1Cr views, and design was the one thing I was sure I was bad at
A teacher mocked my drawing in school and I decided visual creativity wasn't for me. Years later two Xiaomi themes crossed 10M views. What changed was not talent.
The thing I was sure I was bad at
Drawing was the one thing I was always sure I was bad at. In school a teacher once mocked a drawing of mine in front of the class, and after that I quietly decided visual creativity just wasn't for me. I stuck to the technical side, studying AI and Data Science and building software.
Making my own themes
Then, as a Xiaomi India user, I got interested in the small details of the OS: themes, fonts, how the phone feels to use. The ones I found didn't quite match what I wanted, so I made my own. I created an author account in Xiaomi's designer ecosystem and kept refining a theme and a font the same way I debug code: build, check, adjust, repeat.
Design is not drawing
That's when it clicked that design isn't the same as drawing. It's noticing details, making choices, and thinking about how someone experiences what you built. That part already felt familiar.
What actually changed
Today my Xiaomi profile shows 2 themes, 2.3K followers, and 1Cr views. The number matters less than what it changed: I stopped assuming I'd be bad at something before trying it. I'm still a developer, not a professional designer, but now I think about how things look and feel, not just whether they work.