Top Designers You Need to Know: An interview with Gleb Kuznetsov and Jeshua Nanthakumar
If you’re aware of For Dribbble or Behance, chances are you’ve seen their work; if not, you should go and check these people out. Gleb Kuznetsov, a Product Design Director, and Jeshua Nanthakumar, Experience Director, have won top clicks in both communities and have thousands of reviews and likes.
We were fortunate to collaborate with them while creating the Rokid Alien, a smart speaker made in 2014. We got to know their talents through Fantasy, a world-renowned design agency founded in 1999. The company has worked with many fortune 200 companies throughout the world including Mercedes-Benz, Google, Microsoft, Aston Martin, etc. With Gleb and Jeshua, it went without saying that the project was led with an innovative product spirit — always with user empathy in mind.
Background: How did you get into the design industry?
Gleb:
I started computer programming when I was about 11 years old using the Pentium 2 computer. At the age of 15, I decided to focus on design. At that time, in 1999, user interface design and user experience were basic and barely talked about.
Apart from designing and programming, at the age of 19 I also had the curiosity of understanding business and business-driven decisions so I went to a company and worked solely as a business analyst and engineer and then was promoted and led my own team for 3 years. Through this experience I was able to understand how users’ data can impact business decisions and how business can make use of that data to create products/features.
After this, I decided to become a product designer, joining the design team of one of the biggest consumer electronics companies. I got to design UI/UX and interactions for the earliest mobile OS and was so glad that my product got to be used by millions of people. As technology improved, my focus on visual design shifted to include motion design for UI interactions, and CGi graphics, using tools like C4D and Houdini FX.
“One second of emotion can change the whole reality for people engaging with a product.” — Gleb Kuznetsov
I use 3D assets when I want to create an immersive user experience to connect the customer with a tangible product — it could be a mobile phone or a freezer in your kitchen. 3D animation creates a more visceral feeling and quality of interaction, in an instant; even in navigating flat design interfaces, a bit of 3D brings life to what can easily feel static.
Jeshua:
When I was young, I created Starcraft fan sites. Then at age 16, back in 2000, I became a young designer at a website that was like Yelp for weddings.
At University, I found myself drawn to psychology so I studied a bunch of psychology and sociology courses. Since psychology would only pay as long as you studied long enough to earn a certificate, it made sense to follow my passion for design. So, after I graduated I went to a startup and then EA (Electronic Arts) to work as a UI designer in Canada. After Canada, I went to the UK to keep pursuing my design career. After stints at Bethesda, and Ubisoft I came to the Bay Area and worked for Zynga as a senior UI designer.
I spent the beginning of my career in the games industry and wanted to explore some new challenges so I started exploring hardware to see how that experience could be translated back to software. I chose the R&D center at Mercedes Benz, and worked on projects that were slated for the year 2030 and beyond. While extremely exciting to peer into the future, for someone who likes to ship product experiences for people to use today, it became frustrating to have to shelve and store every project.
After that, I transitioned from automobiles and focused on consumer health. We designed a system to analyze the ingredients of a liquid and see what’s inside of a cup. The challenge was to find a way to influence people’s food and beverage decisions in real time, helping them make wise decisions at the table using the cup of a dish set, instead of, say, an app or keeping a journal.
I then went on to join Fantasy, where I worked on a wide range of projects for clients like and Twitter, Facebook, Mitsubishi Motors. I’m now working alongside Gleb on advanced technology projects, like an AI startup funded by Laurene Powell, Steve Jobs’ wife, among others.
The Design Process for Rokid Smart Speaker — Alien
What’s each of your role on the project?
Gleb:
That was very fascinating! We did not know what would be the best for the process at the beginning. But when we met the great Rokid team at the Discovery stage, it became easier to understand: namely, Xu a design director of Rokid comes up with a brand direction where they want to use a simple circle as a core object for voice assistant, my goal was to make the simple circle alive to build the bridge of trust between users and the device. We had to perform a lot of research in animation because the goal was really challenging given the limited screen size and shape of the device. We started with visual design, using many designers to research hundreds of different approaches. After we discovered the elements design and found design solutions for the animation base, we started discovering the animation itself. It took lots of iterations to finish the simple fundamental design direction for one circle. After the fundamental direction was approved, we started developing system reactions such as Understanding, Misunderstanding, Voice Feedback etc. After months of diligent working, we had the complete picture of the system in animated assets which we went on polishing until the reaction started looking consistent, smooth, and fully connected inside itself. Transition design is very important when working on an emotional interface such as Rokid Alien.
Jesh:
It’s true, we didn’t know what we should do at the beginning, but the first step was to talk with Xu, and make sure that all of us agreed on the visual direction we should take, and we went with a cosmos direction, particle effects etc… Then given the unique shape of the screen and device, initially we studied the way the device functioned and the hardware makeup, before moving on to look at all of the interactions that were necessary.
Rokid:
Normally, when we start doing a project, the ideal process would be to understand the market and user experience of how they would use a product. However, very few people know or have smart speakers at that time. How did you conduct research to create a UX prototype?
