I was always going to do something creative.
As a kid, I wanted to be a graphic designer. I drew constantly, and over the years I tried just about every way I could find to make things—drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics.
I liked creating, but none of those mediums quite clicked.
Then I found digital.
Digital gave me more to poke at.
I went on to study a much broader mix of digital media—design, photography, video, 2D and 3D animation, and even a little game design.
Somewhere in all of that, I realized what I liked wasn't just making something look good.
I liked figuring out how things worked.
Digital gave me more variables, more possibilities, and eventually, much bigger problems to solve.
I design for what happens next.
A lot of digital design gets treated like a collection of individual placements. I don't really think about it that way.
A banner isn't just a banner. It's an entry point. If someone has just landed on a homepage, I don't want to cram an entire story into one placement. I want to give them a reason to keep going.
When I start a project, I'm usually thinking about the whole path: what needs to be on the page, how those stories should stack, what deserves priority, where we're sending someone next, and whether any of that actually matches the way people shop.
Sometimes that means questioning the brief. Sometimes it means advocating for something custom. And sometimes the simplest solution really is the best one.
I'm a designer who likes getting into the weeds.
I'm not a developer, and I don't pretend to be one.
I do, however, have an IT minor, some long-ago experience with Python and JavaScript, and enough understanding of the fundamentals to know what I'm looking at—and, more importantly, what questions to ask.
Most of my technical knowledge has come from being curious enough to go find the answer.
If something isn't behaving the way I expect in a CMS, I want to know why. If someone isn't sure how a design should actually translate into a banner, grid, or content structure, I want to be part of that conversation.
I've worked in Bloomreach, gotten comfortable inside CMS environments, and spent a lot of time exploring what I can do with AI.
I'm usually not satisfied with “that's just how it works.” I want to understand why it works that way—and whether it has to.
BEEN
THROUGH
IT.
At some point after college, I realized I really hate being confused. I also hate sitting around waiting for someone else to give me an answer when there's a reasonable chance I can find it myself.
So I poke around. I test things. I ask questions. I research. I occasionally investigate problems nobody actually asked me to investigate.
And I genuinely love the moment when something finally clicks.
That curiosity has pushed me beyond the traditional boundaries of a design role, but I don't see that as moving away from design.
I know what it's like to actually be the person building the assets, working through the revisions, dealing with the limitations, and trying to turn a business request into something a customer can understand.
I've been through it. That's the perspective I want to carry forward.
The space between design and how experiences actually get built.
I'm not trying to stop being a designer.
I'm also not particularly interested in following the traditional path toward art direction or creative leadership.
What excites me is the territory between creative process, digital experience, systems, technology, and the people actually using what we make.
I don't know exactly what that job is called 15 years from now—and honestly, it may be a role that looks different by then anyway.
And when I'm not doing that...
There's a very good chance I'm talking.
I'm loud, social, decisive, easily excited, and usually the person making the plans. I love going out, trying things, cooking, making my house feel like home, and spending time with my husband.
I'm also an enormous animal person. If I hadn't become a designer, there's a decent chance I would've tried to become a veterinarian.
Instead, I somehow became a designer with a small zoo.
My camera roll reflects this: hundreds of pet photos, food I've made, places we've gone, and an unreasonable number of pictures documenting how excited I am about dessert.
WITH
A ZOO
I care. A lot.
I work hard, I care a lot, and I genuinely like working with other people.
I'm confident talking about the work I've done and the decisions behind it—but I also don't take myself so seriously that I want my portfolio to pretend the person behind all of that doesn't exist.
Curious, opinionated, collaborative, and probably asking one more question.
I like people who care about making things better, who aren't afraid to question the obvious answer, and who understand that good digital experiences take more than making something look nice.