{"id":20629,"date":"2020-08-17T17:40:06","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T16:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/blog\/?p=20629"},"modified":"2020-12-14T11:41:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T11:41:20","slug":"martin-ollivere-co-founder-of-archetype","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/blog\/martin-ollivere-co-founder-of-archetype\/","title":{"rendered":"An interview with Martin Ollivere, co-founder of Archetype"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this episode of our Spilling Tea Series<\/a>, we talk to Martin Ollievere, an experienced product designer who works on product UX\/UI and brand design, and spends all of his free time tinkering away on a slew of creative side projects. He is also Co-founder of the typographical design system, Archetype.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Hey Martin, thanks for joining me for this remote chat. Let\u2019s start by telling the Marvel community about yourself, how did you get into design and how did you get to where you are today?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Martin: Thanks for having me. I\u2019ve always been into drawing and designing things and knew I wanted to be a designer even as a kid.<\/p>\n

After studying industrial design at university, I got my first break designing Happy Meal toys. After that auspicious start, I worked on everything from medical equipment to aircraft interiors before focusing more on digital products back when Flash websites were still a thing. I was primarily attracted by the ability I had to create my own things, something that was harder with physical products.<\/p>\n

Nobody in digital back then called themselves a \u2018product\u2019 designer, and I found the graphic design skills like typography and grid layouts really challenging. I cut my digital teeth at a London agency working with clients such as PayPal, Bentley Motors and Sky. During this time a friend and I developed our own storybook app, which led me into a very interesting role with a SaaS start-up creating market research tools for app developers.<\/p>\n

This was a transformative experience for me, and ever since I\u2019ve been consulting on branding and design for other start-ups. I\u2019ve got stuck-in with all manner of companies from a games analytics platform in Helsinki to a med-tech firm in Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n

All the while, I\u2019ve been tinkering away on a slew of creative side projects and collaborations. One of the most popular of these so far is Archetype<\/a>, a tool which a friend and I built to help overcome some of those challenges in creating typography design systems that have irked me all these years.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve worked with and for some big companies, how would you compare the design industry from what it was then to what you know now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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It\u2019s come a long way from the days of companies just wanting a glorified online brochure...<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a general morphing of previously siloed roles into what is now generally called \u2018product design\u2019. This is funny coming from a product design background because it was always that way to me but now many more designers work on the entire experience of the user as they interact with a product or service which has resulted in much better designs. Because so many familiar patterns and best practices have evolved, there are far fewer terrible experiences than there used to be. Back when digital work was called \u2018new\u2019 media it was like a mish-mash of pre-existing disciplines each doing their own bit and \u2018designers\u2019 were mostly just working on visuals. There were a lot of chancers doing UX that just didn\u2019t think like designers, having had no real problem-solving experience.<\/p>\n

The rise of the app and software-as-a-service businesses has meant design and high-quality user experiences have become ever more critical to keeping users happy. Good designers with an understanding of all the factors that make products successful, rather than just being really good at graphic design, say, are more highly valued.<\/p>\n

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Archetype export to Sketch without any coding<\/p><\/div>\n

Design tools have changed dramatically too, and we now have things which are actually built for the job of creating and testing whole user experiences. The emerging \u2018no-code\u2019 and \u2018low-code\u2019 tools (MakerPad<\/a> is a good source of these) are also very exciting because it means the barrier to designing and actually creating full-blown web apps is getting lower all the time. How much front end dev knowledge you should have as a designer has always been a bit of a dilemma and I think this is another area where changes could be afoot.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe emerging \u2018no-code\u2019 and \u2018low-code\u2019 tools are also very exciting because it means the barrier to designing and actually creating full-blown web apps is getting lower all the time.\u201d<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

That is really interesting, and technology has definitely come much further in certain areas of the industry. With all of these changes, how would you usually approach a project? What does your design flow look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve learned the hard way that it\u2019s best to keep things lean and simple whilst eliminating meaningless fluff in all its forms. It varies based on the situation and brief but In the early design phase at least I\u2019ll generally go through these steps:<\/p>\n