Empathy-driven designer with a side of “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

my brother, unamused

My design journey

I've always been a creative person. While my siblings were off playing sports, I was sketching mountains and animals. In college, I started with traditional and visual design, assuming graphic design would be my path—back when my understanding of "design" was much more limited. But the more I explored, the more I realized how vast the field truly is.

Then, in my third year of college, I discovered human-centered design—and I fell hard. The process, the mission, the way it just made sense in my brain. The funny thing? I’d already been practicing a form of HCD without knowing it—combining research with final designs, shaping projects around real human needs. So you can imagine my excitement when I realized not only that these concepts had names, but that whole communities were built around them.

Since then, I’ve been diving deep into human-centered design and other methodologies, working on projects that create meaningful, audience-driven solutions.

Design morals

I've spent significant amount of time considering my responsibility as a designer. Here are 4 design "manifestos" that guide my practice.

To be a designer is to have privilege

Examining design means examining systems—their structures, relationships, and impact. Along the way, four elements stopped me in my tracks: positionality, privilege, power, and politics. Each holds layers of complexity, and as designers, we have a responsibility to understand our individual and collective relationships to them—even when it’s uncomfortable, painful, or forces us to confront difficult legacies. This wasn’t my first time encountering these concepts, but truly unpacking what they meant for me in design was pivotal. Recognizing positionality, privilege, and power isn’t just about awareness—it’s about acknowledging the broader influence of our designs and the responsibility we carry because of that. It calls for greater care, intentionality, and thoughtfulness. At the heart of this pursuit is exactly that—the heart. It’s where understanding begins, where reflection deepens, and where knowledge becomes something we act on.

Slow down to speed up

Building on the previous point, I believe designers need to pause before creating, or at the very least, before releasing their work into the world. They must take a step back to examine what they’re designing, who they’re designing for, and why they’re designing in the first place.

And to do this well, you have to slow down… to then speed up.

Design, historically tied to colonization and production, often prioritizes rapid solutions over thoughtful ones. But meaningful design requires time—the time that ideas, projects, and communities truly deserve. A slower, more intentional approach creates space for ideas to bloom, relationships to take root, and designs to flourish.

Design is storytelling

Design is storytelling, and the stories we choose to illustrate, tell, write, and share matter. Tell your story—but just as importantly, make space for others to tell theirs. There is danger in a singular narrative dominating discourse. The call, then, is to create platforms that nurture multiple voices and advocate for language justice. True liberation isn’t found in a single language but in recognizing all languages as pathways to freedom. By centering storytelling, we can amplify diverse voices and lived experiences—an essential step in crafting inclusive methods and frameworks that reflect the richness of the world around us.

The spaces design occupies

The spaces we design—whether in cities, schools, machine learning systems, healthcare settings, or even the algorithms shaping our online experiences—profoundly influence how we relate to one another and our environment. Physical structures shape human interactions, just as our social and cultural dynamics shape the spaces we inhabit. Too often, an us versus them mindset emerges within these designed spaces, underscoring the need to understand the systems at play. System mapping becomes crucial here, helping us navigate these complex interactions—especially since design is deeply rooted in the specific physical and social contexts it occupies. At its core, design is about facilitation. Designers serve as bridge-builders, bringing together diverse perspectives and creating spaces that foster connection rather than division.