Form vs Function vs Feeling

From the day Wall Street started talking about “experience” design and “storytelling”, companies have looked for ways to emulate forerunners like Disney and Apple. How does one tell a story when you’re talking about things more grounded than pixie dust? Understanding the difference between following other companies ideas and coming up with new innovations is what makes designers indispensable to any company or organization.

After graduating with a Sequential Arts degree with honors, I studied film extensively and applied it to my work. I took influence from how things were lit and what filled the background of each scene. The way directors thought about space and framing became an obsession. I learned how to manipulate human emotions through the creation of new worlds and how they were presented. Returning to school, this time with an industrial design, I found a whole new set of tools to tell stories. My ongoing mission is to find ways to take what I learned as a visual storyteller and incorporate it into my products and environment designs.

Ultimately, what I can say, is that my focus as a designer is more than just “form vs function”, it’s to create products and experiences that are inherently personal. Not just to the people who make them, but to the people who use them in their every day lives.