Hi all! I’ve noticed a lot of a new subscribers to this newsletter lately - thank you so much to everyone taking the time to subscribe and read my ramblings! I truly enjoy writing these newsletters but it sometimes feels a bit anonymous.
I figured it might be interesting to show you a little bit of what’s happening behind the scenes and take you along with me when I traveled to Graz, Austria to film a Figma design course with LinkedIn!
Monday
Usually I start my workweek from home, but today I went to the office in the afternoon to attend a Vision Workshop.
After work, I felt inspired to create some more content and work on some draft newsletters. I usually batch create content in moments of inspiration and then plan my content ahead. I don’t spend as much time on social media as I used to anymore, but I did read up on some comments on a LinkedIn post that went live earlier this morning.
In the evening I spend a few hours practicing my script for a Figma-course that I’d be filming later in the week.
Tuesday
In the morning I finished some UI work in Figma. I’ve been working on improvements of an older design component that we use in Miro that needed some extra UX/UI love.
In the afternoon, our team had a call with a customer to gage interest and identify needs for a new integration that we’re building. I really like doing research and talking with customers. Of course, our team uses Miro very intensely and after the call I collected our research insights in our research board on Miro.
In the late afternoon I head to the airport, because I would fly to Graz (Austria) in the evening. This is a very exciting trip, because I was going to film a design course at LinkedIn!
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Wednesday
I get up early and have some breakfast before I had to the LinkedIn office (luckily right across the street of my hotel!) to meet the producer who helped me record the Figma course.
This was the first time for me recording videos in a recording booth and I was very impressed by how it was all set up. The recording booths look exactly how you would imagine: covered in soft, soundproofing material, a bunch of technical equipment and of course a cool red “Recording” sign!
The course is entirely in German and even though I’m fluent, Germany grammar is really challenging so I typed out the entire course as a script upfront. After an introduction to all the software and hardware I had to use to record, I started filming the Figma tutorials. This was a good lesson in letting go of perfectionism, because it’s not possible to do one take without any mistakes. Every time I finished a recording, it was sent to another team so that they could check the quality and see if changes in the script had to be made or if I had to do any retakes.
Thursday
In the morning we filmed a trailer with me introducing the course. Over the past years, I’ve created multiple YouTube videos together with CareerFoundry for their channel, so I already have some experience being in front of the camera. However, this felt more like presenting a TV show, including a big green screen, autocue and lots of big lights!
In the afternoon I was in a good groove with recording the course and finished almost everything I had to record. You might not expect it, but it’s quite intense work. The recording booth doesn’t really have a steady oxygen flow and gets really hot. It also takes a lot of concentration to record the Figma tutorials in a foreign language, so around 4PM I was feeling pretty fried and called it a day.
After freshening up in the hotel, I enjoyed the evening sun with a good book and a hike to the top of the Schlossberg in Graz.
Friday
I recorded the last videos and then spent the afternoon going through the corrections that the LinkedIn team send me. This meant I had do retakes and fixing grammar mistakes or pronunciations in the video. Luckily it didn’t take too long so I was done early and treated myself to a sweet treat to celebrate the work done.
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Three take-aways from this week
Filming a design course is very different from filming YouTube videos, because it’s more technical and there’s less room to improvise. I need to make sure I explain things well, of course!
Variation is so important to me to keep feel inspired and motivated. I love little breaks from everyday work - even when the breaks themselves are also work. Finding a balance between work and play is something that’s always on top of my mind.
Having passion projects next to work are essential for me, because they fuel my creativity, give my inspiration and purpose.
I know this is a bit of a different post then you’re used of me. I’ve been dabbling into more personal stuff lately.
Would you mind letting me know what you think of it - would you want to see more behind-the-scenes? Are there other topics you’d like to read about? Let me know in the comments below or by replying to this email. Thanks so much!