In 2000, on top of being a teenager who was really into slow-tempo electronic music, I was a design nerd teaching myself how to use Photoshop and Corel Draw on my architect dad’s Windows-run computer.
I never had enough money to buy an iMac in Brazil. My dial-up internet was slow, but I had friends with cable-speed internet. I also had a high-school sweetheart with a CD burner gifted by his uncle who lived in the United States and a mom who consulted for my hometown Belo Horizonte’s biggest advertising agencies. Thanks to private lessons from a young age, my English was proficient.
That combination means I caught wind of this massive deal in the Design World up north: IDEO was becoming famous for new ways of seeing design. But don’t be fooled. I was also a teenager who spent much of my time binging Friends, humming “Genie in a Bottle,” and playing with The Internet.
