Meet Angie

My ideal Saturday is kind of like half of nothingness and wandering. It’s either waking up in the morning and then just going to a cute coffee shop where you can get cute coffee or matcha, whatever your heart’s craving, and exploring and wandering around different stores. I’m based in New York, so it’s very easy to just kind of wander and explore what is near different neighborhoods.

A random one is that growing up, I would always rearrange my bedroom, the different layouts of it. There was something about always changing my room layout that really made me happy.

But the fun fact that I always like to share is that I grew up in Colombia, and my parents are still there. Which is why a big comfort food for me has always been beans and rice and plantain.

I would like to say more what. I take a lot of inspiration from nature or grocery stores.

There’s something kind of cool to see what people choose to buy or what people like, or even myself, how food gets conveyed or how food gets more exciting by the packaging.

But there’s something great about how nature is, and I feel like it’s something that you could stare at for hours and still keep getting creativity from, or you’re just kind of hypnotized by it.

I was in Miami at this point in my life, and I literally cold emailed a bunch of different agencies. I just had the mindset of anything that I get to do or anything that I can learn will be great.

I got a reply from one agency, and I was able to do anything from social media to branding and research to experiential marketing. Honestly, that was how I got it, and it was great. I was truly open to learning anything and everything.

There are definitely a lot of skills that you have to have in your backpack of knowledge as you start working. And a lot of it is your attitude.

There’s a lot of power in how your attitude can impact the momentum of a project or collaboration, and how it can impact if people also want to work with you more. It makes it easier and a better work environment.

There’s also a lot about prepping the different stakeholders that you work with and trying to anticipate what they might need or what they might ask for to be a little one step ahead and avoid additional back and forth when there might be no need for that.

And just knowing that I don’t know everything, adopting a mentality of continuously learning. I’m always absorbing, and I’m always open to feedback.

Having a more humble attitude in the workplace is important as well, which is a little hard because you have to advocate for yourself a lot at work or just in general. So it’s a good balance, but they’re all very important.

Inside of work, I think communication. Design teaches you how to work with your hands, do a lot of sketching, and express what’s in your head into a product.

But something that I’m still developing is communication skills or speaking skills. There’s a lot of power in being able to convey your ideas and projects very efficiently.

On a side note, also AI: how do we as designers make sure that it doesn’t overwhelm us? How do we know how to utilize it well, and how do we make sure that we still retain the designer’s taste, or our taste, while there’s such a big powerful tool gaining so many skills as well?

There are many ways to approach it. Recently, what’s been helping me is reading something. I think it takes me out of my own head, and you can kind of immerse yourself in someone else’s world.

I think a lot of imagination and creativity is sparked when you’re trying to use your imagination to build the world that you’re reading in the story.

Another thing that always helps is doing something completely different, changing the medium, switching it up, or honestly just getting yourself out of that loop of creative block.

A good one that I heard is trying to do things that are intentionally ugly, or trying to make it completely something you would never do. Then you work backwards where it’s like, “Oh, I hate this,” but then you extract parts where you’re like, “Oh, this could work,” or “That’s kind of interesting.”

It helps you push yourself into ways that you wouldn’t necessarily go toward in your creative journey.

Honestly, early on, I was super tied to the idea of what I thought good design was.

There was a lot of trying to match an aesthetic or trying to replicate what I saw in the outside world versus experimenting a lot.

It was a branding project, but my first few attempts were kind of a failure in a sense. I feel like they were imitating what I saw in the competitive landscape versus wanting to explore new ways.

But then I was able to pivot and work on better design by trying new things. Ultimately successful, but there’s a lot in a trial-and-error process.

In a Treering answer, our recent Easy Yearbooking campaign has been really exciting and something that I’m really proud of because our whole team had hands on it, and we were able to see how we were creating the voice of Treering.

For our design team, we have a lot of trust as a team, and also in each other’s individual abilities and capabilities.

We all have a genuine interest in growing and challenging each other.

We’ve also worked on how to best be a team where we can feel safe to explore new things that might not be as cute, or challenge each other and say, “Oh, I don’t love this direction you’re going in. Let’s talk about it more.”

I think a team works well when we can disagree well, and we can celebrate each other too. Especially in a remote workspace, we’re still able to feel like we’re working together versus like I’m working in my own little pod alone.

Honestly, there’s some city layouts that just don’t make sense to me, where it’s not conducive for navigating, but I guess that can be the beauty of a city too.

But if I could redesign anything, honestly the most boring thing, but I feel like it would be so important because I had to do it recently, things like passport renewals and overall just government forms.

I feel like people need to design it in a way where people are excited to fill it out, or where it’s easily digestible.

Maybe it’s because we’re not in those worlds, and that’s not our language, but everybody has to touch these forms in their lives. There must be an easier and better way to digest it and make these processes better for everyone.

One of my biggest fears in life is that when I’m older, I’m going to forget all my memories and thoughts and everything, so I really treasure photos, journals, and yearbooks.

Working at Treering has been really meaningful because I know that we’re working on a product where it actually is an important part of people’s childhoods.

It’s something special that I know I cherish when I look back at them now. It’s rewarding knowing it’s not just something that people toss away, but something people get excited and emotional about.