Chicago, Illinois, United States
I design brands people rally around and back. I level playing fields by designing advantage—identity systems that behave like infrastructure, helping cities, institutions, and communities communicate with clarity, trust, and cultural resonance. As a Design Director and Associate Partner at Span, I lead a practice focused on civic, cultural, and mission-driven organizations. My work sits at the intersection of public life and visual language, including statewide anti-hate campaigns, environmental conservation identities, city-scale festivals, and long-term brand systems for museums, universities, and public agencies. I direct multidisciplinary teams across strategy, naming, identity, typography, spatial, motion, and digital—crafting systems built to scale, perform, and endure. My perspective is shaped by Chicago’s civic and cultural design lineage. Early in my career, I led the research, naming, and identity for Divvy—now one of North America’s most recognizable pieces of civic infrastructure. That foundation continues today through the renaming of Copi with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, multi-year identity systems for Slow & Low, and major initiatives with Illinois Humanities, the Illinois Department of Human Rights, and the City of Chicago. I’m committed to design as cultural memory—how form, type, and system behavior encode stories, values, and belonging. At Span, I help shape internal culture, critique frameworks, and mentorship structures, and I lead the studio’s public narrative with our PR partners. This includes rollout planning, governance, and design operations to ensure identity systems function across large organizations and complex publics. My work has been recognized by AIGA, TDC, STA, Fast Company, Wired, Creative Boom, and The Economist, and appears in the permanent collections of leading design archives and museums. I lead teams of strategists, designers, technologists, and developers—helping organizations move from intention to visible impact. If you’re shaping a public-facing organization and need an identity system that can carry real weight—reputation, responsibility, community, complexity—I’d love to talk.
As Associate Partner & Design Director, I help lead Span’s creative vision, organizational culture, equity commitments, and long-term business strategy. I build and direct my own portfolio within the practice, guiding multi-year identity systems, civic campaigns, spatial environments, and cultural initiatives across government, arts, education, and public life. My work with clients is grounded in the belief that design functions as cultural memory—shaping visibility, belonging, and public understanding through systems, typography, and narrative. I lead multidisciplinary teams through research, strategy, naming, concept development, identity systems, spatial design, digital experiences, and public-facing communication. My portfolio centers on civic infrastructure and community visibility, with clients including the Illinois Department of Human Rights, Illinois Humanities, Slow & Low, The Silverroom, South Side Home Movie Project, Taste of Chicago, City of Chicago, Discovery Partners Institute, UChicago, Tetra Tech, Design Trust Chicago, and the Design Museum of Chicago. At the partner level, I help architect Span’s internal culture—shaping critique frameworks, mentorship structures, hiring philosophies, and our commitments to equity and authorship. I mentor designers into senior roles and guide the studio’s approach to systems-driven identity and community-centered design. I also guide Span’s public narrative—partnering with an external PR firm to shape press strategy, develop outgoing stories, and position work across all partner portfolios with clarity and impact. I represent Span in talks, civic forums, press, and awards, contributing to Chicago’s broader conversation around civic and cultural design. My leadership continues the lineage from Thirst to Span—carrying forward a tradition of conceptual rigor, typographic mastery, and civic-minded design into the next chapter of the practice.
As part of Span’s founding team and Design Principal, I helped shape the studio from its inception—establishing the culture, creative ethos, internal systems, and strategic direction alongside the Partners. My work with clients is grounded in the belief that identity functions as social infrastructure, shaping belonging, memory, and public understanding through systems, typography, and narrative clarity. I co-led Span’s internal equity and ethos initiatives, designing the frameworks for how we collaborate, critique, hire, and grow as a studio. I established Span’s social-impact programming with alt_Chicago, Borderless, and the Design Museum of Chicago, and helped build the operational systems that support team health, resourcing, and long-term practice development. Across the studio, I led strategy and design for major civic and cultural institutions including the City of Chicago, Illinois Humanities, IDNR, The Silverroom, Slow & Low, South Side Home Movie Project, Taste of Chicago, Discovery Partners Institute, UChicago, Latent Design, The Arts Lawn, Design Trust Chicago, and Tetra Tech. Highlights include naming and reintroducing Copi with IDNR—one of the most impactful environmental communication efforts in state history—and leading the multi-year identity for Slow & Low, a nationally recognized Chicano cultural festival. I consistently exceeded new business development goals by 150–180% annually and represented Span in talks, civic forums, press, and exhibitions—helping shape Chicago’s broader conversation around civic and cultural design. As a team leader, I mentored designers at all levels, fostering authorship, collaboration, and continuous growth. My leadership helped carry the creative lineage from Firebelly to Thirst and into the formation and evolution of Span’s practice.
