We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chris Klein a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Chris, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Is there a lesson you learned in school that’s stuck with you and has meaningfully impacted your journey?
What has come to me from reflecting on the experiences I had going through school, is the lesson of recognizing what I am good at, what I am passionate about and enjoy doing, and the differences between them.
Growing up in K12 school, math and science came naturally easier to me than other subjects. Growing up with ADHD, having rigid processes to work towards an asnwer that was either right or wrong for a problem allowed the flow of my quickly moving mind to be effectively directed with guard rails. And after finishing workbook problems and class exercises, I would constantly doodle in the margins as I needed something to engage with while I waited for the teacher’s next instructions. Not realizing until much later that it was part of how I was expressing the creative spark inside me that I thought didn’t really exist. Throughout high school I was constantly interested in how things were put together and worked. I defaulted to pursuing mechanical engineering and business in college while also competing on the conference and national championship stages for the University of Michigan’s swim team. I was definitely passionate about pursuing my goals in swimming, but didn’t really have the same confidence about what I wanted to pursue academically so I leaned on my strengths for what would set me up for a good job when I graduated.
Somewhere about half-way through college I had a realization of what I would be really passionate about doing after I graduated. I wanted to behind the creative and strategic decisions that go into creating a way for someone to connect with a story. I dreamed (and still dream) of designing attractions and theme parks for guests. The difference in how I felt about what I was learning at the time and what I wanted to do came into stark contrast and unlocked the creative side of mind that I had been setting aside for too long. I caught myself spending lots of time getting lost in and seeking out anything I could use to learn more about this topic. Those were just the signs I needed to push me to find a way to pursue it. But I couldn’t just drop from my current path, I still had goals to achieve in swimming that were important to me. I knew what I had to do was to make the best finish I could when I graduated and make my way from there to where I wanted to be by leveraging my strengths when they were needed, keep feeding and learning more my passions as much as possible, and always be on the lookout for ways I could combine them. Now, being in the creative & strategic world of user experience at Ford Motor Co, I balance the skills I learned around technical and critical thinking with my creative side in my tendency to constantly zoom my perspective in & out on projects – paying attention to the bigger picture, the details of the designs that make up the larger picture, and the strategies used to put them all together.
Chris, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
As I have mentioned earlier, I came from a background of technical education and elite athletics from my engineering and business degree and my time on the University of Michigan’s varsity swim & dive team.
After graduating, I found myself in the rotation program at Ford Motor Co as an engineer in product development. Through that program I was able to see into the design world through my time on a studio team that ultimately led me to the Human Centered Design organization where I am today. I get to be more connected to how things come together and are experienced by customers in translating insights about their needs along with emerging tech and market trends into designs we can deliver to them in the future. I can say honestly that I am still working to grow my personal brand and business, and I don’t think that will change. I am constantly trying to learn more about all of the topics and tools of design that I could use to bring ideas and stories to life.
Outside of my role at Ford, I am currently focusing on leading the UX design for mobile games development with AppStop.io, making sure that our players have the best experience they can in the games. We recently launched the advergame: One Tap Victory for iOS & Android and are currently working towards releasing a whole new version with major updates where we will bring our players a multiplayer level creation mode and will be integrating brand and influencer sponsor gameplay and unlockable content. We are eager to release and promote the new version soon this summer so be on the lookout. I am also a member of the Board of Directors and Outreach Committee for the University of Michigan’s Athlete Letterwinner M Club where I am bringing my UX/UI, and graphic design skills to help refresh and grow our online and social media presence to better connect with our members and reach the newest generation of athletic alumni. I’m excited to announce our new website – LetterwinnersMClub.com has recently launched.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to unlearn the feelings of needing everything to be done “right” or correctly on the first pass, and that you only get one try to get it right. Throughout school, particularly in science and math focused subjects, we are taught that there is a “right way” to do things or solve a problem, and there’s usually either a right or wrong answer. While that is very true for many of the things I learned growing up, the opposite is true in the real world. Even problems that require technical or precise solutions, there are often many different paths that can be taken to arrive at an answer, and depending on the situation, that answer may be just as acceptable as another answer found by someone else who took a different path to get there. Unlearning that lesson is still a work in progress for me as I can still get hung up on trying to have as many pieces of the puzzle in front me solved before even starting to put them together. But I am finding more and more that the best way to break that habit is simply to start by placing a single puzzle piece. Just getting started and taking some action to move forward, even starting with the small pieces helps kickstart my brain into working and by so doing, helps me build momentum to lay as much of my thinking out as I can. Once the thoughts are out of my head and recorded in some way, instead of getting blocked by overthinking, it becomes easier to organize and edit them in the next go around. This way I’ve already broken things down to more manageable chunks.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
There are a few things that drive my creative journey. First is my ceaselessly inquisitive nature combined with having pent-up desire to create and express that I wasn’t exercising as much as I should have. Every time I see, hear about, or experience other designs that inspire me, I get that strong itch to try my hand at creating my own visions. And there are many moments that are incredibly satisfying in that process that compel you to create more. Both when you feel you have really captured what is in your mind as well as the amazing accidents that inspire brand new ideas. For me, those moments come most often when I am trying to expand my knowledge and grow my skills and stumble upon them in the act of applying what I’ve just learned. Secondly, is when I am working to design something meant for others and I am constantly putting myself in their shoes, trying to see through their eyes. When you are truly empatHizing with a user, customer, or guest, you can look at the designs from a completely different perspective and ask yourself thought-provoking questions that challenge your previous notions. Every time that happens, you usually find a multitude of avenues that keep you exploring.
Contact Info:
- Website: chriskleindesigns.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriskleindesigns/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-klein-aa814310a/