In a new video interview, we chat with both CEO and Creative Producer at Ramotion, a digital product design agency in San Francisco who just finished collaborating with Mozilla on the exciting new rebrand for Firefox.
Learn more about Ramotion as Denis and Rinat explain what they believe defines good UI/UX design, how to align creative teams around project goals, where they see design heading in the next decade, and much more.
My name is Denis. I’m the CEO of Ramotion, a digital product design agency in San Francisco.
What do UI and UX design mean to you?
Denis: UI/UX design for me is a combination of different skills. So, from one side it’s more about user experience, like understanding the customers, the information architecture, the user research… and on the other hand, it’s user interface which is more about interaction models, animations, UI kits, and screens.
The impact of UI and UX design…
Denis: You definitely have a social responsibility when you do these projects. The power of UI/UX design is in influencing consumer behavior and user patterns—how they interact with the devices and digital products.
Rinat: My name is Rinat. I’m a Creative Producer at Ramotion. UX/UI design for me is slightly two different disciplines that work together to accomplish, and help to accomplish, the end consumer goals on a daily basis. It’s slightly different when it comes to UX design. It’s important to do research, to put your place into that field whenever your user can face any constraints during the process of accomplishing their goals. And when it comes to UI design, it’s a bit more about crafting those little things and elements to make sure that the end user will understand what any particular element does in the interface.
Has Dribbble made an impact on Ramotion?
Denis: I think it gave us the necessary momentum for moving from a few people to more than 30 people right now. So, we have people here in the Bay Area and we have a big group of experts in Eastern Europe. And thanks to Dribbble, we switched from a small team to a bigger one.
Favorite project and why…
Denis: I wouldn’t say it’s a specific project but it’s more about a collaboration. Mozilla, is one of our greatest achievements right now. We’ve been working with them for a while now on different projects starting from the Firefox rebrand to Mozilla Labs support portal among others. Why they are so impactful for us is that the team is open. They’re a non-profit organization so we can post everything online. And they kind of expect people to react on that.
Where do you find inspiration?
Rinat: I think inspiration is more related to art rather than design. The design itself is more about research and understanding, passions, empathy, rather than inspiration as it is. But, when it comes to inspiration, like you feel uninspired, you need to go out there somewhere just to see how other people can solve similar issues. Find some answers on common questions and then start doing something. And from that point, you will see something coming together and in the process, you will find your inspiration.
How would you describe your work?
Denis: Ramotion as an agency does like, two different pieces of work. Number one is around marketing. Which includes brand identity design, marketing website, different brand assets like illustrations, iconography. Another aspect is more about product design and development. Which is like UI/UX, mobile app development, and implementation of the web interfaces.
Challenges of leading a creative team…
Denis: When you manage a design team in the UI/UX design specifically, you need to be thinking more about solving real problems. And so, the ultimate challenge in running creative teams is making sure everyone is aligned with the ultimate goal of the project. So when someone tells you, “We want you to create a marketing website.” this probably means they want to make more money. So, they want to improve conversion. You need to align people around this particular goal, and ideally, have just a few of them so everyone knows exactly what we need to do.
Where do you think design is headed?
Denis: Digital product design is a fast-growing, fast-changing industry. Visual aspects of this design—it definitely has some trends. Let’s say, starting from 2011 when skeuomorphic design, realistic design, was very popular. Then it switched to flat design. And I believe that in the next five to ten years VR and AR will probably give us something in between.
These trends constantly change just like in fashion. However, some fundamentals are always there, for example, obvious always wins or, simplification of everything. So, all these things are always there, but the visual aspect of design is what changes.
Advice for designers?
Denis: Number one is never stop learning because we live in a fast-changing industry. And number two, make sure you switch a focus of your attention from you and your designs to the customer’s and be more empathic to them. And by doing this, you will be less attached to your design decisions and will be more willing to change it, to change your design to each rate on top of that.
Want to keep up with Ramotion? Find the team on Dribbble, Twitter, and at Ramotion.com.
