Prince Miracle Onesimus is a Utiva alumnus and a Product Designer at Afrinvest. In this interview, we discuss a topic vital to the career progression of every designer: design trends. We discuss ways to stay updated with trends, avoid information overload, trends that every designer should look out for in the future, and many more.

Enjoy!

Before we get started, how did you get into product design?

I had been super interested in Product Design for a while, but I didn’t know how to break into the field. 

During the Covid-19 lockdown period, I came across an AD about the Utiva Design School, so I decided to take the Product Design course. The course introduced me to the world of design. After the course, I continued learning by watching Youtube videos, reaching out to senior designers, and doing everything to ensure I was improving myself. 

Between then and now, I have worked with a couple of startups including Chunk Africa and Topship. I currently work with Afrinvest; we recently built and launched a Fintech platform: Optimus by Afrinvest.

Great to see how far you've come. In your role as a product designer, how do you stay updated with different trends?

I don't overstretch myself, and I advise aspiring designers to go easy and pay attention to what matters. As a new designer, start with design fundamentals: trends may come and go, but design principles and fundamentals are timeless. An important part of designing for users is learning how humans think, and humans rarely change. Once you have a good grasp of these, you can proceed to trends. 
 

Here are different ways I stay updated with design trends: 

1. 1. I connect with designers on LinkedIn, and I follow design thought leaders on Twitter and Instagram. This helps me stay up-to-date with new happenings in design. 

• 2. I use Behance, Dribble and other websites to discover trends and to get inspiration. 
• 3. Lastly, If I see someone doing admirable things in the design space, I reach out to them and try to connect with them. 
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While staying updated with these trends, do you sometimes get overwhelmed by information overload? How do you handle this? 

When I feel overwhelmed, I take a break. It is easy to get caught up in so much information that you start to feel overwhelmed; this can eventually lead to burnout. In design, there's always something to learn; remember that you do not have to do or learn every trend at once.  It might be helpful to figure out the best way you learn, and then adjust your learning schedule to suit your learning style. 

What would you say are the benefits of hopping on design trends? 

Whenever a new trend comes along, it can come with great opportunities. If you hop on the trend early enough, you can benefit from it before other designers catch up. In other words, you are always on top of your game
 

An example I’ll give you is Web3. I financially benefited from Web3 early 2022. I worked with a couple of DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations); these are organizations where everyone works autonomously. So the benefit of staying updated with trends is you are able to learn about opportunities and take advantage of them quickly before everyone else catches up. 

When would you say is the best time to hop on a trend and how do you differentiate between a good trend and one that isn’t all that? 

I believe before adopting a trend, consider its usefulness to your users; also, does this trend align with what you like and your beliefs? 

Another thing to note before hopping on trends is, does it catch your interest. Is it something you like? Investing your time in learning will be easier if you are interested in a trend.

Lastly, check where the trend is headed. Trends like AR and VR designs are the future, and this is something that designers can begin to learn.