Ana Maria Escobar

This is just an incredible opportunity. I’m going to read, because I just don’t want to miss anything of what I want to tell you, and I wish I had an hour to talk to you, but I only have, like, eight minutes, so I’m just going to go for it. Deputy Chancellor, Deputy Vice Chancellor, Director, Associate Dean of the Faculty, members of the University Council, Chair of the Academic Board, staff, family, friends and graduates. It is now time for you to take it all in. 

Please, stop for a minute and look around you. Look what you have accomplished. Don’t take it lightly. All those restless nights, those ideas that you never thought would be possible, the days you spent in labs trying to deliver something you were proud of – you’ve done it. You’ve finished, and you accomplished something incredible. I’m so proud to be talking to you today. It was only 18 years ago that I was sitting on those chairs, full of dreams, and wanting to change the world. And so, you all get excited – the dreams were small compared to where design and creativity have taken me. I was asked to talk about my journey, and it was extremely hard to detach myself from design and creativity. 

I was born in Australia and raised in Colombia, and it was there that I made the call to study industrial design. My mum was extremely supportive, but half of my very big family had no idea what I was going to do. The way they explained it was, ‘She loves drawing, she likes pretty things, she’s very visual, just like her grandmother.’ That gave them some connection to what I was going to become. Unfortunately, that perception hasn’t changed – they still think all I do is pretty pictures. I studied industrial design in South America. Coming from Colombia, you have a real 360 view of what design can do. The power of creativity and how we can actually change the world if we want to, with very little resources. I got to see the power of design into practice, like designing eco-friendly houses, understanding sustainability very early in your career; words like ‘wastage’ and ‘cost’ were part of our continued conversation in Colombia. You trained to think about the ecosystem around your product – who makes it, how long it takes, where, what is the impact. I then came to UTS, where I found a second home – a university aligned with my values. 

I felt embraced and empowered, but I had to admit, my very first impression walking into the faculty was, ‘Wow, these students are so lucky and so privileged.’ Compared to my previous experience, don’t get me wrong, my Colombian experience was incredible, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but UTS was what I ever dream of and more. I was like a kid in a candy store. I spent hours in the industrial design room, and I was studying textiles and fashion. I spent hours in the printing room; we had Apple computers, we had teachers ready to help us, spend time with us, drawing tables where I spent hours learning techniques. It was such a different experience, and one I treasure every single day. Until today, I have some fond memories of my time at UTS. I had many moments in my career that shaped me to who I am today, but one that is very vivid and it always stayed with me, and I think I applied every single day in my career: I was getting ready for one of my critiques, and I got extremely nervous. 

My English wasn’t the best at the time, so it was fragmented. Eric, my illustration teacher, took me aside and told me, ‘Remember, when you open your mouth, people know you’ve been somewhere else. You are unique, and your accent gives you power.’ He probably doesn’t know the incredible impact he had in me. My point is, Eric, a UTS teacher, didn’t have to do that, but that is who we are as UTS teachers and students. We are kind, we are conscious and, most importantly, we care. Learning English as a second language while doing my course really helped me in my career. I think I learned the most powerful and more important power I ever imagined to have: because I was learning another language, I had to stay quiet and I had to listen, but really listen – the power of stopping and listening opens your mind to new opportunities and ideas. 

To the point that I used to record some of my lectures and translate them, or write my whole dissertation in Spanish and then translate it to English to make sure I wasn’t losing any information, I was so present. I took every word, I enjoyed every minute, I just feel very, very lucky. I didn’t take anything for granted, and I was grateful. This love for the craft and for design taught by my tutors and teachers at UTS continued through my career. Also, my grateful disposition has been always there. After finishing my degree, I started my work at a heritage Australian brand where I quickly moved from assistant designer to head designer. 

When I was 24, I got offered the job of my dreams: senior designer. It was exciting, but got me thinking. At 24, do I really want to be sitting in my dream job? I quickly applied a UTS way of thinking: I need more time to learn, more time to make mistakes, and more time to ask questions. So, I made the decision to the client that offered, and moved to my next challenge. I worked for many other Australian companies and went back to the brand where I started my career four years later as a creative director and general manager. I then moved to work in a large organisation where I met incredible people, but I also saw the power of design in how much we as designers have to give, how resilient we are, and how adaptable we can be. In this 20 years journey, I have learned a lot, but I’m still learning. 

The best advice I ever had in my career was after a very long meeting, where I had to listen to probably 10 opinions – not facts, onions, and very subjective ones. Someone saw my frustration and say this to me: ‘Feel proud; don’t get frustrated. Everyone dreams on having the talent to do what you do. Everyone wants to be creative. Let people in. Make them feel part of the story. They comment and add their point of view, because they’re interested, and most importantly, they don’t want you to fail.’ So, for now on, you’ll all be exposed to many different disciplines of design – different cultures, different politics, very different ways of doing businesses, and as designers, you need to be aware of how to manage these moments to get your concepts to reality. Believe me, I know all of you can build a website, all of you can set an Instagram page, and even create your own product. But one thing I’m sure of is you can’t do it alone. You need to take people in your journey – make them fall in love with your ideas and your narrative. 

The power of collaboration is immense. Just think for a moment: to build a big website, you have to work with IT engineers, with buyers, with finance etcetera; to create an experience or a new store environment, you have to work with architects, allocators, curators, visual merchandisers, retail experts; to create and produce product, you have to work with fabric [inaudible], Italian leather suppliers, silks from India – and the list just goes on and on. So, if you master taking people on your journey, the sky is the limit. Design and creative thinking is extremely powerful. Just think for a second, we have been trained in early stages in our career to be transparent, to survive sign-offs and critiques, to deal with feedback, positive and negative, to move fast, to visualise, and most importantly, to be problem solvers.

Make sure you take people in your journey so they fall in love as much as you have. So, putting pen on paper, or pen on tablet, is just the beginning. You now have the responsibility to give design and creativity a name. We can’t be any more the discipline that thinks funny, or even worse, the discipline that adds complexity, or in sometimes, the discipline that is not commercial. Make sure you arm yourself with facts and learn to communicate your ideas. Choose your audience – no one loves your designs and creations more than you do, so learn how to share them. Remember, it’s not about a tech pack and the rest just happens. Get rid of your ego, be kind and inclusive and all you can possibly imagine is possible. 

So, I understand we all talk digital and technology etcetera, and that is all true, but I believe the more we advance in technology, the more humans we have to become. It goes back to the values this university has taught us – empower each other, and make a difference. You all have a huge responsibility. Make sure you start thinking outside the square; your decision impacts a whole economy. Ethical sourcing is your responsibility. So, if there’s something I’d like you to take from this today is never compromise your core value system, stay curious and asked questions, take people in your journey, and make sure you understand the impact of your work. Please stay curious, stay humble, never stop learning – design is about failing and trying again. Congratulations, and well done.