help to grow the team.

00:17:06:29 – 00:17:37:15
Ellen Bennett
Yeah. Also I feel like there’s there’s so much is so much to say about like having that remote first aspect to the work. When I’m speaking with potential candidates, they just want that extra added layer of flexibility. So having the option of going into a co-working space or if the camera based going into the office, it’s yeah, just being able to pick and choose is so important to people now because once everyone’s got the got the taste of flexible working, I don’t think anyone’s wanting to give it up any time soon.

00:17:37:15 – 00:17:57:00
Ellen Bennett
So yeah, it’s, it’s great that you’re aware of that and not trying to make anyone go into the office. Well, that sums up. I would love to hear a little bit more about your background. Tell us about you did mention previously that you went to university in South Africa and what did that kind of look like for you?

00:17:57:00 – 00:18:00:16
Ellen Bennett
And would would you choose that again if you had the choice?

00:18:00:18 – 00:18:15:13
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah, no worries. So I didn’t I didn’t do any art or anything related in school. The closest thing that I did was like technical drawing. I don’t know if you know what that is, but it’s like it’s just very architectural, kind of ongoing kind of things.

00:18:15:20 – 00:18:16:09
Ellen Bennett
Yeah. Cool.

00:18:16:14 – 00:18:39:27
Adriaan Steyn
So I needed a, I needed a portfolio. So part of when I was in the UK, I actually did a one year diploma in foundation in Arts and Design. And then when I obviously headed to South Africa, I did my degree, like I mentioned earlier. But I also that since then I’ve done numerous short courses over the years to learn like theory of particular needs that I might have had at a time, like as you could have seen from a junior as well.

00:18:39:27 – 00:18:56:06
Adriaan Steyn
Like I’ve done a lot of shifting of like sort of the roles, even though they’re all kind of in the design space. I kind of always kind of moved along and and around. So a lot of those courses of kind of help me with that growth and kind of help me with that sort of adjustment of these new roles and stuff.

00:18:56:06 – 00:19:16:14
Adriaan Steyn
And they range from strategy to Agile, Scrum design thinking, even copywriting like how like to try to get an understanding of what kind of terms you need to use to to describe a thing a little bit better. And so fold. So my journey has been very organic and I kind of learned along the way, way of off how to gap with someone an opportunity.

00:19:16:14 – 00:19:42:00
Adriaan Steyn
So and I’ve always kind of believed that whatever you learn has to be useful. Otherwise you’re just learning for the sake of learning and not applying your newly acquired skills. So that’s part of why I support that sort of organic thing. Like if you see an opportunity or see a gap, go and fill that gap and go for that opportunity to fill that opportunity and then you can actually apply that actual skills because you have that opportunity to then apply that skills in that space as well.

00:19:42:02 – 00:20:04:00
Adriaan Steyn
So to answer your question, I’m I am very happy with the growth of my career. I will do it again because I think it’s like I mentioned earlier, the organic ness of it is what I really enjoy. My dad actually once told me as well, like the world can take everything away from you but your education. So I think it’s always important to keep learning and growing.

00:20:04:03 – 00:20:32:28
Ellen Bennett
I love that It’s it’s very wise because especially in today, where you can get education from so many different avenues, right? Like you can very easily just hop on YouTube and learn like the vast majority of perhaps what would be in a degree really, you know, 20, 30 years ago. So it’s a really it’s a really interesting time to be being just exposed to so much content.

00:20:33:00 – 00:21:00:08
Ellen Bennett
So and I personally really like the idea of just picking up little tidbits and doing little bootcamps and doing little bits and bobs as you go. I feel like it keeps it fresh as well because as you said, the tech industry is just changing so much constantly. I personally did a design degree and I found that a lot of what I learned was irrelevant by the time I graduated because it just changes so much.

00:21:00:08 – 00:21:10:08
Ellen Bennett
Like I found that like if you’re if you’re just doing it in the moment, you’re saying there’s opportunities come up. I feel like that’s the smartest way to go about it, especially when tech is moving so fast.

00:21:10:10 – 00:21:15:13
Adriaan Steyn
Now 100%, you have to kind of adapt evolved. It doesn’t help you just stay, stay static.