Jesh:
“UX prototype artifacts”
Rokid:
After you complete UX prototype, you moved on to visual design and for a company who has not established a well-rounded branding image yet, how do you make sure that visual design is aligned with branding image?
Gleb:
Good question. First of all, we knew that Rokid did not have strict guidelines for products like Alien at that moment so when we worked on the design, we were focused on establishing a complete brand image in general, not only on the one specific product. To find this brand image we did a lot of exploration using mood boards and sketch out with our designers many different approaches. Usually this process contains Layout design where we define the positioning of elements based on screen limitation, Color design defining where we play with different color palettes and try to define color accents for system reactions such as Error or Alert or any others. Elements design like icons or infographics. Emotional reactions and of course scenarios for motion where we draw every frame of future animation in design and try to imagine how elements will move and scale based on system response. It was our goal to set the tone toward the entire brand. The Rokid team, especially Xu, was very helpful.
Jesh:
“Visual design artifacts”
Rokid:
How did you decide on the visual design themes and/or visual directions? For most of the visual designers, they need a mood board. Did you use it? If not, what else did you use to come up with visual direction?
Gleb:
Yes, we spent a long time researching this subject. We and the Rokid team created mood boards to find inspiration for different approaches than had ever existed before. Creating a fundamental base for this unique product that will have further development was really important for us. And this is what we have achieved.
Rokid:
How did you make sure your design is implementable? Especially for products like Rokid, which uses a whole new platform. Images are being projected onto a curved shell. You have to make sure its clarity and readability and also, there are a lot of animations too.
Gleb:
Without any doubts, the implementation is the result of the incredible Rokid team and all creative developers included in the project! Our team focused a lot of effort on setting things up for a smooth implementation. Numbers of documents for using design were developed such as GUI Style Guide and motion, Guidelines. They contain precise numbers and arrangement of layers to help the engineers achieve the best accuracy in development. We also used plenty of assets for animation, easing settings were relocated from video to the developed product properly. This is the reason I think we all did a fantastic job and would love to repeat it again!
Jesh:
Prototype, prototype, prototype. We built our designs on the curved shell of the Rokid device, and we would test every animation as we were doing in photoshop, so that we could adjust color, positioning, etc. to give the best effect.
Prototyping on the actual device, from the beginning, is essential to making any product with hardware and software elements work well. When it comes to unique displays like on the Rokid Alien, methodology it’s especially important.
What do you do to inspire yourself?
Gleb:
I look for and find inspiration first in the natural environment — mountains, the ocean, and the nice scenery that surrounds me. Some physical products like vehicles, body shapes, and art installations in museums inspire me a lot, too. For work, I also use platforms like Pinterest to source images and create mood boards or collages that will be the inspiration for new design languages and brand styles.
How do you influence people/management to make the right decision?
Jesh:
After I started working in cars, I realized that there are design strategies and business strategies, and how both come together to define the product. For example, simple ongoing discussions of whether or not to put a cupholder in a car can have a lasting impact on user experience and business performance. So, as an employee, you always want to do your research and understand all the perspectives and implications available to assess the value and benefits of any design decision.
I also tend to rely on different groups within the companies to provide the right decision and will start off design knowing the principles that match with their business decision. However, for the car industry, it’s tricky because you always have to think far ahead and project the design out 3 years, and innovations on cars can be strict and limited because everything needs to follow “safety is the priority” based on what we know today.
Gleb:
Another good way of getting buy-in for advanced design for cars (or basically any other unknown/new field) is to look for innovations and successful examples with similar solutions from other industries to show management what we can achieve, for example, designing audio for AR glasses is non-conventional but we can learn experience from designing headphones and speakers on mobile phones.
Can you share some advice for junior designers?
Gleb:
The important first question is: what type of designer do you want to become? If you want to become a product designer and to work with business tasks transforming ideas into physical and digital products, you need to learn a lot of skills beyond designing interfaces. Important skills are UX engineering, creative and strategic thinking, coding, and even old-fashioned, analog, drawing. But no matter what path you choose, the most important skill is to practice learning and gain the ability to learn fast! This skill is everything.
Apart from learning, it’s also crucial for young designers to train their taste at the same time. Follow the best in the world and find your role models, visit the museum and understand how and why art pieces are so prized. Go explore and find your best animal. Be in the world.
Jesh:
Yes, good artists copy, great artists steal. You should copy your admired person, as the beginning of refining your taste.
Gleb:
My dad is a classical musician. I used to go on tour and to concerts with him, traveling around worldwide musical halls, visiting museums with his friends, and finding art objects in cities. I guess I inherited the art tastes since I was small.
Check out their work below:
Dribbble: https://dribbble.com/glebich
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glebich/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/glebich
Studio: https://milkinside.com/
Check out Rokid:
Rokid Glass: https://glass.rokid.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RokidInc/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RokidAI/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rokid-inc
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rokid_inc/
