Life of Design: Pablo Vio

1. How did you begin working in the wonderful world of design?

In my early years I was obsessed with design details. Looking at everything from product branding, to the typefaces on album covers, I became fascinated with the challenges of design.

The biggest turning point for me was discovering Photoshop in 2000. It drew me deeper into the design world and literally consumed my days as I experimented with fonts, type and colours.

2. What is the purpose of design?

Design steps in to answer a question, or to solve a problem. These problems can come in many shapes and sizes, and span a wide range of industries. But what holds true to me is that, at the core, the purpose of design is to communicate and fulfill a need.

This can be anything from a basic human need, to a really specific business need.

3. How would you describe the thesis/approach behind Jam3’s design? What core problems are you trying to solve? What kind of experiences are you trying to create?

The relentless pursuit of better is our internal mantra here at Jam3. When you look at every design problem as an opportunity to tell stories in new ways or push technologies into new spaces, innovation, and “betterness” come naturally. We try to create experiences that evolve beyond design and the tech. We know something has been designed well when we reach a seamless symmetry between function and beauty.

4. What’s one thing you believe about design that most others don’t?

I don’t know if I’ve figured out anything that other successful designers haven’t. But I do believe a few things now that I didn’t use to. Early in my career it was very easy for me to lose myself in the excitement of choosing a typeface, or playing with composition — but those are just details.

What I’ve come to learn with time, is that those details are meaningless without a deeper understanding of their purpose.

For me, design is about improving a human experience or enhancing how we interact with something, and it’s important to always keep that in focus as we craft our work.

5. What key problems are often overlooked by design?

I think at times it’s very easy to lose ourselves in the aesthetic aspect of design work. Without restraint, visuals can sometimes distract from our core reason or objective — why we’re tackling this challenge in the first place.

There’s also a strong case to be made for delight and playfulness in design — both in your process, and the experiences you’re crafting. Sometimes design needs to loosen up.

6. What is the most difficult thing about design?

Striking the perfect balance between utility and beauty.

This is the reason so many people fell in love with the iPhone when it first came out. It was responsive, delightful, and more importantly, it fulfilled a need we didn’t know we had. That’s design’s highest purpose, and the most difficult to achieve: disrupting the flow of our everyday.

7. When is design done?

Never! haha. I love that about design. Whenever you’ve finished something and think YES! I’m done — somehow it never is. The problem you solved can evolve and change over time

The world around us evolves and changes daily, so why would design be any different? This is what keeps me coming back for more, asking more questions, learning new things, and pushing my craft.

8. What does the future of design look like to you?

I can’t help but think of the movie ‘Minority Report’, and how influential it was on our perception of the future of UI.

The reality though is that as humans and technology continue to evolve together, we’ll keep challenging the status quo of pragmatic design. It’s safe to say the future of design is digital but, as the physical and digital continue to merge, we’ll need multidisciplinary thinkers. Designers will be expected to understand the basics of graphic design, software, and hardware.

Thanks for reading ❤

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This series was designed by Vasjen Katro, Visual Designer of Baugasm