00:21:15:16 – 00:21:33:14
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, definitely. I guess that kind of relates to my next question in that obviously you started in more of a traditional like agency design direction background. What compelled you to like change it up a little bit and want to go into more of a digital direction?

00:21:33:17 – 00:21:53:06
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah. North I mean, I love the fast moving, ever changing kind of environment like you were just touching on as well about tech. It’s never dull or like you can’t really get bored with it. I mean, last year it was middle of the year before it was blockchain. Now it’s generative. I like next you kind of don’t know what’s going to happen.

00:21:53:09 – 00:22:14:17
Adriaan Steyn
So it’s like really fun and exciting. I also love iterating on things, making things better over time, and that’s what I particularly love about like working on sort of complex digital products and stuff is that it’s a very iterative process. Like you design your taste, you design your taste and it constantly gets better. It’s never like standing still.

00:22:14:20 – 00:22:34:06
Adriaan Steyn
And I think for me, traditional media doesn’t really necessarily allow for that. It’s kind of like when something is going to print or when something is going out. It’s very hard or very expensive to change where it is. With digital, it’s a little bit easier to kind of make those changes and stuff and and progressively make the product better.

00:22:34:08 – 00:23:03:19
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, I never thought of it that way, but that’s so true. Like once once you, once you hit that send button with a lot of print and a lot of static design, it’s like, okay, it’s out in the world now. Yeah, I think that’s yeah, being able to tweak it and change it and being able to like test it must have been, I think for some people would be incredibly liberating to be like, okay, it’s like the alpha version, let’s just see how we go and then be able to tweak it later on.

00:23:03:21 – 00:23:17:03
Ellen Bennett
I guess with with that being said, what advice would you want to give to students who are potentially thinking about getting into design or tech? Is there any advice that you’d give or any education pathways that you’d recommend?

00:23:17:05 – 00:23:42:09
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah, I mean, just from a design speak from a design perspective necessarily. So from that I would like I would recommend getting theoretical knowledge of the craft. So you touched a little bit on it. Like you don’t necessarily have to do a degree. So like it can be a degree, but it doesn’t have to be degree, but it can also be a diploma, it can be a certificate or it can be a number of different short courses or videos or anything like that, like you mentioned on YouTube and stuff.

00:23:42:09 – 00:24:03:10
Adriaan Steyn
So it’s like in many ways that you can get the theory and the understanding behind something. And I think that’s really, really important because like understanding a particular tool, it’s like figma or something is one thing, but understanding why is a whole other thing. Like, yeah, I mean there’s a, there’s basically I always viewed as like anyone can kind of cook.

00:24:03:14 – 00:24:29:12
Adriaan Steyn
I know some people cook better than others. Sure, anyone can kind of learn to cook. It’s like they follow a recipe or and, and voila, they’ve got a dish. But if you want to become a chef or even a michelin chef, for that matter, you need to kind of understand the granular details of like why these two flavors don’t work together or why they do work together or these textures or whether they do or don’t.

00:24:29:14 – 00:24:50:07
Adriaan Steyn
I think it’s exactly the same with design. It’s like you need to understand the theory behind like design itself and the craft. It’s also like these things like gestalt theory or color theory, contrast even basic human psychology and behaviors and things like that. Why do people respond in this way? Because of this color? What is the response? Because this is called short corners of this rounded corners.

00:24:50:07 – 00:25:18:18
Adriaan Steyn
There’s different nuances that it actually has from a psychological perspective. And I think if you if you keep on asking why and want to know the why, it will basically move you from being a person that is just pushing a pixel on a screen around to becoming a person that can actually effect meaningful change. So I think understanding those intricacies is is really important, and I think that’s what I would recommend, like try explore the theoretical knowledge, not just the tool itself.

00:25:18:20 – 00:25:19:01
Adriaan Steyn

00:25:19:06 – 00:25:41:22
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, that’s something that I come up against quite a bit, is some people, especially like Jews who are wanting to get into the industry fresh out of like a boot camp, and they just have so much enthusiasm and they know like the basics, but they’re just ready to get in and get their get their teeth into, into designing.

00:25:41:24 – 00:26:10:16
Ellen Bennett
But they don’t necessarily have that like contextual theory. They don’t know design history, which I will say is like, that’s, that’s really, really great and that’s what you do get out of a tertiary degree or more of like a traditional degree for some design leaders who I have spoken to on the podcast before, it’s less of a priority for them when they’re looking for for new designers to have that theory cool knowledge.

