Today, on ‘Expert Speaks‘, we have Kyra Pieterse, Co-Founder & Design Lead of MaxiBlocks.
Kyra has a fascinating background in design, with over 25 years of experience. Now, at MaxiBlocks, Kyra plays a pivotal role in ensuring their web templates are visually appealing and user-friendly.
In this conversation, we’ll delve into Kyra’s creative process, her thoughts on design trends, and the challenges and rewards of leading a remote design team.
We’ll also explore her vision for the future of MaxiBlocks, particularly regarding design innovation and staying ahead of the curve in the competitive web design landscape.
Hello Kyra, it’s great to have you on LearnWoo! Can you tell us what inspired you to pursue a career in technology? And how did you get started in the industry?
I always had an interest in art at school but it was by luck I got into web design. My mom opened the first Adobe and Macromedia (in those days) accredited training school in South Africa in the 90s.
So I was lucky enough to be one of the first to be trained in the new tech back in the day I just kind of grew up with the industry.
You have extensive experience in graphic and web design. How do you approach the design process at MaxiBlocks to ensure that the web templates are both visually appealing and user-friendly?
I have 25 years of experience and to be honest it just comes naturally to me now. I also listen to what our members ask for and I see in support what people are using. When I design them I try to keep in mind what our users can update themselves.
For example, I will always add icons or shapes into the SVG library so people can change the colors and sizes without needing graphic editing software like Photoshop or Figma. I find it interesting that so many pre-made templates come with icons and graphics such as PNG or JPEG that most of their users will never be able to edit.
How do you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and advancements in the field?
I have a few favorite websites I look at for ideas. https://www.awwwards.com/ and https://dribbble.com/ are great for staying in the loop.
Can you tell us how your role as Design Lead contributed to the company’s growth and success, particularly in terms of creating innovative and responsive design solutions?
We approached our development a little differently. With me being a designer and not a developer we focus on solving design problems rather than dev problems. What we do is we take our designs and try to make them and this determines what features to develop.
For example the responsive setting. We actually rebuilt this twice as the first time around we could not get our patterns perfect on all sizes. Our front-end guys work closely with the backend devs and together brainstorm UI and feature sets.
Recently, MaxiBlocks has introduced a range of new features as well as grown the design library to over 2000 templates. What are some of the design updates and how are the new templates different from the old ones?
The early patterns were more basic. Our new patterns are more interactive. But it is also more about making different types of patterns. For example, we are now making navigation patterns and we are making site templates for full site editing we could not make before.
As someone who has worked in both design and business development roles, how do you balance the creative aspects of design with the strategic goals of the company?
Interesting question. Design is a big part of what I do but I go where I am needed. On a typical day, I do some support, read the GitHub issues, and talk to the devs. I review patterns and pages before they are uploaded. I work on the website’s SEO. All in all, it is exhausting lol!
Your involvement in MaxiBlocks’ growth from a remote design studio to its current status reflects strong leadership and vision. What challenges have you encountered along the way, and how have you overcome them to drive business growth?
Our team has been remote for 10 years already before it was a thing. We have had some hiccups along the way. Building up our team was the biggest challenge we had to overcome. I think trust is the most important thing with a remote team.
My lead developer Svitlana has been with us for a decade and because I trust her so much it has freed up our time to focus on the other aspects of the business.
Being a designer, how do you collaborate with other members of the MaxiBlocks team, such as developers and marketers, to ensure cohesive and effective design solutions?
This is a hard question to answer because we don’t really have a system. I just talk to the team and we kind of decide what is the priority (sometimes from support). They tell me what’s possible. We have all been together a long time so my team doesn’t really need much management.
We got really lucky to have such a pro-active and talented team. We are all really passionate about MaxiBlocks. Everyone in the team is really proud of what we have built so that is very motivating for all of us.
Based on your experience in both design and entrepreneurship, what are some common misconceptions or pitfalls you’ve observed regarding design in startups, and how can they be addressed?
I don’t think people spend enough time on design. Most of the WordPress/Gutenberg libraries are very basic. From our experience, people want good-looking websites and design choices more than complex features. And besides this is the beauty of WordPress where there are thousands of plugins available to add in the extra features we may be missing.
Looking ahead, what are your aspirations and goals for the future of MaxiBlocks, particularly in terms of design innovation and staying ahead of the competition in the ever-evolving web design industry?
We want MaxiBlocks to be fun and easy to use. We plan on developing the library into one of the biggest libraries available and integrating AI. We are in a unique position with such a big library, where adding AI on top is going to be fairly easy.
We plan on creating an AI builder and with our library we will be able to create websites fast that are not the typical AI cookie-cutter websites currently available.
