Alumni Spotlight: Ben Shown

Over the past 110 years, more than 200,000 individuals have graduated from Webster University around the world.

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Meet Ben Shown, who earned a bachelor’s degree in Interactive Digital Media from Webster in 2005 and currently works for Blink UX.

What enticed you to choose Webster for your degree?

A Webster brochure landed in my mailbox when I was in high school, and two things hooked me. First, everything looked hands on – video cameras, audio gear and computers, especially in the School of Communications. Second, the study abroad options were incredible, and I ended up studying in both Thailand and the Netherlands.

What stood out about your studies at Webster?

Webster was malleable. There was no shortage of opportunities to build something of your own or take the reins on something that already existed. I helped start The Ampersand, got involved in a handful of other organizations and clicked with a few professors who pushed me to squeeze more out of my education than I probably would have on my own.

How did your Webster degree help advance you in your career?

At Webster, I got my hands dirty making things: a magazine, a radio show and web and video projects. I wasn’t just studying design and communications, I was building — badly at first — then better. That’s what catapulted me into a career as a designer.

What is your favorite part about your job?

It used to be the craft, toiling away trying to make beautiful things. But over the last few years, my job has become a people job. Now what I love most is creating environments where the designers on my team can do the best work of their careers and pushing them to take creative risks.

I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a Rust Belt town where I watched manufacturing jobs disappear and career prospects shrink along with them. I saw firsthand what it costs a community when good jobs vanish.

So the greatest reward in my career has been creating good, lasting jobs. Jobs that let people provide for their families, earn a great living and do work they’re proud of. The digital products I’ve helped design are temporary. Creating career opportunities for designers, that’s permanent.

What is something valuable you have learned during your career?

Design is never done. It’s just due. My friend Felix said that to me once, and it has stuck.

I’m passionate about design, and chasing novel, breakthrough solutions. But good design often feels like a Sisyphean effort, constraint after constraint. The biggest one is time.

I’m a pretty lousy human being without a deadline breathing down my neck. So I’ve learned to fall in love with the constraints instead of fighting them. My practice now: Find big stretches of time to explore loosely, then let an intimidating deadline force convergence on a concept, a presentation, a prototype.

What advice would you give to others who are considering Webster for their degree?

Make it your own. There’s a prescribed path if you want it, but the most valuable things I did at Webster were of the choose-your-own-adventure variety, starting with The Ampersand, studying abroad, picking classes across departments that had nothing to do with each other and cooking up independent studies with professors I clicked with.

What is your favorite spot around the University?

Webster Wok was my spot, a tiny Chinese restaurant near campus. It may be a Thai place now, but back then, the stir-fried broccoli combo was my go-to study fuel.

What has your life journey looked like?

As I mentioned, I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and now live in Medford, Massachusetts, just outside Boston. In between, I’ve bounced around. My first job out of Webster was in Washington, D.C., at George Washington University. Then grad school took me to Seattle, where I earned my MFA in Design at the University of Washington and lived for five years. I loved it there, and it’s where my company is headquartered, so I still get back often for work.

I’ve been in the Boston area for over a decade now. I live near Tufts, teach design process at Northeastern University and my studio is in Cambridge, sandwiched between Harvard and MIT. There’s energy to being surrounded by all these universities, new people, new projects and fresh ideas constantly cycling through.

What was your first job, and what do you remember most about it?

My first job was at 15, at a full-service car wash near the mall. I was on vacuuming duty, which was exhausting in a way only a 15-year-old could find surprising. But it taught me to sweat the small things, get every crumb out of the cracks. To this day, I can’t stand it when my car gets too dirty, I have to clean it out.

How do you spend your free time?

I’ve got two kiddos, Percy, and Della, who are creative, active and always up for an adventure. Occasionally, I’ll take on a design side project, a poster, a logo, but mostly my free time gets soaked up running around after them.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

As head of design at Blink UX, I get to work with some of the most relentless problem-solvers in digital product design. If you’ve got a UX challenge or a product that needs rethinking, we’re available for hire.

I’m speaking at Phoenix Design Week this fall, telling the story of reimagining NASA’s flagship website and building the Horizon Design System, a talk similar to one I gave at Config in San Francisco earlier this year.

I’m also a little obsessed with Murphy beds, both as furniture and as a metaphor for good UX design, and I wrote an article about it.