00:26:10:24 – 00:26:31:04
Ellen Bennett
But it’s really interesting to hear that that’s your perspective. And I’m curious to hear when I speak with designers who are from who have lived in other countries, have trained and been taught in other countries, do you find that like different cultures and different design contexts have like really shaped how you look at your craft today?

00:26:31:06 – 00:26:54:19
Adriaan Steyn
100%, your upbringing can change the way that people approach certain problem solving. They sort of societal like norms and things like that. All perspectives can affect the way that they they solve a problem for you as well. So I think this is not just this I agree, it’s not just a theory kind of knowledge and stuff like that that can help you.

00:26:54:22 – 00:27:04:11
Adriaan Steyn
It just it just basically reinforces it with all the variety of other things that kind of becomes part of you as a human being, like just being in this world.

00:27:04:14 – 00:27:06:25
Ellen Bennett
Yeah. And that goes for users as well, I think.

00:27:06:27 – 00:27:07:27
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah.

00:27:08:00 – 00:27:19:23
Ellen Bennett
I think that’s why we need a lot more not only like diverse testing but also just diversity in the design industry in general, because the more we are the better we’re going to be in solving the.

00:27:19:23 – 00:27:21:15
Adriaan Steyn
Problem as long.

00:27:21:18 – 00:27:39:16
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, exactly. Well, I would be curious to hear as well, like when when you get up in the morning, when you are sitting at your computer and you’re ready to tackle the day, is there anything in particular that like motivate you, let you up to do what you do?

00:27:39:18 – 00:28:00:22
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah, I mean, that one is kind of simple. Like I’ve touched on it in a few cases it’s with but like design that makes meaningful impact. So like it can be literally like a micro interaction, like wallet doing using a product or something and it makes them small or they think like you damn, that was easy or fun to do.

00:28:00:25 – 00:28:22:27
Adriaan Steyn
But it can also be literally like something that actually helps people get through a like normally a frustrating part of their life or day of work by providing like sort of that frictionless experience to who to allow them to achieve what they need to achieve. So I think it’s just a meaningful, meaningful impact as as it motivates me and it puts a smile on my face.

00:28:23:00 – 00:28:26:27
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, providing that like surprise and delight moment.

00:28:27:00 – 00:28:28:16
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah, yeah.

00:28:28:18 – 00:28:48:29
Ellen Bennett
Definitely. Well, I guess I do like to ask this question to everyone because I feel like it’s really great to, you know, share not only the big highs and the, the great things that have happened in your career, but also like I’d be curious to hear if you had any any speed bumps or challenges over your time in the industry.

00:28:49:01 – 00:29:13:16
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah, I mean, this was a little bit bizarre by one get to too many details, but like my one of my first CDs that I had, you know, had a different way of dealing with conflict or like criticism. And it at that particular time, very early in my it it was very, very early in my career. And it made me kind of like second guess my career choice as well.

00:29:13:18 – 00:29:32:00
Adriaan Steyn
And whether it was like a right fit for me. So I took like a little bit of like a sort of self assessment as well and just kind of like make sure. And I mean, basically what it does, it taught me was like, I don’t want to be part of corrosive or toxic behaviors and stuff. And I know the design industry can sometimes have that.

00:29:32:00 – 00:30:10:13
Adriaan Steyn
And depending on what spaces you play. So and since then, I’ve kind of a very important thing for myself where it’s like, I want to work an uplifting, uplifting, supportive, positive, open environments. And I’ve always generally like going off to look for places. Well, I’ve done a lot of, like, research about the companies, and I generally don’t just even like this is just a personal approach, but I don’t even apply necessarily for like open positions and things like I scout companies and I make sure that I that they are a good fit for me and then I apply to them whether they have an open position or not.

00:30:10:15 – 00:30:28:21
Adriaan Steyn
I basically put myself out because I want to make sure that I’ll be happy at that job. And and I mean, you have to be happy to you work. I mean, you basically spent a third of your life at work, so you might as what, make it a positive, positive environment while you’re at it. So yeah, that’s like really important for me.

00:30:28:24 – 00:30:33:18
Adriaan Steyn
And that kind of moment in my career taught me that, that you have to value that.

