A day with Alicia.

SENIOR DIGITAL DESIGNER, MADRID, ES.

Alicia Blázquez is a Digital Senior Designer with over 7 years of experience in the design industry. She's passionate about everything that surrounds design, but she's also fascinated by research and understanding business and culture to ensure that a brand's products and services create both monetary and social value. Outside of work she enjoys connecting with nature through cycling, hiking or just photographing, her other passion.

Tell us a bit about what a Designer does?

A designer in this context is a facilitator and problem solver that uses storytelling and visual tools to capture the imagination and make thinking both tangible and exciting.

As a digital designer I’m focused on bridging the gap between branding and digital to boost brands into meaningful and purpose-driven experiences. It's not only about adapting identities across interfaces, it's also about understanding how we can add value for customers and for the organisation.

What does an ‘average’ day look like?

One of my favourite things about working at Saffron is that it is impossible to not be excited about every day's challenges.

Depending on the phase of a project I am involved in, weeks can be very different. Normally my day is divided into quality time: focus time where I block as many hours as I can to ideate, explore, think, conceptualise, and design; and the rest of the time is based on different syncs, focused on checking work with the rest of the team but also with clients.

As a person that loves organisation, I try to plan every day to define how much time I'm going to spend working on different tasks, but at Saffron, I also learned to enjoy all the opportunities throughout each process and project.

What projects are you currently working on?

I'm currently involved in two different projects. One is the creation of a digital experience for a museum, where we are finishing the development phase to bring the product to life.

The second project is about redesigning the identity of the world's leading online trade provider, where besides the conceptualisation and creation of the identity, I'm focused on translating the new identity into different digital touchpoints.

What has been your favourite project at Saffron so far?

This is probably the most difficult question to answer... During my almost two years working at Saffron I've been involved in really interesting projects so it's really difficult to choose between all of them.

But there’s a project that is so special to me: The Valuable 500. Their commitment to put disability on the leadership agenda is an amazing brief to work on. We worked with them to create a bespoke strategy and visual identity that we translated into different experiences with the challenge of creating an accessible but meaningful experience.

At Saffron our employee value proposition is being “Open to Everywhere”. What does this mean for you in practice?

For me, designing is a lot about being empathetic. To achieve this you must be open to listening, understanding and being curious about other realities. On one hand, we are surrounded by a talented team from 20 nationalities, which enriches our culture enormously. On the other hand, we are lucky to be able to work from our offices to a world that is open to collaboration. These two realities combined make our days both enriched and meaningful.

How did you get to the role you’re in today?

I started working at companies during the first year of my Degree in Graphic Design. Being in touch with real projects from the very beginning gave me more perspective on how to be more prepared for what was coming.

Once I finished my studies, I started working as a brand designer and soon moved to different digital design consultancies to explore in depth my passion in the digital field. I find my past experience in branding essential to design digital experiences with sensitivity, and to work both with brand strategists and designers.

Any advice for someone wanting to join Saffron?

Attitude and good energy are two of the key skills that will make you a good fit at Saffron. This needs to be combined with a good eye and really good skills. I would also recommend being open to working with an international team and global clients.