What led you into design?
I’ve been interested in art for as long as I can remember, and that interest in art led me to my interest in design. I have loved drawing and painting since I was a kid. And when I was little, when I wasn’t drawing, my second favorite activity was lining up my toys—I had dozens of Disney figurines—and moving them one by one. So, becoming a designer might have been the perfect combination of my childhood interest in making art and spending hours lining things up perfectly.
I didn’t discover that I wanted to be a designer until college. I always knew that I wanted to do something creative, but I bounced around different disciplines, studying painting, art history, and other disciplines in art school. Through my coursework and my peers, I discovered that there was a lot more to design than slapping some words on an InDesign file, and I fell in love with it. What I really loved is that designing is not only art, but it is also problem-solving.
What does a typical day look like?
When I can motivate myself to wake up early, I like to go for a run in the morning. I’ve found that it’s a great way to get outside and clear my mind before I start the work day. Then I usually head to the office.
I do work from home occasionally, but I go to the office often. Our office is in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in the historic Pencil Factory, and it has great light and a cool, industrial feeling to it. It’s also close to a lot of great coffee shops and restaurants, as well as Transmitter Park, with nice views of Manhattan. I love eating lunch or going for a quick coffee walk there.
After work, I like to meet up with friends near work or in different parts of the city, but I’m just as likely to have a chill night at home. I love cooking, and I’m always trying new recipes.
What's your workstation setup?
Where do you go to get inspired?
I love going to art museums and galleries to get inspired, and also to take a step away from my screen. Sometimes I also find inspiration in less obvious places; I might get an idea from walking around the city, traveling, or even just talking with a friend. I think my peers and my environment inspire me a lot.
I do find a lot of inspiration online as well. I find great references on are.na, and I also check sites like siteinspire, The Index, and hoverstat.es for more curated, web-design-specific inspiration. I also find inspiration from reading online publications like It’s Nice That and The Brand Identity.
What product have you recently seen that made you think this is great design?
This might be a controversial take, but I think that TikTok is great design. I have my own love-hate relationship with the app, and some moral qualms about it, but I think the app has been a game changer. TikTok is incredibly engaging—and arguably, straight-up addictive—to the point where it’s shifted how we use social media, and even media in general.
We used to never watch video content on long, vertical screens, but now that feels like a default. Other social media platforms have started to try to imitate TikTok—most notably, Instagram and Facebook reels, but other apps like Spotify have started mimicking TikTok’s format too. Love it or hate it, I think TikTok has had a huge impact on the way we think about app design and web design.
What pieces of work are you most proud of?
I’m really proud of the website and visual identity that I designed for LearningWell magazine, which is a publication about mental health in higher education. It was my first full project at Decimal that I got to design myself, and it was exciting to see it come to life.
It’s also just a super cool publication with really important insights. I think the American education system has a lot of room for improvement when it comes to mental health, and I love that LearningWell is bringing attention to some ways that students can improve their well-being.
What design challenges do you face at your company?
The best thing about web design is also the hardest. People actually have to use what you make, and the human interaction element of any product design means that the design, and the way the design is used, take a life of its own. You have to consider a wide range of people and the wide range of screens they use.
Coming from a more art-heavy background, there’s always some tension between creating something that looks super cool and creating something practical. Ideally, I want my designs to be both. I think there’s also a bit of a learning curve to understanding how a design will actually look and feel in build, and I think learning how to bridge that gap can be a challenge. I’ve found that gaining a basic understanding of code can be super helpful with that.
What music do you listen to while designing?
Any advice for ambitious designers?
It’s a cliché, but be a sponge. School isn’t the end of learning, if anything, it’s the beginning. And it’s not the end all be all either; there are plenty of ways to learn design outside of a formal education. Stay curious—one of the most important things to learn is how to learn.
Pay attention to designers you admire, and also pay attention to the people and things in the world that inspire you outside of design. Make time to create things you love and feel excited about. When I allow myself to have fun in the design process, it feeds back into my work in unexpected ways.
I also think it’s important to nurture and maintain interests outside of work— doing that keeps me sane. I feel like there’s a narrative you’re fed that you have to eat, sleep, and breathe design to be a designer, and I don’t think that’s true. Things outside of design matter. Life experiences matter. The people in your life matter. Being nice matters.
Anything you want to promote or plug?
We recently launched Friends of Decimal, a space for creative, inspiring people to share their insights on work and life in a casual setting.
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