00:30:33:20 – 00:31:03:16
Ellen Bennett
Yeah. That, that being able to fit in well with the team and it’s, it really does make a huge difference right Like and it’s something that has come up with other guests on the on the podcast as well before that having that like a good solid leadership where you feel comfortable and also being able to admit when you’ve kind of screwed up potentially and feeling comfortable to go to that later is so, so important because that’s how you grow.

00:31:03:16 – 00:31:28:29
Ellen Bennett
And if you’re in a toxic environment, it’s so much harder because it just is not conducive to good work. So yeah, and the best leaders that I know of are people such as yourself who have been put in that position previously in their career and have learned, okay, that’s not what I want to do. And then they’re able to kind of like model themselves the opposite.

00:31:29:02 – 00:31:43:11
Ellen Bennett
So that’s good to hear. So again, is there anything that you like to do regularly for your like, motivation productivity? Keep yourself sane being in a leadership role?

00:31:43:14 – 00:32:01:15
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah, I, I, I do a lot of meditation, also healthy eating. So I try it as healthy as possible. I do a lot of like regular exercise, also running as my first choice. I don’t even run with like music or audio books and stuff. I just like.

00:32:01:17 – 00:32:08:21
Ellen Bennett
One of those. One of those people. goodness, you’re a freak of nature.

00:32:08:23 – 00:32:23:05
Adriaan Steyn
But I also just love consuming information and like learning and growing and from what’s going on around me as well. But I think it basically just comes down to like mind and body. You need to keep it healthy and busy, otherwise you’ll just lose what you don’t use.

00:32:23:07 – 00:32:48:21
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, no, I love that. It’s, I listen to a podcast yesterday about people’s work life balance like post-pandemic, and the interviewer asked a I get her name. She was a doctor in, she had like some fancy title, but she was like basically a doctor in productivity. And she she said the most important thing that you can do is to get 8 hours of sleep.

00:32:48:23 – 00:32:50:07
Adriaan Steyn
yeah, it’s very important.

00:32:50:11 – 00:33:08:06
Ellen Bennett
Yes. So it’s I found that super interesting that that’s something that I’m always like, yeah, I’ll get up. I’ll get up a little bit earlier tomorrow because I’m going to go work out or because I want to, you know, do like do a yoga class or something. I might actually maybe it’s just better for if I stay asleep.

00:33:08:08 – 00:33:18:25
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, super important. But and I guess that sounds like it takes up a lot of your spare time, but is there anything else in particular that you like to do on your off days?

00:33:18:27 – 00:33:33:00
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah. No, I mean, so like I mentioned earlier, we when we moved to Australia, we lived in Canberra for a while. So about ten months ago myself and my partner, we moved to Gold Coast to for the warmer weather.

00:33:33:02 – 00:33:34:24
Ellen Bennett
Sure enough.

00:33:34:26 – 00:33:48:22
Adriaan Steyn
Coming with that obviously has a lot of beach time, obviously hiking because we got the hinterland to my doorstep. So lots of exploring and stuff. And we’ve also got two kittens ever, Carter and Archie. So they have a cat.

00:33:48:25 – 00:33:52:00
Ellen Bennett
So I love that.

00:33:52:02 – 00:34:07:18
Adriaan Steyn
We’re just full of never is. Nobody sometimes love to go, you know, cats love to sit inside of things. And when we water the plants, a lot of times we take the plants out of the sort of container area. And then he goes and sits in it and it’s like, have a plant. It’s funny.

00:34:07:21 – 00:34:13:23
Ellen Bennett
my gosh, I demand to see photos of this. I love that.

00:34:13:25 – 00:34:31:24
Adriaan Steyn
So just like like I mentioned earlier, I run pretty much daily. I’ve also recently incorporated CrossFit into my regimen as well. So around my first marathon about a month ago. So one of the graduation. thank you very much.

00:34:31:26 – 00:34:32:21
Ellen Bennett
Love that.

00:34:32:23 – 00:34:34:19
Adriaan Steyn
So that’s what keeps me busy.

00:34:34:22 – 00:35:04:05
Ellen Bennett
Yeah. Sweet. I mean, I think there’s just marathon training in general is incredibly time consuming. So well done. I, I’m curious as well. Obviously you’ve had lots of time in agencies and also a client side as well. But do you have like any business leaders other that you’ve worked with or just like in the industry in general that really inspire you or that you like to listen to on on the regular is so.

