Andressa Lombardo

Where are you from? Where are you based?

I was born in Brazil, went to college in Italy, spent some time in Manchester, and now I've been living  in Dublin, Ireland 🇮🇪 for almost 10 years.

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What led you to Memorisely, and how did you land a spot on the team?

About a year ago, while working with design systems, I wanted to do a course to expand my knowledge on how to build a system that scaled properly. I started my search, and having landed on Memorisely, I knew this was the course for me.

I absolutely loved the bootcamp and the process of learning with other designers across the world. After the course, I found out about the Memorisely Tribe, which is such a cool community for designers to share knowledge, get support, take part in meet-ups, events, design challenges and so much more.

I was really active in the Tribe, loving every bit of it, and then only a few months ago Zander announced that they were looking for new teachers to join the team. This was such an exciting opportunity and one that I absolutely wanted to be considered for. Lucky for me, I was accepted to join the new team of teachers and can't wait to teach my first class this October.

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How has previous experience impacted you and prepared you for this role both personally and professionally?

I've been working as designer for over 10 years and in the UX/UI space for the last 8.

A number of years ago, one project changed it all for me. While working with a large government client in Ireland, I recognised how important accessibility was and it's been a focus area in everything I've worked on since since. It was actually on the same project, where I started my work in design systems and I've never looked back.

Given the nature of my personality, I love to share knowledge as I learn and I feel this character trait along with my passion for design will, hopefully, lend itself to my role as a teacher with Memorisely.

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Talk to us about your experience working in a small, remote start-up environment?

I absolutely love it! It's like working with your friends — well, we're more like a little family. The MemFam 🤗

The remote aspect is great, there are no boundaries. I can have a call with Luke, who's in Edinburgh, then jump on a chat with LA, who's in Utah and despite our time differences it all works smoothly.

With all of us being in different countries also means that our weekly catchups are super interesting. I love to hear what adventures the team is up to in their part of the world.

Startup culture is definitely fast paced and comes with new and exciting challenges every day. I love it!

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Walk us through your typical day?

Besides being part of the MemFam, I also work as a Principal Designer for Ireland's leading digital agency, All human. My days are pretty action packed. I generally start by making a strong cup of coffee (no milk, please) and noting my 'to-do' list for the day. I then check emails, slack messages and say a friendly good morning to the team.

On Thursdays, the Memorisely team gets to catchup on Zoom, find out what everyone is up to, share any exciting news and brainstorm great things for the future. We also have our amazing Yoga sessions with Liza ♥️. In the evening, I plan and record short videos for Memorisely's Instagram and Tiktok accounts.

Fridays are for onboarding sessions with Zander, study and preparation time for the upcoming bootcamps.

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The most exciting or unique part of your day-to-day at Memorisely?

At the moment, the most exciting thing is the preparation and seeing all the incredible work that goes on behind the scenes in an Education startup (it's a lot!). The energy and enthusiasm from everyone is sooo inspiring.

The part of my day, which is definitely unique, is thinking up of and creating new transition ideas for my reels on Instagram (They're tougher than you'd think. Maybe that should be our next bootcamp 🤔 🤣)

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What's your best advice for overcoming challenges in the workplace?

This is the best advice I've received and it helps to overcome challenges both professionally and personally: Thoughts are not facts. The types of thoughts that you have are influenced by the way you feel at the time. Once you learn that your thoughts aren't always reality, you realise that they only have power over you if you buy into them. So, if a thought is causing you insecurity or distress, it makes sense to check out whether is a true reflection of reality or not. You can do that with a friend, ask for feedback at work from your peers or managers, or learn to do it yourself.

Care to share your work space setup?

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And your go-to or must-have apps?

The ones I use daily are most definitely Figma ♥️, Notion, Slack & Spotify.

Below are some of the mobile apps I use most frequently. Are you even a designer if you don't organise your apps by colour? 🤣

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What product recently blew your socks off?

Well, I could spend days talking about Figma and how amazing the tool is, but we all know that at this stage 😁

I recently spent 3 weeks in Lisbon and I had the BEST time exploring the city by scooter 🛴. All you need to do is download an app, look for nearest scooter, scan the QR code and off ye go!! I know they're not a new thing, but I'd never used them before. It was so much fun 🥳

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Share your can't-live-without productivity tip or hack?

When you need focus time, block out time on your calendar (you can title it 'no meetings' from 1- 4pm, for instance), mute your notifications and make sure your phone is out of sight.

When I need really deep focus, I also use a binaural beats playlist. It really works 👌

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Name one thing you recently learned that surprised you.

I read about studies stating that in North America and Europe, we spend 90% of our time indoors 🤯 We all need to make a better effort to spend more time out in nature!

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What's your favorite thing to do outside of the virtual office?

Travel has to be at the top of the list. I love seeing new cities and finding hidden gems. Something I really miss and love to do is going to gigs. Hopefully I get to see more live music as things return to normal.

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Share your current go-to tunes.

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Three pieces of advice for breaking into the UX/UI Design field?

1. Connect with the community. There are great design communities out there (Memorisely being the best one 😉) where you get to network, share and receive feedback, and connect with folks that are just as passionate and curious about design as you are.
2. If it's available to you, take a course or enroll in a UX/UI bootcamp. From experience, learning-by-doing is highly effective.
3. Stay curious!