I’ve always had a need to create, build, and solve creative challenges. As a young kid, I loved it all—art classes, woodworking with my father, using power tools, and just being hands-on with creative projects. After graduating high school, the natural progression felt like art school, where I initially immersed myself in industrial design before shifting into graphic design, right when Adobe creative tools and computer-aided design were first being perfected. In this advancing field, I found a compelling intersection of design, innovation, and human connection.

Upon graduation, I moved into internships, followed by various creative roles at agencies working on branding, layout, annual reports, print ads, booklets, and collateral—all the corporate items an early 2000s business needed to thrive. I loved the graphic design work I was doing. At its core, it was about storytelling and creatively transposing somebody else’s vision through your own eyes, helping them turn their ideas from an idea to reality and from good to great. And that felt fantastic.

As my career went on, though, I noticed something. I loved the creative space I was working in, and at the same time, another interest was growing, too—the elements of strategy and psychology. The why behind it all. I wanted to think outside the box in multiple ways, creatively and strategically, beyond knowing why a color went where or how a font family worked together. I wanted to center more on the end user. Who were they, what made them tick, and how did my work affect their future and livelihoods?