What do you do?
I am an Associate Professor at Western Washington University, teaching in the Department of Design with a focus on ux, web, interaction design, and professional practices. As a designer I work in identity and product design for startups and play around with illustration on the side. Currently I’m working on a book @adventuresincoworking that explores coworking culture around the world through stories, interviews, and illustrations. I’m really excited about the project, it combines a lot of my interests and feels very true the kind of work I’ve been wanting to dive into.
Advice/words of wisdom that affected your life you’d like to pass on?
A couple of years ago I brought in Saki Mafundikwa—designer, author, and founder of the first design school in Zimbabwe—to give feedback to my students who were working on designing typefaces. They were feeling pretty stuck and overly focused on making everything look perfect rather than experimenting with new ideas. Saki sat down with one of the students and told them that they needed to loosen up and “make the good mistakes.” Those words really resonated with the class and from that moment almost all the students’ work really evolved. Now when I’m at a crossroad deciding whether to take the path of least resistance or the path unknown, I find myself going back to that advice. It applies to all areas of life, good mistakes are the ones that show you to where you’re supposed to be.