I personally made the same switch, but it was a lot more organic. [Story coming up]

I used to serve as the Creative Director for Volkswagen’s India business, and whilst managing the digital arm was fun, the campaigns were often a digital afterthought which led to banner production, and well... more banner production.

So to change that, I started pushing for Digital-Products-as-Campaigns: for example, Volkswagen Live was pitched as an alternative to pushing banners around sporting events, and became a full-fledged, short-run iPad app.

It’s still within the agency mindset, but you get to practice all the good stuff product designers have to do: attention on users, constant iteration to improve, building logic blocks that are reusable, etc.

And, side projects: VERY important, and I always kept making things. Even if it’s a product JUST for yourself, it still uses principles of product design (try not designing just for yourself though :D )