Thirst was a practice defined by conceptual rigor, typographic mastery, and cultural experimentation under National Design Award–winner Rick Valicenti. As Associate Principal, I worked directly with Rick to lead the studio’s most ambitious civic, cultural, and identity systems. My role blended strategy, creative direction, and hands-on design. I guided project vision from concept through execution, leading clients, multidisciplinary teams and civic partners, cultural institutions, and national brands. Highlights include directing the identity for the Silverroom’s annual block party drawing nearly 40,000 attendees and generating a $2M one-day economic impact for Black-owned businesses and Black creatives. I also co-led the rebrand of Noodles & Company, delivering an identity system that supported 10 years of brand evolution for a publicly traded national chain. In collaboration with Loeb Fellow Eric Williams, I co-directed the identity redesign for The Silverroom, an iconic community and cultural institution described by Harvard GSD as “the intersection of fashion, music, and visual art.” I also co-led the visual, digital, and spatial identity for Full Eclipse, a character creation studio founded by Hollywood SFX artist Mario Torres. As a studio leader, I mentored emerging BIPOC designers through our paid internship program, led critique and design governance, represented Thirst in client presentations, talks, exhibitions, and helped sustain the studio’s culture of experimentation and typographic exploration. In Thirst’s final year, I supported the Founder in closing the studio and guiding its transition into Span, stewarding client continuity, team stability, and the evolution of the practice into its next chapter. Work I created at Thirst has been acquired by the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Cooper Hewitt, the Cooper Union Lubalin Center, Design Museum of Chicago, Letterform Archive, and the Newberry Library.
After fourteen years in professional practice, I pursued an MFA at RISD to deepen my craft and investigate the social, cultural, and civic dimensions of graphic design. Supported by a competitive graduate fellowship, I spent two years in an immersive environment where research, teaching, and making were deeply connected. My studies focused on how typographic systems, language, and visual structures shape public life, legibility, and belonging. As part of my fellowship, I taught and assisted both graduate and undergraduate courses, building a strong foundation in design research, critique, and pedagogy. This period strengthened my systems-thinking, sharpened my typographic voice, and grounded my approach to civic and cultural identity work. Instructor Typography and Its Public, Winter 2018 • Developed syllabus and curriculum; taught 15 graduate and undergraduate students in a studio exploring typographic systems in public and civic contexts. Graduate Teaching Assistant History of Graphic Design — Fall 2017 • Section Leader for Sophomores; Teaching Assistant to Senior Critic Doug Scott. Led critiques and discussions connecting historical movements to contemporary practice. Design Studio 4 (DS4) — Spring 2017 • Teaching Assistant to Critic Diane Lee for a core junior studio focused on systems, narrative, and multi-platform design. Design Studio 3 (DS3) — Fall 2016 • Teaching Assistant to Assistant Professor Paul Soulellis in a core studio centered on critical design, authorship, and publishing as practice. This chapter was a deliberate expansion of my practice — one that deepened my research, refined my craft, and cemented the civic and community-centered design lens that defines my work today.
Firebelly helped define “design for good,” and my role as Strategic Director sat inside that legacy. I operated as a hybrid strategist, design director, and hands-on designer, helping shape a practice rooted in equity, community, and cultural impact. Working directly with the Founder Dawn Hancock, I co-shaped the studio’s process, point of view, and operational workflow — strengthening client buy-in, accelerating delivery, increasing scope sizes, and contributing to a period of significant growth in visibility and awards. I led and designed 50+ branding and systems projects, from $5K to $250K+ brand identity and civic programs, carrying work from research and facilitation through design, rollout, and stewardship. Clients included the City of Chicago, Blue Cross Blue Shield Women’s Health Center, IDEO, Lightbank, SaskJazz, Berwyn, Veritiv, Rebuilding Exchange, and Vocalo. I served as the lead for IDEO’s first cross-studio initiative, directing the identity system for what became the largest bike-share network in the United States (11M+ annual riders), establishing a scalable platform for Chicago’s public mobility ecosystem. As primary client lead across multiple portfolios, I guided partners through strategy, creative development, facilitation, and complex decision-making — converting first-time clients into long-term collaborators through clarity, alignment, and transparent communication. Inside the studio, I led 2–4 multidisciplinary teams simultaneously, building a culture of critique, authorship, and shared decision-making. I supported emerging designers in growing into senior contributors by aligning work with their strengths, interests, and ambitions. I represented Firebelly in hundreds of presentations, workshops, and talks, and strengthened operations by improving scoping, resourcing, and workflow structures — enabling the team to take on larger, more complex engagements without compromising craft or intent.
Alongside my full-time roles, I maintained an independent design and creative direction practice that lets me work directly with the cultural and civic voices that shape Chicago and beyond — Cards Against Humanity, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago Design Museum, Classic Color, Firebelly, Land and Sea Dept., You Are Beautiful, RISD, and others. It’s where I experiment, collaborate differently, and build work rooted in community, humor, and generosity. For the Chicago Design Museum, I redesigned the environmental experience for a major exhibition, helping drive increased attendance and rethinking how visitors encounter design in public space. For the 10-year anniversary of You Are Beautiful, I led the exhibition and campaign design that helped expand the project’s global audience — securing to a 3-minute Oprah feature, the sale of 500,000 stickers, and a fully funded Kickstarter.