Interview with UX Designer, Gülce Kuruçay

Gülce is the UX designer at CELUS. Whatever input she gets from Marketing or Product side — she is turning it into something visually appealing. She is often the one to turn off the light and is very dedicated to what she is doing.

 Hi Gülce! We want to learn more about you as a person. Thanks for having the time! You were one of the first employees at CELUS making things pretty. Why did you choose CELUS?

When I encountered CELUS, well it was Contunity back then, what affected me the most was the international office and it seemed to me that they were always up for activities with the entire team. They don’t just work successfully, but at the same time, they have fun together. Getting to know CELUSbetter made me even more fall in love with them! I feel so lucky to be part of it and always put my best foot forward for this company. They always provide me the opportunity to sustain all fields with my design knowledge. I have a great team, which is always there to help me and is always up for brainstorming. This design feedback helps me to improve myself and my work. Most importantly: They value what I do. I love all of them and I am grateful for all inputs that have been given to me.

You are working on the website, on the software and marketing creatives. Which field of designing do you like best?

When I have to design something, express my visual knowledge, I am always eager to do that. I learned that making a good-looking thing is just art, but as soon as it comes to solving problems it becomes a design. To me, graphic design is the art of visual communication that solves problems and brings a solution in a visual way using typography, colors, images, symbols, and even illustrations. I have put decades of thought and effort into learning good visual design deeply. I love going out of my comfort zone. I always love challenges and the things that motivate me. Working on software parts gets me really excited lately. It is a really wide field, for which I have to learn something new every day and applying it in my work. After all, I realized that designing software involves lots of decisions. You need to deal with many use cases, risks, and many other issues that may arise. I love this field because it puts me in a position that forces me to learn new things.

 Why did you choose Munich to live and where are you originally from?

I am from Turkey. I was born and lived in Izmir near the Aegean Sea with a fascinating sea view all over the place. There live so many open-minded and helpful people. I have always loved Germany. Here is my favorite city and the place where I feel at home. I always wanted to come to Germany to pursue my career and live here. The city, where I was born is a place you can enjoy your time at the sea and where you feel peaceful. It has historical places as well as cool beach clubs. I thought I couldn´t feel home anywhere else, but it turns out that I feel home in Munich and enjoy my time with a good vibe.

 What is your favorite thing to do in Munich?

Oh, where do I start? Munich is a wonderful place where you can have a BBQ party with your friends, hang out next to the river in the Englischer Garten, get to know the Bavarian culture easily, and have a chance to meet lots of international people as well. There are so many things I love to do in Munich, I can impossibly choose one. Munich has great parks where you can sit and chill, run or grab a coffee with a friend. Another thing that I love about Munich is of course: Oktoberfest! I love beer and I love the all activities, which include beer. 😊 To me, Munich is small enough that you can easily run into your friends on the street but it’s not that small that you can discover it in one day. I have visited some cities in Germany, but Munich is the best place for me to live!

 What inspires you when you have to be creative?

There are lots of things out there that I get inspired by, but it is mainly three categories.

What inspires me the most is the life of successful people. All the time, I look for stories of successful designers, successful artists, singers, entrepreneurs, etc. Knowing about their stories makes me always realize that everything is possible. You just have to work really hard and always stick to what you want to achieve. In this part my family has a significant role: They always made me believe in myself and my work.

I also get inspiration from books and the internet. There are several sources, which wait for us to discover them and I like to dig them out. You can get new perspectives from books, which I find inspiring. I try to feed my eyes with good visual work, so it has always been helpful for me to look at visual forms on the internet. Exploring new visual trends is another part of feeding your visual knowledge. So, don’t be afraid of looking at other people’s work, they can always inspire you.

The third category is mostly nature. I love nature: I love flowers and all plants. This might sound weird, but even bees can inspire me due to their variations and their colors. Besides that, they are known as hardworking creations in my culture.‍