I currently work in e-commerce operations, and I’m looking to start a career in the world of user experience and product design. I’ve always admired the ability of strong design to touch lives. As a kid I used to fill notebook after notebook with my favorite cartoon characters, mixing and matching outfits and backgrounds. I would draw any and everywhere - in cars, behind church pews, even on my bathroom floor, stopping only when the shower steam obscured the page. I took such joy in turning my memory of character designs into simple shapes before breathing life back into them.
I carried this joy with me when I began my professional career as a marketing and merchandising intern for a luxury department store. There I got my first taste of telling visual stories as a livelihood. I helped the buying managers select products and educated store managers nationwide on how best to juxtapose these pieces. I set out to carve out a legible path in the space so that every customer who set foot inside felt as though they were being guided through a story. Though the primary business was retail, it was empowering to feel like I had a voice in the way the store’s clients interacted with a space and its objects. As I continued to learn more about retail I still wanted to work with stories and enhance people’s lives with my own perspective. This desire has brought me back around to design.