My Story

It all started with a bold wish: to create immersive experiences.

As a kid, I made movies with the family video camera, using toys, family, and friends as the actors. I performed on stage, and immersed myself in theatre. I went to film school so I could be the next auteur indie film director.

Then I found design. I quickly found design more immersive and satisfying than making movies.To meet expectations with the crafted world of the brand – this was the repeatable, enjoyable formula for creating one immersive experience after another. Think of the packaging… the collateral… the signage!

I fell into an apprenticeship when the toy company I worked for hired an independent consulting designer to rebrand their packaging. By the end of that stint, I knew I wanted that guy’s job. I became an independent consulting designer myself.

At first, I made my services dirt cheap – trading amateur design work for a portfolio item. I tickled out the fledgling ideas of each entrepreneur, made them solid, made them clear. I helped them forge the product from the fire of their messy, passionate minds, and in the process, devised a formula for tailoring worlds and making dreams reality – maybe an overly fancy way of saying that I made business cards and Wordpress websites. But truly, I honed the art of bringing someone else’s ideas to life.

Then came the smartphone. Enamored with the touchscreen, its promise and potential, I decided I must design interfaces. And so I did. I pivoted from designing on paper to designing for the screen. I crowd-walked through startups, acquisitions, the scrums, rounds, burns, and churns, taking on the design challenges that presented themselves.

Then came SaaS. With B-to-B, I had found my niche. This wasn’t the fickle world of consumer engagement – chasing clicks and eyeballs, no. This was workflow optimization – to get someone from A to B because they had to get to B. Where I could, I built in delight, because who wants work to be dull? This was much more my speed than the messy world of marketing design. In product development, there is a comforting structure, a clear purpose, and a measurable impact that keeps my designer heart satisfied.

Years later, I still delight in bringing the promise of the interface to bear: command the computer with a tap – even if it is just to send a message, or fill a field – to me it is magic. I look on with the joy of a proud parent as engineering wizards breathe life into the interfaces my team and I have created.

In the B-to-B world, human service companies are quickly becoming SaaS companies – and there’s a ton of work to do. These companies face challenges that have become all too familiar to me: how will we automate human processes? How will we update and integrate old technology? How do we iterate in the midst of our reinvention? I immerse myself in these challenges, having the most fun possible along the way.

I haven’t given up on immersion. Lately, my designer mind has turned more to games, play styles, and immersive experiences. As the he world returns to IRL, technology has the opportunity to further enmesh itself with human environments – in retail, entertainment, dining, and the home.