00:35:04:07 – 00:35:23:06
Adriaan Steyn
I mean, I’ve I’ve always found that I like even just from learning from my sort of team members, all of which every agency it is like at different levels. You can kind of learn a lot from them just by observing and experiencing things first and sort of taking from that. But just industry wise, from the day of university and stuff.

00:35:23:06 – 00:35:49:06
Adriaan Steyn
I’ve always loved designers that work across like different mediums in their career and not just on one medium and doing things like new things in that space. So my fascination started with a guy called Peter Behrens. He was a German designer from the early 1900s, and I would say like he was literally one of the first I don’t know what we call it to these days, like full stack designers, like total designers.

00:35:49:08 – 00:36:15:16
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah. Like he designed anything from architecture to industrial design, graphic design and so forth and stuff, and even designed his own house like. So the, the full architectural plans designed it, and then he designed all of the different parts of the house. So the, the light features the, the bath plug, the, the oven, the doors, etc.. So it was like I loved like that, the fact that he got involved to all the different elements of it.

00:36:15:16 – 00:36:51:09
Adriaan Steyn
And then there’s like sort of other ones that Stefan Sagmeister like, I would argue he’s probably one of the sort of lost rockstar designers. You remember designers used to be at the famous designers along the sort of the last 1900 years and stuff like that, so forth. And so he was particularly big in the nineties as well. But he’s still going and he does like installations, branding, digital experiences and so forth as well as yeah, he actually did the, the meetup, the website meetup, he did a branding and stuff for them was also a broad range kind of work.

00:36:51:11 – 00:37:18:16
Adriaan Steyn
And then there’s Mark Neeson. He’s actually an Aussie, very sort of multi-disciplined designer. I’ve done fashion design, furniture, architecture, tech, even yachts and cause space craft and stuff. So like it’s quite broad again. And then by sort of, I would say like mostly current ideas, very sort of like more recent times as Tobias Van Schneider, he’s a really strong product designer, brand designer, entrepreneur as well.

00:37:18:20 – 00:37:40:17
Adriaan Steyn
He’s done stuff for spotter. You worked on Spotify in the early days to kind of help the Spotify come become what Spotify is, but he also worked on with NASA on the Mars 2020 Mission, and he had to come up with a branding for that. So he’s basically one of the first designers or one of the only designers that have they work on Mars.

00:37:40:21 – 00:37:41:27
Adriaan Steyn
So it’s pretty cool.

00:37:42:00 – 00:37:44:19
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, that’s definitely something to put on the CV. I love that.

00:37:44:21 – 00:37:46:07
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah.

00:37:46:09 – 00:38:00:07
Ellen Bennett
I guess. How do you do? You just, like, follow their career with like what they’re publishing or what they’re putting out or do you do you listen to like any great podcast, read any books? Like how do you usually consume the content.

00:38:00:09 – 00:38:22:27
Adriaan Steyn
With them specifically? I, I keep just up to date, so I kind of follow them on all of the, the socials and things like that. But also I follow a number of sort of like different sort of design publications and things like that as well. That just kind of keeps me updated on, on those kind of stuff. I’ve got a couple of books from Stefan Sagmeister as well, and Justin, his way of working as well.

00:38:22:27 – 00:38:36:18
Adriaan Steyn
So I love just kind of keeping up to date with what they’re doing as well. But I also listen to podcasts, but it’s not necessarily to do with those particular particular designers. It’s just in general.

00:38:36:18 – 00:38:38:14
Ellen Bennett
In general and what an I.

00:38:38:16 – 00:39:06:03
Adriaan Steyn
And they are the minimalists. So I don’t know if you know about them, but they kind of find ways to kind of live more meaningful life with less. So it’s just like try to keep things as simple. I’m always as nice is more kind of person as well. Then there’s other ones like eat, sleep, work and repeat. So then they talk to like psychologists and neuroscientists about like how to improve the way we work and our surroundings and stuff as well.

00:39:06:05 – 00:39:16:29
Adriaan Steyn
There’s another one called Design Better. They look at like how design and tech work together and in that part of that creative process as well, the Art of John, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of them as well.

