Introducing the wonderful Ana Pradas, a senior visual designer on our editorial tools team. From making collages as a teenager in Madrid to being a part of some of the Guardians most creative projects, please enjoy learning about Ana’s fascinating journey through her career in design.
How did you discover your path into design?
I guess I have always been drawn to it. I remember collecting magazines to make collages when I was a teenager, and going to museums was something we did often as a family when I was growing up. I didn’t realise until much later that people could earn a living through design.
I studied advertising in university. I initially wanted to be an art director, but I needed a job and applied for a role as an account executive at an ad agency. I got it. It taught me a lot about how to manage team dynamics, client relationships and the production side of things. But after four years I was still thinking about creative roles. I signed up to do a graphic design course after work during the summer months and decided to quit advertising afterwards. It was 2014 and the unemployment rate in Spain was still astronomical. Some people thought I was crazy for quitting a permanent job to pursue design but I had some savings and took the leap.
I did an internship in Madrid and then a postgrad in editorial design in Barcelona. I learned about Tibor Kalman, Fantastic Man, The Face, Willy Fleckhaus, Nova, Port, Richard Willey … and Mark Porter. He gave a lecture about his work, his early career at Colour magazine, as the creative director at the Guardian and then at his own studio. When he asked if anyone would be interested in applying for an internship at his studio in Bath, I didn’t think twice.
I got the internship and moved to the UK.
How did you end up working for the Guardian?
After 18 months with Mark working on print, I moved to London to work with another ex-Guardian designer, Mark Leeds, where I slowly started to work on more digital projects.
Growing up, my parents always bought the newspaper on the weekends. It was part of the routine before lunch on Sundays. El País had a kids supplement called El pequeño País (the little El País) and another aimed at young readers called Tentaciones (Temptations) that were my gateway into newspapers. When I moved to the UK I was homesick and missed that routine so I started buying the Guardian on Saturdays. Review was my favourite supplement back then, I still have some of the old issues saved.
I was really keen to work at the Guardian so when I saw a job post for a digital designer on Instagram, I applied.
What led you to pursue a UX role at the Guardian?
It was pure luck. I had been working only on editorial projects before I joined but my role as a digital designer at the Guardian meant working between the editorial department (doing illustrations for articles and investigations. I loved it!) and product & engineering (I was part of the team that redesigned the Editions app in 2019).
I hadn’t given UX much thought before working on the Editions app. It was through the senior UX designer in the team that I learned how critical it is for a good product. We sat together and she would question everything she thought wasn’t right. She always advocated for the users, even if it meant being uncomfortable and challenging the stakeholders.
During 2020 I joined the editorial tools team and started taking more of a hybrid role, where I had to do UX research, UX design and UI.
I find research the most challenging area of product design. You need to completely let go of your ideas and assumptions and allow the users to tell you what they think without any guidance of what you want to hear. You want users to be honest and sometimes that means them tearing apart what you designed.
When the digital design team was reorganised in 2021 I had to decide what route to pursue —editorial or product— and I ended up choosing the latter.
What does a typical day look like for you?
I wake up very early even if I don’t mean to, so I will make myself a coffee and go for a walk before the work day starts. I try to get some focus time before I have to join standup. I’m most efficient in the morning and, as the day progresses, I find it harder to concentrate.
I spend most of my day between Figma and meetings. But if I’m feeling stuck I might go for a walk or grab a pencil and paper. Sometimes I just need to get away from screens to be creative. I also find pairing with other designers really helpful. Sometimes just sketching scribbles together can really help crack the challenge.
Because I have to think about research, UX and design, and they require very different mindsets I have little rituals depending on what I need to work on to help me focus.
If I need to spend some time working on research analysis or being creative, I might go for a quick walk, make a cup of tea and put a chill soundtrack on in the background. If I need to work on design specs or something more admin-like, I’ll probably go to a coffee shop or listen to the radio or a podcast.
What project are you working on right now?
I usually work on a mix of small and big projects for editorial tools at the same time. The two main projects that I’m working on at the moment are Pinboard, an extension to our editorial tools, and Wordiply.
Pinboard helps collate the communication and assets of a story alongside it rather than spread between emails, chats and notes. Its goal is to help streamline the production process. It will be used by the editors, reporters, production editors, picture desk … everyone in the newsroom. Readers will never see it although it will impact how the stories they read get put together.
We started this project at the beginning of the pandemic. I vividly remember shadowing people in all sorts of roles within the newsroom. We were all working from our kitchens and bedrooms. In a sense I think all of us being remote made it easier for the team to be able to talk with so many different people across desks and offices in editorial. It’s been a really interesting project to work on from ideation to delivery, with a lot of collaboration between us and the editorial department.
Wordiply is an interesting one because it’s not something I normally get to do. It’s a puzzle game, the sibling of a feature about how to create the next Wordle. I was brought into it by the nonfiction books editor and a developer on the team because of a hack day project I had helped with. After a few iterations, we recently decided to launch it to see if people will like it.
What advice would you give your younger self?
It’s OK if things don’t work out. Have fun and try new things.
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.