About me

As an experienced product designer, I am passionate about the diverse domains that design impacts. My interests span human behavior, interaction design, business strategy, systems thinking, writing, mindfulness practices, longevity, goal setting, and productivity.

I believe in a holistic approach. I believe everything is interlinked. I believe that physical and digital should work as one. I believe we should design ourselves first. I believe aesthetics comes above experiment. I believe that beautiful things work better. I believe there are too many things around us. I believe there should be fewer, but better designed things.

I am convinced that the only true source of certainty lies in the systems we build for ourselves. This drives my mission to develop a universal self-design system and share it with like-minded individuals.

My professional journey

  1. I remember drawing people and vehicles on a small scale throughout my childhood, despite having no formal art education. As an introverted kid, I gravitated towards reading and enjoyed building things with Lego, wood, and paper.
  2. In university, I realized I share a designer's last name with Igor Sikorsky (the inventor of the helicopter), and discovered my passion for design. I learned Photoshop and began creating graphics for events and blog posts.
  3. In 2012 I started my career in sales (selling websites), while simultaneously learning web technologies and design basics.
  4. In 2013 I landed my first design job at a local studio Maximumweb. I spent a wonderful year designing banners, websites, mobile apps, and user interfaces for tech startups, while also meeting 75% of my friends.
  5. In 2014 I moved to the CPA affiliate media network Advertise, where I led the rebranding and redesign of the entire product.
  6. In 2015 I studied at the first Yandex Design School. I deepened my knowledge of product design and connected with dozens of talented designers who influenced my style.
  7. In 2016 I joined the international startup Storia. I designed the publishing flow and learned various aspects of user-generated content creation.
  8. In 2017 I became part of the world's first classified platform Avito, founded by two Swedes. For seven years, I was responsible for the seller's experience, focusing on content creation interfaces and content quality. In the last couple of years, I transitioned into managing the design team, where I enjoyed mentoring and empowering designers.

I enjoy establishing reliable principles and routines

I have a natural need to organize the world around me, it has always been that way. Structure breeds constraint, and constraint breeds clarity and creativity. While it is often easy to add new details to a project, I find it much more appealing to subtract unnecessary elements and provide a proper structure to what remains essential. I trust this process to reveal the beauty inherent in the original idea.

My holistic approach reflects my desire to engage with broad physical processes rather than just their implications in interfaces. We have dedicated much of our lives to screens, but real life continues to unfold outside of them. For me, the challenge is to design this transition to be as natural as possible.

I typically aim to create before managing, as management can easily consume all available time, leaving no room for producing artifacts. Therefore, I often establish a system of routines to ensure predictable results. A daily schedule for myself, various regular syncs and check-lists for the team.

The set of skills I apply in my work includes:

  • Design leadership. I build teams by hiring and onboarding designers, researchers, and managers. I mentor junior designers and strive to inspire my team members.
  • Product strategy. I support my team in developing a product vision and setting long-term goals.
  • Product management. I own product initiatives and guide products from ideation to revenue generation.
  • Product discovery. I research user needs, conduct in-depth interviews, study competitors, and analyze technical limitations to propose the best solutions.
  • UX writing. I often start with content, crafting everything from buttons to comprehensive user guides.
  • UX/UI/IxD design. Design is never static. I often begin by building prototypes even before the style concept is finalized, to get a sense of how product works. Afterward, I add style and iterate.
  • Usability testing. I validate all my solutions with real user feedback through guerrilla, usability, and side-by-side testing.
  • Product development. I thrive in an agile environment, collaborating with the delivery team before launch and tracking implementation results.

Regardless of the specific work I do on any given project, I always strive to leave it better than it was before me.

I design myself first

For me, design is not just a profession, it’s a way of viewing the world. I truly believe that we should design ourselves first, and through that process, discover principles applicable to everything else.

I developed a framework of artifacts and practices that I use in my daily life:

  • Vision. I have a vision for my life in 10 years, a practice I adopted from designer Debbie Millman. This approach allows me to dream big, visualize the way I want to live, and guides my goal-setting process.
  • Goals. Every year, I set 100 goals across 12 major areas of my life to maintain balance. Half of these goals come from my vision, while the other half come from my past year review, a practice inspired by Tim Ferriss. The exact number is not what matters, rather it’s the ease of tracking progress. The general idea is simple: the more goals you set, the more you can achieve.
  • Tasks. I use a simple GTD technique to manage my daily tasks. These tasks are typically linked to either major areas of my life or specific projects. One of the most useful sub-practices is maintaining an inbox where I can capture all upcoming ideas, so they don’t distract me.
  • Habits. The easiest way to achieve your larger goals is to take small steps in your daily activities and practice them regularly, even if it's just for 5 minutes at a time. Tracking your progress can be beneficial for activities such as exercise, healthy eating, writing, cold showers, and meditation.
  • Metrics. The main idea is to build a minimal set of the most important metrics that can indicate whether you are doing well in life. I have three key metrics, which I adopted from Jim Collins: hours of productive work a day, an emotional state rating from -2 to 2, and physical well-being on a scale of 0 to 10.
  • Daily journaling practice. I have been journaling every day since 2015, and I find this practice to be the most rewarding. When I am in doubt or experiencing difficult feelings, I simply write them down, which helps relieve the pressure. Journaling is also a great way to recall what I was doing on each particular day in the past.

This approach to structuring my life helps me feel more grounded as I discover and apply my purpose. I constantly adapt it to make it more cohesive, comprehensive, and useful. Change is the only constant. I use different tools for these practices and am working on integrating them into one system, ultimately aiming for a single tool. I believe that with a touch of AI, this can provide significant leverage for living a conscious and healthy life.

In addition to this system, I have also organized my readings, travels, contacts, possessions, design, and self-knowledge bases. I strive to create a useful system that can operate independently with my minimal conscious involvement.

I love to be active

We often forget that we are not just our minds, but our entire bodies. I deeply admire body practices and strive to maintain my physical health, which has resulted in a clearer mind and an overall sense of well-being.

My regular practices include weight training, swimming, cycling, stretching, cold showers, and sauna sessions. Occasionally, I also enjoy nail standing, massage, sailing, and free diving.

I love to walk and aim to cover at least 15 km every day. This helps me catch up on books and podcasts, meet my daily activity goals, clear my mind, and generate insights and ideas.

I believe that many of our problems could be alleviated if we simply moved more. Action comes before motivation, the simple act of moving your body can change your mood and ultimately your behavior. Discipline over motivation. No hurry, no pause.

I'm a minimalist

I hate waste. It terrifies me how much stuff is beeing produced nowadays.I dislike throwing away food. I dislike the feeling of having more than I need. I prefer to own a few well-designed quality items. My favorite possession is a wooden brick from a Dutch design studio with the slogan: "You have everything, you need nothing."

I only buy things that I love. If it's a big purchase, it has to lie in the wishlist for several months to make sure I really want it and it's not some marketing trick being played on me. I have 10 slots for cloth and gadgets per year. I try to get rid of two things when I buy a new one.

I would love to hear from you

If you found anything that resonates with you here, please introduce yourself:
Telegram, LinkedIn, p@sikorsky.design.