[Chapter 1] From an internet childhood to become a product designer

This post is the first of a series of, don't I know how many . . . ? that makes me special Ilusion writing since they review all my career since I was a child until I managed to be a product designer and dedicate myself to innvation Technological and without more, we start.

My story begins at age twelve, but, for giving you some context. Always I was a child of restless mind and quiet forms, my sisters always They have said that if something stand out from me, it is that I was always a child Sensanto.

I was born in a common family and I am the last of the four brothers, well, sistersI grew up in a more or less quiet neighborhood that was for doing and with a strict but conventional education. In those days, parents dreamed with which their children will become doctors, lawyers, engineers or athletes of elite. The technology was still taking its first steps;at my place, We had neither internet, in fact there was no residence level and, Rare was the family that had a computer. The 90s It was marked by notebooks, pens, notebooks and backpacks loaded with heavy books.

An internet childhood or computers

At school, computer classes were considered activities Extrasecolares and very few were the ones who ventured into them. A computer science that would tell for the note was practically a dream unattainable.

From time to time, they took us to a computers where we played with old machines that had 8 -bit screens. Some of You don't even know what I mean, but if you've seen old movies With black back screens and quite unpleasant green lyrics, you can get an idea of How was that time I grew up.

My first computer an IBM 286

I can still remember my first computer, an IBM 286. My uncle had a small advertising agency and gave us that old computer that worked with Floppy. At home, nobody knew what to do with that machine;for my mother, hairdresser by profession, my sisters also hairdressers, and my father, who worked in lighting, that device was a complete enigma.

Despite that, they placed that somewhat horrible bug in my room, and thanks to the mind restless that he has always characterized me, I started explor how that. He spent dead times he inserted disks that my father brought from work and I began to familiarize myself with the MS-DOS, that for those who are not so vintage I will tell you that it is basically the terminal that developers use today in day to perform many of your tasks.

How dragon ball led me to be a product designer

At that time, he devoured dragon ball comics. The Adventures of Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo and his friends fascinated me;I followed them on television and I expected anxious every Thursday to buy the new comic of the week in the kiosk. Oh, those wonderful years!

I remember a day when my father brought a stack of disks that had been given to him in the job. These disks contained a program called Harvard Graphics. That was the day when, without even realizing, my life changed forever.

This small program allowed drawings, something that today was would resemble Adobe Illustrator. I was fascinated and hooked and, from that moment, I started spending hours and hours locked in my room, moving away from my academic obligations imposed by society and my parents To investigate that new world that I passionate so much.

My first challenges as a designer

Already then, at that early age, I began to raise my first challenges. A day, I came up with the great idea of ​​why not combine my two passions? I started selecting vignettes from ball comics of dragon and to replicate those drawings on the computer. The hours flew while "Make drawings" on that machine!

As my passion for this world grew, my mother worried further. I couldn't stand to enter my room and see the books of mathematics lying in bed while I "lost" time painting in the computer.

Despite my parents' concerns, they decided to register in extracurricular classes of computer science, since the attempt to send me to the library to study It was certainly unsuccessful. It was in those classes where I discovered another software that Maybe the most veterans remember: "Corel. "This suite included programs such as "Corel Draw", which allowed drawing, and "Corel Move", which allowed to create animations. Yeah My memory does not deceive me, this suite evolved over time and became Macromedia, and finally in Adobe, with his famous Adobe Illustrator.

The teacher who changed my life

I remember Javier, the "teacher" of those classes. Actually, he doesn't He was a teacher in the strict sense. Javier worked in the Secretariat of school and I believe that he was one of the few in the whole school that knew something about computing. From that moment I began to feel a lucky one to have two hours to The week at school to dedicate myself to what I was passionate about. Spent those hours replicating the Goku vignettes and his friends.

While my colleagues experienced what it was to do simple drawings by combining spheres and Rectangles, Javier observed with interest what I was able to do in those Machines that, today, are little less than arcáicas. Javier I just watched but weird was the day I told me something. Today I feel that he simply allowed me to be myself. While I write These words, I can't help getting excited when I remember how happy I was and how grateful I am With Javier, who, without knowing it, allowed me to chase my dreams from an age Early.

Javier, you may never read these words, but from here I want to express my deep thanks for having allowed me to be myself and enjoy my dreams.