Art Director must fully cover fields of design, UX / UI and graphics. His responsibilities are huge and there is no debugging for his drafts that saves developers from glitches. Mira gathered immense experience and became the real diamond.
How does your workday look like?
Every morning I start with a stand-up meeting which takes place in the dev office, so everyone just drags his chair and only standing person is me :-) In 15 minutes we clarify priorities with project managers and then I move to my corner in the upper office where it all begins. My work covers many different tasks - I start with tender presentations, continue with workshops and consultations, so I can deliver proper draft and tune it up. I also manage our design team, so I slice each project into individual milestones and delegate tasks to my colleagues.
The second part of my job is more creative. I love to start with sketches on paper, there I usually get ideas that will strongly influence the final look of the whole concept. Sometimes it can be a logo, sometimes the whole brand image or redesign of the existing website or I start with a blank paper. I use 3 main software tools: Adobe Experience for wireframes, Illustrator for illustrations and vector graphics and we cooperate on Zeplin platform.
What is the biggest challenge for you?
Responsibility. My drafts are not debugged, and I must be absolutely sure that I delivered meaningful and breathtaking proposals. It's vital to explain everything to the client, so we are heading the same direction. Design for me is not only about visuals, it merges UX, added value for user, psychology, taste and functionality. My projects don't have to be glamorous to be successful, sometimes less is more...
I also have to keep up with the progress in the field. Everything I make today will be old in a year's time. That's insane, so I have to be forward-thinking all the time and make the latest trends working for me. I am sure that sources of my inspiration are the confidential part of my know-how! The great eye-opener was the Berlin TechCrunch Disrupt last year where I had a chance to talk with managers from Instagram about their view on MVP (Minimum Viable Product strategy delivers the smallest solution to fulfil basic needs of the users, anything extra is added as the project goes).
Which project was exceptional for you?
Always the latest one! We made a nice web presentation for Accur8vision, the Czech security company making crazy unbreakable systems for the Chinese government or so. That's how the website should look like - pure clearness, friendly UX that you will enjoy. I also love when we work with professionals - they rock their field and let us do our job freely.
I have an extra bound to the design for the Czech National museum, as my draft was personally chosen by the client from hundreds. He simply fell in love with it. I don't get the positive feedback very often - in our company, the best draft is a norm and just quite good is basically bad. Jeez that sounds pretty depressive :-D
And ow about your life off the work?
I admire my girlfriend for her patience, because I am giving my job almost everything. Last time she was waiting in our conference room for nearly half a day as I was stuck on one project and couldn't just abort that mission. The big part of my life is her, and I also love sport...basically any sport, but always for 100%! My last big passion is traveling, I am currently planning my trip to Sri Lanka. That's gonna be great!
