Humans of The Summer Studio: Shontá J. Bradford
This article was originally posted on LinkedIn, check it out here.
Meet Shontá
Next up in our Humans of the Summer Studio series is Shontá J. Bradford, M.A. Design focused on Health, a brilliant service designer focused on health and systems. I first met Shontá when she began graduate school at UT Austin, and from day one, she stood out—her curiosity, initiative, and kindness made an immediate impression.
This summer, Shontá was a fundamental part of The Summer Studio 2024 as an Experience Designer, helping bring our vision to life with creativity, precision, and heart. As a Senior UX Researcher and Strategist, she blends deep user insight with strategic problem-solving. Not only is she an exceptional designer, but she’s also incredibly organized and an absolute joy to work with—an invaluable combination. Any team would be lucky to have her.
I love Shontá's reflection on The Summer Studio:
“This is not your typical professional development program with reading assignments, long lectures, and applying knowledge to hypothetical scenarios. As a fellow, you will be immediately applying everything you learned in a real design sprint from start to finish.”
What did it feel like to get hands-on during the Summer Studio Week in Austin last year?
In some ways, the Summer Studio felt like a dance performance. Everyone had a keen sense of stage positioning and their peers' movement, while also allowing individuals the space to experiment in different roles. That’s a hard balance to strike, but it’s what made Summer Studio such a great experience.
As an Experience designer with the additional responsibility of supporting Design Ops, there was a lot of hat swapping, brainstorming with the principal design team on the agenda, interfacing with our client, co-leading participant interviews, synthesizing data, or concepting with fellows. We were moving together at a rapid pace. However, the work itself felt fluid and incredibly energizing. Some of my favorite moments were our morning rituals allowing us to ease into the day. Our mornings started slow and usually centered around coffee and organic connection giving us time to reflect with colleagues on the activities from the day before.
What do you think future fellows should know about the week?
This is not your typical professional development program with reading assignments, long lectures, and applying knowledge to hypothetical scenarios. As a fellow, you will be immediately applying everything you learned in a real design sprint from start to finish. There will be a lot to take in as the onsite week-long experience is truly a sprint in every sense of the word however the work and learnings you will walk away with are gratifying.
Were there any surprises?
It was interesting to see how quickly trust and camaraderie developed within the team in such a short amount of time. A week was not a long time and this constraint required everyone to step in immediately from day one to demonstrate their skill and knowledge which IMO attributed to establishing trust.
The other two things that surprised me were very personal. Post Summer Studio I realized how much I missed being in person and working with other designers within a studio environment. Typically we are remote and embedded within decentralized teams. It felt good to collaborate in person with other trained practitioners. I enjoy working from home, however, for design work, nothing truly replaces the “tactileness” of brainstorming in person with not just peers but your client as well with a whiteboard behind you and a table full of tools and materials.
And finally, a well-designed send-off is hard to pull off in today's work environment. I had to leave the in-person engagement a day early to attend a dear friend’s wedding. In my experience, when you leave a role it’s usually a little weird. You leave your laptop at your desk, your access is cut off and you just leave so with few exceptions that this has become the norm for goodbyes. However, during our morning stand-up, the principals recognized and thanked me publicly for my contribution. As I was the first to depart the studio the team created a "Grand Exit" (think human send-off tunnel at a wedding) that I ran through. I remember sitting in the airport later that afternoon smiling to myself, reflecting on that experience. It was truly brilliant.
What does it mean to you to be a designer today?
As a practitioner, IMO you are what you deliver to your team, client, or organization. I see myself as a co-collaborator in uniting a vision, orchestrator of experiences, co-creator in defining sometimes ambiguous strategies, or co-launcher of services tangible and intangible. The work I do today is happening while embedded within a cross-functional team delivering insights to your colleagues to aid in decision making. From what I have seen, being a practitioner today means “showing” not "teaching" design to your colleagues.
Is there a piece of advice or wisdom that you would tell your early career self?
Seek out thinking partnerships (within your work or outside your work) that radically embrace a growth mindset. I have found that this line of work requires adaptability, continuous evolution, and a little experimentation. I would say find that group of people you feel unafraid to share those wacky ideas and experiments with that not only want to hear those wacky ideas and sometimes failed experiments but encourage you to fail more. That is your band.…a band of thinkers and dreamers just like you.