Conversations with Cantilever: Brian Kuperman

Welcome to this edition of ‘Conversations with Cantilever’, the series where we speak with different team members at Cantilever about their career journeys and their experiences with the company. Today we are highlighting Lead Artisan, Brian Kuperman!

Digital Beginnings

As a Senior Designer/Developer, Brian has always had a passion for art and design. While going to college for his BFA in Graphic Design, he recalls his work on campus creating marketing collateral for campus events and activities.? After moving to Los Angeles in 2008, Brian’s career took the digital route, with his first job out of college working for the social media site that started it all - MySpace. He worked there designing landing pages and ads for companies which were advertising on the site.?

Design vs. Development

Brian began his digital career in graphic design, and found himself consistently dabbling with basic HTML/CSS through his design work. Having always been interested in development, over the years he began to learn more about development and continued to grow his knowledge of new technologies and techniques. He gradually improved his development skills, continually learning more on his own and putting it to practice through freelancing. When asked whether he prefers design or development, he stated: “I would say I am equally passionate about both design and development! They both involve some level of creativity, with design obviously being more creative. Development requires using the more technical and logical part of my brain. It's nice to switch between the two and keep everything sharp!”

Enter Cantilever, A Workplace Where Everyone Feels Heard

A somewhat recent addition to the team, Brian began freelancing with Cantilever in 2019 and liked the company so much that he came on full time in 2020 as the Lead Artisan/Sr. Designer and Developer.

Brian said: “Working for a small company is very refreshing. I feel like my voice and opinion is always heard and it's a lot easier to help shape company policy. I found that with larger companies it was oftentimes difficult to have your voice heard and enact positive change.”

A Good Leader Makes All The Difference

He notes that it was Founder Ty Fujimura’s influence that made Brian personally say ‘yes!’ to joining the Cantilever team, stating that: “I saw that Ty is a great leader and businessman and really listened to what I wanted to be doing with my career.”

What He Loves About Cantilever: Work/Life Balance and Strong Company Culture

“Everyone is very friendly and we have a wide range of personalities. Work/life balance is great and the company makes it a point to respect those boundaries! It's hard to develop company culture when the entire company is remote, but Cantilever continually builds up the culture via weekly team calls and informal Slack channels which we all participate in. Even though I have only met Ty, I feel like I know everyone that works in the company!”

Any designers who also happen to be developers, here? Let us know in the comments which discipline you prefer (if there is one)! Let’s have a conversation in the comments!