Meet The Team: Adam Engram, Product Designer

Tell us a little about yourself, Adam!

About me! Okay, I’m the 3rd of three Adams here at CoLab. Joined the team in January of 2022 and have been loving it ever since. I graduated from MUN Engineering in 2017 here in town, then worked in a coffee shop for a year and toured a bunch with my band Soap Opera across the eastern half of Canada. Creative arts have always been a passion of mine; I started playing piano pretty much before I could walk, and as a kid I was obsessed with drawing sports team logos. So being a designer now — it makes a lot of sense. Day-to-day I’m nonstop trying to make people laugh, show someone a song I’m obsessed with, or grab a pint of Black Horse at the Duke of Duckworth (they’re always on sale).

‍How did you first get into product design?

I got into product design by circumstance, almost by mistake. In 2017 when my band was just getting started, I found myself making a lot of show/tour posters on PowerPoint. I had no idea what I was doing, but I started to get more and more excited about it anytime I’d start a new project. Working for a small startup at the time, I began making social media ads, then eventually got a Figma license… and all of a sudden I was designing the product for said small startup. Since then, doing product design I’ve really found my rhythm; you can be creative in the way you work and what you design, even if it’s a little less freeform than a gig poster. I love it.

Why did you first join CoLab? What’s the most exciting thing about working here?

In 2018 when I first jumped into the NL startup scene, I always had a feeling about CoLab. And knowing the crew running it, I always knew they were people I’d love to work with. I graduated with Adam and Jeremy, knew Taylor, and understood that the CoLab product was a massive problem solver. From work terms in engineering I had seen a lot of the pain points firsthand, and when I felt I had the design chops to be helpful to the CoLab team I applied right away. The most exciting thing? It changes everyday, but today I really love being on a super high-functioning design team. We’re cranking out a ton of projects in such an awesome collaborative way; it really feels like there are no unsolvable problems. Shoutout to the design gang, they absolutely rock.

If you had to be shipwrecked on a deserted island, but all your human needs—such as food and water—were taken care of, what two items would you want to have with you?

Ok for the first thing: leave me on that island with an old piano. Don’t even send rescue, I’m good. Second? Switching gears but I know I’d be on that island trying to get that ‘George of the Jungle’ bod, so I know I’d be sore as heck — Santa gave me a foam roller for Xmas and I can’t live without it now.