In Brazil, Gustavo Gava’s mother was an interior and shop window designer and he fondly recalls how fascinated he used to be by all the shapes and colours in her work. Many moons later it was the time to decide between studying advertising, architecture or design and Gus decided to pursue a Product Design degree at the UFPR (Universidade Federal do Paraná). After some years working in local design studios he came to London where he started his first job in the digital space.
What made you decide to move to the UK?
When I was at school I was fascinated by the UK. It was the time of ‘Cool Britannia’ and I was obsessed with the plethora of culture, it was the time of Blur, Radiohead, Alexander McQueen and all that. At Uni, the ties got stronger when I realised how significant British product and graphic design influences were in the world. One of my teachers, who was a real inspiration to me, had also done her masters in the UK and established herself as one of the most influential designers of her generation, with award winning works including the Tate visual identity. So, I was really sold on this dream of London as the place to be, as a multi diverse, cultural power house and I wanted to be part of it. It was the place where you got to set the design trends of the world instead of just following them.
It was a shock when I first arrived as I couldn’t barely understand the many accents I could hear. But it was also the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. I started by working in a bar in Shoreditch where I met people from different parts of the UK which actually really helped me get to grips with the language. Once I was settled, I was confident enough to start looking for a job in my field and years later I too completed my MSC in Interactive Design and Games Technologies. In fact, I got a distinction.
How did you start your journey to UX?
I kicked things off working for a small studio as a digital designer and doing all sorts of websites and even working on social media 1.0 projects (remember Flash and Myspace?), before moving on to Sky where I worked for seven years as a UI Designer, with a little bit of UX. After a while I started to feel somewhat detached from the decision making process. I felt like I was designing blindly for other people and only seeing the product pop up months later.
Over the years, I got back to falling in love with creative ways to solve a challenge, which brought me back to my product design roots. Being a UXer allowed me to think more critically about the ‘why’ and ‘how’. As in the customer’s expectations and needs from a product or experience, how can we deliver a viable, wholesome and fulfilling experience that is aligned with our business goals. To me, that meant thinking and researching a lot harder about the design instead of just considering client satisfaction and what would look good on a page.
After Sky, I thought that a move back to a smaller organisation might be just the thing so I ended up at Hive Learning where I worked on designing a learning and collaboration app for teams. I also made the shift from UI to a more all rounded product role, including UX, strategy and visual design.
What made you decide to finally join the Guardian?
I’d been at Hive Learning for over two years when I had another soul-searching moment after successfully launching the app. I looked back at my career and saw that I was happiest when working closer to editorial teams. Designing an app was a rewarding experience, but I thought it was the right time to look for a job that combined my skill set, editorial design with an organisation doing something positive in the world. The Guardian was the natural choice as it was the newspaper close to my heart and aligned with my values.
So consequently, one night, after a few exhausting hours of application submissions and a glass of wine, I noticed an advert in one of the LinkedIn newsletters. Two weeks later, I got an email, then a phone call and finally an interview. Suddenly I found myself starting my journey at the Guardian as a senior UX designer.
What does a typical day look like?
I wake up quite early, and one of the first things I like to do is check our chat channels to see if I missed anything from the day before or overnight. Then I have a look at my calendar to double-check if there is any change in my schedule for the day. Most days, I officially start with a standup, but on Tuesday, we have a design heartbeat meeting where we update each other on where we are in design work across teams and talk about case studies and new ideas. Throughout my time at the Product and Engineering team, I worked in different huddles, such as Editorial Tools and Journalism. Still, I stayed over three years in the Supporter Revenue team to create the best experience for our readers and encourage them to become supporters.
So, the rest of my day is either individual work or many one-to-one and cross-functional meetings. They’re one of my favourite types of discussions because it involves team members from different areas of the department like product and engineering, and members from outside the department like marketing, brand and commercial. All of us are on board the same product discovery journey, working together towards the same goals.
What do you enjoy the most about working here?
The Guardian is the first workplace where I feel totally myself, especially as a professional who is part of the LGBTQI community. I find my day-to-day work more meaningful, our efforts are for the right reasons, and I feel at home as my colleagues are progressive like-minded individuals. Also, I really love the morning conference which is our daily news meeting led by our editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner. It’s open to anyone in the organisation and it is an opportunity to hear what our editorial teams are planning to publish that day. I think it’s one of the best perks of working here because you feel like you’re at the very beating heart of the news. Knowing that part of my work involves making sure all our wonderful journalists are able to do their jobs is very rewarding for me; holistically as well as practically for I was previously on the team working on editorial tools. The UX experience for me isn’t just about the external reader but also about the internal user and those people are some of the more amazing, principled and hardworking individuals I have had the pleasure of working with.
Development of digital products is central to the Guardian. You could be building the products that showcase our progressive and independent journalism, crafting the tools that journalists use to write their stories, developing the services that allow those stories to be distributed across the globe, or safeguarding our financial future.
If you’re interested in joining our product and engineering team, please visit the Guardian News & Media careers page.