Felix Lau

John Faulkner-Willcocks

Teammates say when Felix is stressed, they might…

Be quite short, abrupt, and impatient to move forwards.

Ask him what's up, offer to help, hop in Figma and help share the problem.

Felix Lau

😬😧🥴 Recently went outside my comfort zone…

Contract renegotiations

It's the same as learning how to ask for a raise, except depending on the client they might see you as even more expendable and undeserving of any more than what was initially agreed upon – even if it was years ago

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Felix Lau

Proud moment

Candor profiles are now full, beautiful, honest and informative!!

Having the right flow that encourages everyone to fill their profile fully has been months in the making. So happy to see people doing that organically now.

Felix Lau

A fun fact about me is…

I used to play a lot (10,000 lifetime hours probably) of video games

I see a lot of parallels in product design and so many patterns in the games I've played. Even Candor right now is heavily informed by deck-building rogue lites etc

Felix Lau

Something that drives me crazy 😵‍💫 🤬

Pointless sync meetings that break up my productivity blocks

If it could've just been an email, some slack messages, comments on figma or shortcut, or it could've just waited til our next pre-scheduled meeting... why do sync? It takes about 1 hour to get into whatever I'm doing and to break that up is very disruptive!

Felix Lau

My Achilles Heel is…

Procrastination

It's the hardest for me to just get started, so often I really do just put something to paper as quickly as possible. Otherwise I'll just never get around to it!

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Felix Lau

Things I'd love to learn

Spanish, Rive, Woodworking

I've been travelling to mostly Spanish speaking countries and forcing myself to use it. Rive will bring my animation background into my product design practice. Woodworking because it's the analog thing I want to do!

Felix Lau

My workplace

Warm weather, blue skies, being in proximity to mountains or trees, and good coffee.

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Felix Lau

My biggest fear

I have a strong sense of what is just and unjust. If teammates, and especially managers, "get away with" or even be supported for behaviours that I wouldn't want to see in my work culture — I instantly want to detach from and maybe even leave a workplace. Red flag behaviours: PMs talking about my work but doing a poor job of it (just let me present smh); meeting cultures dominated by just one or two voices; "better than thou" management that won't give you the time of day; taking credit for my work

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Felix Lau

My core values

Achievement and success has always been a core motivation for me. (Lack of) fairness in the workplace has emerged as something I react strongly to – including just treating others with kindness. Autonomy and creativity balances out achievement and fairness – when the two sides are in harmony I'm happy!

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Felix Lau

The best environment for me is:

The best of my designing happens when there's spaciousness and time to think and explore. Peppering meetings throughout the day prevents the deep work to happen and I just choose the easiest or most familiar patterns instead.

Felix Lau

My happy place

Anywhere that is always warm, generally not too rainy or dry. With excellent coffee and some way to stay physically active. Currently in Mexico City for 3 months — really thinking of home basing here !

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Kelsey Bishop

Teammates say Felix gives great advice about

Felix Lau

You will make my freakin day if you…

Alden Myers

Teammates say Felix thrived as a…

The ultimate 9, Felix brings the best of everyone's ideas into a united vision. 

Felix Lau

Learnings

That there was money to be made in graphic design, but it was hard

I remember that there were just a handful of 'top' jobs that everyone desired – the entire graduating class was fighting over it. That's partially why I was driven to specialize in motion design too.