I am not one to shy away from stepping up to a needed role and making it happen. Over my time leading and organizing for a long list of cause-based non-profits and university clubs, I have had a great deal of practice gathering and rallying a group, planning events and meetings, mediating disagreements, and keeping things running smoothly and according to schedule. I am not a stranger to doing a news interview for an event I helped run or recording an episode of a podcast. Setting up an organization system customized to the task at hand is my second nature.

Ironically, I never had planned on becoming a designer, yet here I am! I've always had a wide array of interests. Hats I've worn include "musician" "actor" "athlete" "teacher" "dancer" "organizer" and "writer". For a while, I couldn't decide on what my "thing" is. Now, I believe you don't have to, as everything you learn and experience comes into use in ways you can never imagine.

Even if you don't consider yourself a reader, you read way more on an everyday basis than you realize. From texts and social media posts to the weather report Siri delivers you each morning. Typography is incredibly powerful in how we relate to those words and in the context of a brand, it sets the tone even when we aren't paying attention to it. I pay extra attention to how I treat my typography and in my own time I love practicing some hand-lettering... and the results are well worth it.

In 8+ years of being vegan, I've learned a great deal about everything vegan and the issues that our lifestyles impact. The interactions between vegans and non-vegans, and the wants and needs of both sides of the coin. I have experience in vegan outreach and activism and throughout my time at Kutztown University, when I had a chance to make a project vegan-related, I chose to. From creating resources for new vegans to designing awesome plant-based products that appeal to the average consumer, using my design skills to help the animals is why I do what I do.

When doing work for a client, I seek to have a good grasp of the entire company, vision, or project. Even if it's just creating a logo, striving to understand the context of the work by understanding the real people I'm working with (and their awesome vision) helps tremendously. The essence of a project and its impact reaches way further than we typically think. By diving deep, I'm about to create a seamless finished product that feels like it was, well, designed just right.

Psychology has always been a prominent area of study for me outside of my major. I have taken many elective psychology and sociology classes and have always had a fascination with how our minds work. In order to get the best result, it's important to know how our minds interpret the content and the factors that impact our experience. For a website design, understanding the nature of how the target audience interacts with the interface is key to creating a successful product. For packaging, learning how we make conclusions based on what we are presented with can make all the difference.