# About me

> All about the content designer from Melbourne, not the CEO of an industrial machine washing company

Canonical URL: https://valentinewatkins.com/about/

<p>If I spoke at a conference tomorrow, this would be my blurb:</p>
<table class="about-intro" role="presentation" width="100%" cellspacing="12">
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      <td class="about-copy" width="66%" valign="top">
        <blockquote class="bio-blurb">
          <p><em>Valentine Watkins is a Melbourne-based product content designer currently at Canva.</em></p>
          <p><em>He specialises in product name validation and thrives at the midpoint of product design, UX research, product marketing, brand, localisation and legal IP.</em></p>
          <p><em>He’s particularly interested in product launches and the lighting-in-a-bottle moment when launch language becomes the catch-all for a whole consumer category.</em></p>
          <p><em>Once, he tried to make the idea of “product-language fit” a thing like “product-market fit” (it hasn't fully caught on yet but he does own the dot com domain just in case).</em></p>
          <p><em>Lately, he’s getting into AI in a big way, but then again aren't we all for better or worse.</em></p>
          <p><em>At uni, he wrote a Masters thesis on Shakespeare and had no idea what he wanted to do with his life but that was OK because his job title and specialty didn’t exist yet.</em></p>
          <p><em>Outside of work he likes fine wine, cats, bargain-hunting, and going for big long city walks with his partner. He also likes going to the world's various Disneylands but claims he's not a Disney adult and it's all for design research.</em></p>
        </blockquote>
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      <td class="about-photo" width="33%" valign="top">
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          <img src="https://valentinewatkins.com/assets/pages/shelby-val-and-vals-hat-607.webp" alt="Shelby and Val standing onstage, with Val wearing a blue wizard hat" width="607" height="404">
          <figcaption>Shelby, Val and Val's magic hat</figcaption>
        </figure>
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### About this site

This site mainly exists to log my reading activity in [Reading](https://valentinewatkins.com/reading/), because otherwise all I’d do is read tech newsletters and podcasts.

Occasionally, I have an idea that’s looping in my brain and I need to write it down to get it out. Those thought explosions will appear on the front page, but if you want to get them sent to your inbox, you can join my mailing list:

[Subscribe to the mailing list](https://valentinewatkins.com/#mailing-list).

No spam or newsletters or anything of the sort. Plain text emails only.

Follow Valentine Watkins on [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/valentinewatkins.com), [X](https://x.com/itsvalhey), [Threads](https://www.threads.net/@itsvalhey), [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/valentinewatkins/).

<span id=podcast></span>I was also on the Canva design podcast once, where I was interviewed by my pal [Sally Woellner](https://design.sallywoellner.com/) (hi Sally).

You can find that here: [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/23010OpgywMuTpOoONP3nV) | [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/e8-val-watkins-content-designer/id1734069930?i=1000652916666) | [Overcast](https://overcast.fm/+BHP5SLfzQY) | [Pocket Casts](https://pca.st/evmt0z4p)
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### Yes but why does the site look this way

Nostalgia and fast page loads, mainly.

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