My Design Journey
I have been a photographer for the last 21 years of my life. I started spending my summer in the black and white analog darkroom at my soon-to-be high school in middle school. I was back in the darkroom by high school, after classes, and during every study hall. Initially, it was about the process of creating. In art school, my images seemed to have more weight than the discovery process. Over time my style developed, though I continue to ask the same questions. In my portfolio, you can see photographs of people in a documentary-like manner, though most images capture an element of feeling similar to if the subject is staged. Viewers of my work could see how I was playing with ideas about curiosity.
One could say that my relationship to photography traveled between affective responses of an aesthetic experience and an experience of meaning. Previously in my work, I engaged with a design from a more artistic point of view, and more recently, I have been trying to look more at the meaning and function of the design and how it exists in space. Art can change how you think, but a good design provides the capacity to change how you engage and experience the viewed object.
How can design shape how we interact with those around us? I searched to understand the social signaling cues to others like me. The recurring question is, how does the human interaction with an object spark curiosity? I believe that curiosity is part of the emotional experience that compels us to stay engaged with an object to maintain intrinsic pleasantness. How can things allow us to ask questions continuously and sustain engagement?
Learning Designs
We are always learning and iterating, view some of my learning content.
Design experiments:
"An emerging discipline, learning experience design (LX) draws from other disciplines including experiential learning, cognitive psychology, interaction design, user experience design, instructional design and design thinking."
User Designs
See my process of personalizing a product to improve the usability, accessibility, and pleasure of an interaction with a product.
Design experiments:
"UX design is the process used to determine what the experience will be like when a user interacts with your product."
Source: https://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/09/16/what-is-ux-design-15-user-experience-experts-weigh-in/
Desirability is endlessly fascinating; it changes as we age, engage with new experiences, and the social/political landscape morphs. Aesthetics are the first step to engagement, though the ability to spark an eternal nature of curiosity is everlasting. What are tools that aid engagement? What tools and materials allow all users to access the same content? What are ways other designers make visuals more tangible?
As a passionate learner, I wonder and create designs encouraging an active and visceral emotional experience. Over the years, I have had many different jobs, but my questions always remain the same. As the landscape changes, my questions develop differently. In my design process, I hope to continue investigating how to share engaging information in a way that sparks curiosity and builds empathy together in a community.
Create: Photography Portfolio
Official images of photographic stories explored in my art.
Imagine: Ideas Imagined
The adage, "I'll believe it when I see it," rings true. Discover ideas and wonderings yet to be real.
Make: Explorations in a Makerspace
Together we create narratives. View my explorations and curiosities of how we make learning.