00:39:17:03 – 00:39:17:29
Ellen Bennett
Haven’t.

00:39:18:01 – 00:39:36:19
Adriaan Steyn
They actually have a Netflix show as well, which I think is pretty cool. If anybody wants to go watch that, it’s pretty cool. It’s just how to be better as a as a human being as well. Just in your relationships with it’s professional or personal as well. And then my other favorite, one of the is Science of Happiness.

00:39:36:26 – 00:39:46:29
Adriaan Steyn
So they use sort of science and practice and stuff and to kind of show ways that people can achieve happiness and meaningful parts in their life.

00:39:47:02 – 00:40:20:15
Ellen Bennett
Yes. I mean, yeah, you’re right. It’s not 100% design related, a lot of them. But I feel like, a lot of those podcasts would influence how you show up at work and how you show up as a leader. Yeah, I think I’m always looking for for new ones to add to my queue. So no, that’s great. And I like to finish off the podcast with the question of if you could give your younger self some career advice, what would it be?

00:40:20:17 – 00:40:48:03
Adriaan Steyn
so I’ve heard on many occasions in my life generally people using the word you’re lucky or that’s lucky or something, something to do with luck and stuff. I’m a very sort of practical person, so what I’ve learned over the time is that luck basically is just opportunities that are presenting themselves. So I’ve always found and throughout my career is like create as many opportunities as possible.

00:40:48:05 – 00:41:13:15
Adriaan Steyn
Because if you create a lot of opportunities that you can kind of luck will strike you at some point. And if that like luck then strikes you, a lot of times you’ll also feel very out of your comfort zone. But that’s okay. I call it comfortable, uncomfortable, comfortable uncomfortability. And I think it’s like it’s like that sort of like it’s a weird feeling you get you kind of like, uncomfortable, but you excited and stuff.

00:41:13:15 – 00:41:21:09
Adriaan Steyn
And it’s it’s that perfect moment like allow allowing for kind of growth as well. I do have a bonus one if you want as well.

00:41:21:11 – 00:41:22:04
Ellen Bennett
Sure.

00:41:22:06 – 00:41:48:12
Adriaan Steyn
Yeah. Yeah. Go for it. So this one was something that stuck with me also. And it was from quite early in my career as well when I was younger. Like a lot of times, like as designers, especially when you like fresh out of uni or like new in the industry and stuff like that, you’re very, very, very passionate about the craft and passionate about the design and you kind of want to stand up for a redesign decision.

00:41:48:14 – 00:42:10:17
Adriaan Steyn
A lot of times, no matter the size or the importance, it’s like you kind of it’s like do or die almost every time. And so one of my creative directors at Ogilvy actually said to me, Pick your battles. So you can’t fight for every design decision because it’s both tiring for yourself as well, but it’s also tiring for the or the people that deals with it as well.

00:42:10:19 – 00:42:30:25
Adriaan Steyn
So it’s not so everything is not with with it always. So I think it’s kind of like stuck with me in at times also, you only really appreciate it, like over time as you kind of mature as a designer as well as that, you don’t have to fight for every design decision. Some design decisions are more important than others, and and those are the ones that you should fight for.

00:42:30:27 – 00:42:40:16
Adriaan Steyn
The other ones, sometimes you can kind of compromise and come to agreements and and let them sometimes just go, Yeah, even if you don’t agree with it.

00:42:40:18 – 00:42:58:27
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, that’s totally true. I think especially when you’re starting out, it’s it’s quite a personal thing as well what your output is. It’s a like you have to kind of wear it on your sleeve a little bit where the more mature that you get in your career, you start to think of it as, okay, it’s just business, It’s just my job.

00:42:59:00 – 00:43:21:08
Ellen Bennett
You can’t be right about 100% of things, especially when there’s so many different factors involved and people involved teams involved. So I feel like that’s that’s really that’s really great advice to to give to people. Thank you so much again thank you for joining us And thank you for peppering in those nuggets of wisdom. I’ve really learned a lot.

00:43:21:09 – 00:43:22:26
Ellen Bennett
So thank you again.

00:43:22:28 – 00:43:27:04
Adriaan Steyn
Everyone. That’s been wonderful to sit and chat with you. And I really, really appreciate it. Thank you.