Designers who ship
Hi, my name is Davor and I am a designer who ships. Let that sink in.
This journey of mine began a long time ago. I designed and built my first website around 1998 on a friend's laptop during summer vacation. Since then, I worked as a designer in various roles and contexts. Went from a freelancer, to an in-house UI/UX team, and then Product designer, and finally moved into Design leadership. Finally, I worked as an agency consultant, in all different capacities.
After some time in design leadership, I realized everything other than working with designers was draining my energy instead of filling me with joy. I missed the satisfaction of creation, the blank canvases and countless iterations. But even more than that, I missed that other part - building what I designed. I missed shipping.
I thought that made me a relic of the past, where we all started as "webmasters." Thanks to the emergence of low-code website builders such as Webstudio, and now AI co-pilots who can point you in the right direction and fast, I feel like I'm enough once again.
And thanks to this wonderful episode of the Dive Club podcast, I am now more hopeful than ever before, that going full circle and trusting my gut was the right thing to do. I am happy in the now, and I know there will be a place for me and my kind in the future, too. 🙏