Andy Chung

So Andy, how have you shaped your design thinking so far in your career?

My time at art school was more formative and impactful than I care to admit. Not so much the curriculum but the prolonged exposure to experimental design and form making.

I love products that can seamlessly combine that raw quality of something new with the pragmatism of product design.

This is a feeling we are constantly chasing with Read.cv — small things like the way photos open by expanding inline can make a typical interaction feel unexpectedly fresh and differentiated.

Outside of your work, what’s a personal best practice you try to employ?

I'm fortunate that the Berkeley hills are just a few miles from my place. As a cyclist I make sure to get out at least a few times a week and take a ride through the roads and trails.

Climbing the local hills is a great way to step away from the computer for a bit and come back to what you’re working on with a fresh perspective.

Another small thing — I keep a kendama at my desk to fidget with throughout the day. It’s a nice analog thing to practice while working on programming or design problems. Oddly enough everyone who works on the Read.cv team also plays kendama!

Let’s talk checklists. Has a project ever gone wrong because you forgot something important? Could a checklist have helped you out?

Every launch could be improved with a checklist — there’s always a million things to keep track of and inevitably stuff gets lost. However I also always make sure to iterate on checklist items. Projects can fall apart at the very end when out of date checklist items are enforced.