We were lucky to catch up with Alexander Shammami recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Alexander, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
It’s honestly super simple – Pay attention to the things that irritate you, make you happy, or illicit some kind of involuntary response. For me, it was noticing work or decisions that seemed to make life harder purposefully or didn’t consider an entire demographic of people. It really bothers me to see corporations with so much money design terrible experiences or products because they’re too lazy to do the research necessary to actually address the problem. That’s where I derive my purpose from – I only work on brands and in systems that make the world a better place. Whether it’s through road safety – the work I’m doing now – or by bringing diversity and visibility into a brand’s practice, what I need to show up every day and do the job is to believe and see that I’m actually making the world a better place through my work.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I am an expert in helping organizations reach their audiences in authentic ways so they can stop over-indexing on selling and focus on doing good work. A lot of that comes through brand fundamentals — branding is not just a logo or a design system, but it’s everything everyone says about you when you aren’t there to defend yourself. This misconception makes businesses overspend on marketing when what they need is a framework to show up consistently and authentically so that they can explore what it means to do the work they do.
A lot of people don’t know that this is something you can design, and too many businesses rely on luck when building their brand. The reason we like same-same products more than their competitors is a larger problem than aesthetics. When we use or wear or associate with something, we’re saying something about ourselves and our own values. People don’t want to associate with things that don’t align with their worldview, and that can be built on purpose. That’s what brand design is.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The most important qualities and skills to develop to hone in on your purpose are the ability to trust your gut, a solid sense of realism, and unquestionable honesty. If you can’t be real with yourself about what you like and what you don’t, that will show when you’re trying to convince someone you have what it takes. People are wonderful BS detectors, we wear a lot of emotions on our faces.
It’s worth the time and effort to really feel out what makes you happy, not in a superficial way but in a larger purpose-driven way. Do you care about climate change? Do you want to help people feel safer? Do you wish you had more financial security? Figuring out the things that you wish you had access too and then becoming an agent for change in those industries is one of the most powerful ways to build purpose into your work. We all have things we wish we knew, be the person you need because others definitely need that too.
What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
This question has two right answers, depending on what you want. In certain areas of work, being a generalist is valuable like being at a start-up or as a creative director. Knowing a little bit of everything makes it easy to lead and manage, but the trade-off is that you’re not a doer, you’re more of a driver. If you like your craft, get good at specific skills and you’ll always have a job, but rarely will you be in charge.
Generalists thrive when a lot of medium-level skill is needed, but a generalist can never take the place of a specialist and vice versa. There’s also a change in the culture of how many bosses or managers we need at any given time, making generalists less necessary. The problem then becomes how do two specialists collaborate? That’s a whole different kind of skill! The balance you strike is just personal preference, but I think if you go 100% into either category you’re making a mistake. Be a generalist who specializes in one or two things, or be a specialist who generalizes in one or two categories, like an illustrator who can also do some motion graphics/video, or a brand designer who can also do writing and illustration. It all depends on what you want, be strategic!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Zp16y98URRJgO3xM-RXjySJ02iLUwvAX/view?usp=drive_link
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexshammami/
