ArtGee Designer- Louie Zhu: Make Invisible Visible

Louie is a UI/UX designer currently based in Shanghai. He has a rich background and work experience in design and animation, especially in mobile App design and brand visual design. Louie works as a UI/UX designer at ArtGee. “Listening, observing, understanding, empathizing, emphasizing, synthesizing, and summarizing make the invisible visible” is Louie’s motto.

1.Your study background is animation, why did you choose to become a UI/UX designer?

There was a course on making interactive effects of pages in the animation major. UI/UX requires the ability to turn abstraction into concretion. I have always known that I am more inclined to rational thinking, and I am more interested in UI/UX than animation. Therefore, in addition to learning animation courses in university, I also spent a lot of time and energy learning UI/UX design.

Interest and love are the prerequisites for doing your job well. The gain of learning is what remains after forgetting what has been learned. From this point of view, the professional background is not very important, what is important is the learning experience and process. I’m glad I chose UI/UX as my career direction.

2. What do you think your animation background gives you? Or is it a challenge for you?

UI/UX is still very young in terms of the development of the industry, but whether it is suitable for your development depends on your enthusiasm. Do you want to be a UI/UX designer, or very confused? Since I am not a professional UI/UX major, I need to learn in the early stage of ability accumulation and the later work experience accumulation, and I must insist on learning and spending more time.

Fortunately, my animation background provides me with basic ability, so I can learn, accumulate and improve myself. In my work, the compound background often makes me think differently and look at problems from different perspectives to find solutions. It also makes my work different from some other UI/UX designers. For example, the presentation of interactive effects in my work is always a highlight because of my understanding of the sensory experience that dynamic effects can bring to the user.
All in all, the challenges my animation background brought me turned out to be my gains.

3. What pieces of work are you most proud of?

I’ve been working in the financial industry all my life, and the most satisfying work I’ve done so far is a full-line trading product that I designed for a famous exchange, and one of the products that I designed for short-term, high-frequency trading for users has been a great success. I weakened the complexity and seriousness of the process of traditional trading products; and introduced gamification into the interactive process and sensory experience. While increasing the playability and ease of use of products, I also retained the rigorous characteristics of financial products. After the release of this product, aftermarket verification, has been recognized by the majority of users. I am still happy to see other exchanges offering similar products. Because my work can bring inspiration to others, Let me achieve a great sense of achievement.

It is worth mentioning that the new website I designed for ArtGee will be launched soon. I have made a lot of efforts in the interaction and vision of ArtGee’s new website, and the final work is also very satisfying to me, hoping to bring a better experience to the majority of users. It’s worth waiting for!

4. Where do you go to get inspired?

I don’t have a fixed pattern of way to get inspiration, I get inspiration from any episode in my life. I have the habit of reading and hiking. In the process of reading, images depicted by words and languages will appear in my mind. They are complicated, but charming, detached from the real world and fresh to me. There will be a period of burnout in work, and inspiration will run dry at a certain stage. At this time, hiking is a good solution for me, it can be close to nature, flowers, birds, insect trees, fresh air makes me in a relaxed state of body and mind, is equivalent to cleaning up you expand your full state storage area, That way you’ll have time to catch up on new ideas.

5. What’s your workstation setup?

6. What product have you recently seen that made you think this is a great design?

I particularly like a fashion designer, who is also an artist with his unique design language and expression called Hussein Chalayan. He is a designer who “travels through the spiritual world”. Combine human beings, religion, life, physics, and so on through the material with ordinary properties of the fabric. Cyberpunk unfolds powerfully. It is worth mentioning that the colors in his artistic works are also worth learning. The saturation and contrast present people with dramatic visual feelings, and the obvious contrast is unexpectedly integrated into the picture.

7.Which kind of book do you prefer?

I prefer fiction.

8. Any advice for ambitious designers?

“Not stuck in a rut.” Keep up to the industry inside the first-class level, do not be complacent in their current ability level above. In addition, you can expand your knowledge in your rest time. No matter what kind of knowledge you have, it will help you in your work. Accumulated over a long period, this knowledge will be your greatest wealth.

9. What design challenges do you face at your company?

UX/UI designers deal with different issues and new challenges on almost every project. Every project has its difficulties and challenges. You can’t expect every project to be the same. The world is constantly changing. UI/UX designers must employ a variety of different technologies to meet the needs of their users. UI/UX designers sometimes have to do a lot of research to get to the bottom of a problem to solve a product problem. This requires a great deal of insight, which means your brain must always be alert and sensitive when doing research.

In the end, you’ll come up with a magic solution, and getting it approved will give you a huge sense of accomplishment, like fireworks going off above you and flowers flying all around you, but the next day, you’ll start the challenging work again. It’s a cycle. You must continue to learn and expand your knowledge base throughout your career to continue to do well in this challenging job.