This is Part #3 of my interview series on How to Become a Creative Technologist or Creative Tech professional.
I hope for this to be ongoing and to bring value to the community. So far it’s not been straightforward with defining a learning path in creative tech. I learned recently that QA is very important for creative tech projects, physical or not. That’s exciting since I have a pretty good background in QA from other fields already.
I’m going to do my best to include creative tech professionals from a variety of industries so you and I can see the commonalities that make these creative professionals so special.
Many questions and many answers are to be found!
Our next guest is…
Jill Shah
At time of writing, Jill Shah↗ is an Experiential Production Designer at Future Colossal↗, an award-winning innovation lab for experiential technologies in advertising, entertainment, & art.
Since 2012, their team comprised of designers, creative technologists, fabricators, and engineers, has been working together to craft unique and playful experiences. They have expertise ranging from architecture and installation art to software development and hardware design.
Jill has had titles such as: Architecture Intern, Graphic and Packaging Designer, Architect, Student Assistant, Python Programmer and Tutor, Web Developer, Assistant Creative Technologist, Research Assistant, Freelance Designer (3D Modeling and Fabrication), Part-time Lecturer, Creative Technologist, and now her current role.
Industries include: advertising, entertainment, and art, graphic design, architecture, academia.
Trever:
What difficulties did you have as you grew in creative tech and how did you get around them?
Jill:
The biggest difficulty I had was learning code. I came from a very traditional architecture background and while that equipped me with design and creative thinking skills, my tech skills were nonexistent. I had to start from the very beginning and it was daunting. But I got around this problem with a lot of practice, really good mentors and teachers and then just, learning by doing! I ended up teaching a programming course during my Masters eventually.
Apart from this, a challenge I still face is that creative tech as a field/industry is evolving at a daily rate. It is SO hard to keep up with it and grasp all the new things that are coming out. What I learnt is that sometimes, it’s okay to not follow up with everything constantly, wait for the dust to settle down and then get to speed. For eg., I would not spend time learning a beta release of a software only to find that it’s not launching or it doesn’t align with my goals anymore once it’s fully released. This is my personal strategy though and people have different preferences to this.
Trever:
Did you focus on a core skill and become T-shaped or are you more of an M shape? Or did you not think about that at all? What was your strategy to skill up technically into the multidisciplinary self you’ve become today?
Jill:
I did not actually focus on any one skill. I think I am a true design generalist. I can do a lot of things but I don’t consider myself an expert at any of it and it’s not necessarily a bad thing in the industry today. People and employers value professionals who can wear multiple hats at the same time. Being a generalist also allows me to build really great team relationships. It’s never just a ‘me’ job and I need constant help from people around me. I work better that way.
A couple years ago, I did have an imposter syndrome of sorts that I am not an expert at any one thing and that makes me no good, but I have since learnt to embrace how I am as a person and how I function creatively - I want to learn and do a lot of things at the same time which means I explore breath and not depths, and that is completely fine!
Trever:
How did you know what to put in your portfolio early on and also now? Was creative technologist as a role on your radar early on?
Jill:
I struggled with my portfolio then and I struggle with it now. However, I try to put in works that 1) I was super passionate about producing 2) have really visually pleasing documentation and is pretty to look at 3) show off some of my technical skills and design thinking together
Creative tech roles were the only roles on my radar coming out of grad school. Nothing else really excited me.
Trever:
Was CT in advertising/entertainment the only space you considered in terms of CT work?
Jill:
I considered doing CT work in other fields like Web3 or even going into full stack web dev but the architect in me was screaming for some work which is physical and not always screen based.
If you would like to learn more about Jill’s background and creative tech philosophy, check out her podcast episode on Tangents by Out of Architecture.
Here’s the link to her episode↗
Read the next post in this series here↗
Read the previous post in this series here↗
Check out my other blog posts here↗