Carbon Five Roll Call: Gintel Gee, Senior Product Designer
Roll Call is a new blog series introducing you to our team of product managers, designers, and software engineers at Carbon Five. Learn more about us and how we can help support your next project. Meet Gintel!
Name: Gintel Gee
Title: Senior Product Designer
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Carbon Five Office: Santa Monica
Emoji of choice: 🥴
Tell us a little bit about your background and area of expertise:
I consider myself a self-taught designer. I started experimenting in creative applications in my early teens. Back then, I prided myself on having a crazy amount of layers and my pen tool skills. I loved what I called “cutting hair” (extracting hair strands from the background of a raster image). I also joined message boards where design was integrated into regular activities. I had a mixed bag of peers (Biff, huny, Rez, etc.) who inspired me early on with stunning designs. We filled threads with recreational work and would pull off these long digital murals. College helped foster skills but I was ahead of my professors in some aspects. I was told to just create fun stuff while others were learning fundamentals (which felt like all the time 🥴).
When I started designing professionally jobs were more marketing-centric. UX wasn’t a known concept so my work rested on marketing and branding goals for a while. I started to employ UX tools as I got bigger web projects that depended on utility. Relying on my creativity usually worked, but I wanted to ensure certain results. I’ve always been someone who’s continued to learn throughout my career, and curating a UX process was important to me – so I did it. I feel everything started to come together as I designed e-commerce and marketing websites back to back.
My favorite industries to design for have been tech/tech-adjacent, non-profit orgs, and fashion. However, I can gel with almost any industry, I consider it to be a part of the job. I also feel work is more-so about the team these days.
A few clients you’ve worked with include:
MyEyeDr. 🥂
Nike
Google
Playboy
YouTube (Canada)
Coachella
H&M
What’s the coolest thing about Carbon Five?
Even remotely, I love the company culture. It’s a place where learning is encouraged and it’s not just lip service. You’re working with some really intelligent people who welcome brainstorming and collaboration. I’ve learned a lot and it’s only been 6 months. I’ve also been in the industry for ~15 years so that doesn’t happen usually.
What advice would you give a younger you with regard to your career in tech?
I’d tell my younger self: Learn JS, it’s not so bad. Also, please be picky.
I feel I had some bad work environments for long periods because I was determined to push through and excel. I settled in some positions and I hope juniors and mids don’t stay in rough jobs for as long as I did. You should feel good about the teams and products you work on.
Share one MUST DO recommendation:
Spice cake from Hansen’s in LA. It’s considered a wedding flavor but I had it religiously for birthdays. Treat yourself!
Interested in learning more about the Carbon Five team? Check out job opportunities or read our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) mission statement.
