Janworks full time at Tapdaq, starting at the mobile promotion platform when therewere only 2 others. He has designed every pixel from corner to corner, as theirlead designer, crafting both the company’s image and other clients. He seemsentertained by complex challenges, focusing on the feature packed dashboards.“I design all day and night long”, Jan describes himself. But he is notobsessed, simply focused.
Janand his girlfriend live in the UK, seeking travel in between projects. We speakabout the cross between client life at Tapdaq and his projects at home, oneproject in particular which shines light on his talent and advances him intodigital designer stardom.
UIKits were something of interest to him early on has he crafted complexdashboard interfaces. Dashboards of style, color and simplistic nature so thatend users could adopt the particular tool quickly. In essence, the faster anend user can catch on to a new program the more money that particular user willsave. At night, Jan uses his same practices to his UI Kits, an online storewhich contains library packs of screens and elements that other developers anddesigners can purchase and implement into their own projects.
Thecomplexity is simplified into layers embedded into Photoshop and Sketch 3. “Imade the Mobile iOS UI kits first, both the 90 Cities kit and Night &Travel kit, converting the elements into multiple screen sizes made pixel readyfor the iPhone 5, 6 and 6 Plus. It was mainly out of practice, to bestunderstand the iOS principals. Then I worked on the Apple Watch UI Kit,creating 40 screens and 10 concepts.” – Jan. It humored me that out ofpracticed he managed to acquire 3,500 downloads for just the Watch Kit alone.His style is thought provoked and resembles a dark hazy night. A flagrant blueand purple seem to be his choice of color, accented by an emerald green. Thecolors work quite nicely together, complementing each other in his scenes, likea personality he has created with in the kit.
Challengedby complexity, Jan focused his latest project on his Dashboard UI Kit. When youfirst download it, you can see his perspective. This kit resembles a tool forteaching, for “Mastering the Art of Product Design & Dashboard Interface”.With over 60+ Screen and 400 elements the kit shows a new height for pixellayout and guides the purchaser through an insanity amount of titles anddescription for each layer. “The project took me over 3 months, first producingit in Photoshop. When I took it into Sketch I notice that it was 3 pixels off.So I spent another several weeks redoing all of the screens. Even my girlfriendassisted with the layer titles. It was an all-night sort of project”.
Thekit went on to generate over 1000 downloads the first week on UI8.net and laterthe 3rd bestselling kit of all timewithin the marketplace. Jan humbly acknowledges his method of teaching byproducing a sound ideological example of professional grade digital layoutswhich as taught thousands of users. “The emails keep pouring in, which makes myjob exciting to hear and listen to what customers are looking for in the kits.My updates keep me busy”.
Thecomplexity of the future is something Jan continues to iterate in all of hisdesigns, “The question is, how will current apps adapt their experience to newdevices? We took this question seriously and have tried to create an experiencewhich users understand. We are curious what you think about these apps andmaybe you can take our progress further”. Progress seems to continue to bedetermined by his pixel perfect visions, visions on the future and a strongprecedent study to creating the UI your grandchildren will continue to use. Youcan continue to see Jan’s Designs on personal website, his UI Kit store and hisDribbble profile.
Defining a Breakout Moment
"There isdefinitely a couple. First - I started making cash on the side, I was 18 and Iwas making comparable income as my parents, which was exciting. That’s whenI’ve realized that all these long friday nights in front of my computed finallystarted paying off. My big break, I guess you call it was definitely during my first job in Socialbakers where I started as one ofthe main designers straight from the start and I’ve realized I’m probably doingsomething what people actually like.
And third, waspersonally a big challenge for me and the biggest change was me moving fromliving under the roof of my parents in Badoo to London. Before that I was justJunior Designer only 3 years ago. Today, in London, I’ve been working every daylate nights until 3AM on my dashboard designs. But the excitiment keeps megoing. Once I’ve got 2000 followers in 2 months on Dribbble. It has changed mythinking about design a lot."
Spit Questions:
How did you begin your creative journey? "I was chattingonline with people about various topics on one a forum back in the day. Themajority of people on the forum used to have amazing graphic signatures intheir profiles, which would appear under all of their posts. Curiosity broughtme to Photoshop and I started designing my own signatures. The next two yearsfollowing the creation of my first signature, I spent around 2 years creatingvarious photo manipulations, matte paintings and wallpapers. Four years later,I moved to web designing, and I have been pushing pixels ever since."
Who or whatinfluenced your beginning designs? "DeviantArt community and czech designer. I’ve learned everythingalone in my room on my parent’s PC. I’ve been recreating tutorials on Tuts+back in the days. I wanted to do something different than every kid in myneighborhood."
What does it mean tobe a creative leader? "As I’vementioned before. It means to be able to deal with everything. Things getscomplicated. It’s not only being able produce nice dribbblish pixels for likesanymore. It’s all about being able to present to the whole team your designs.Being able to produce copy hand in hand with your copywriter. Be able to testhypothesis. Spend time with contractors and chase them to deliver the bestpossible results for the whole company.
What is the workyour most proud of? "DefinitelyTapdaq. I haven’t been in any job for more than a year before and I’m alreadyin Tapdaq for 2 years and 3 months and it’s still exciting, at least sometimes:) It’s amazing to work hand in handwith one of me best friends and one of the best developer out there onsomething what people are actually using. I’ve put everything into Tapdaq. WhenI’ve joined as 1st employee I’ve got empty paper and I’ve created every singlepixel and every single interaction."
