Clearing A Path Toward Impactful Design

In the words of Ms. Potts, it’s a tale as old as time: girl meets legos—girl becomes architect.

Legos turned into homemade doll houses crafted from Scotch tape and discarded cardboard with Beanie Baby tenants. Then makeshift slums became pen and paper floor plans during church sermons to mitigate boredom.

Each medium I’d use to create alternate realities—lego mansions, cardboard complexes, 2D escapes from the Bible Belt.

My mother was my first client. We’d sit on the sofa, my ankles barely dangling from the cushion’s edge, and my lap overflowing with paper, pens, and magazines spilling from my little, plastic blue briefcase (because important people have briefcases).

These memories still bring me a sense of joy and pride—filling pages with someone’s dream, each line bringing aspirations one step closer to reality.

1 —

Architecture School

Pen and paper became chipboard, balsa wood, and Rockite; then AutoCAD and sheets of Stonehenge. As my toolbox expanded, so did my passion for impactful, human centered design.

However, architecture school was romanticized academia—this is where egos blossomed and thick skins were formed after each semester critique for ten straight semesters. Quotes like, “you’ll sleep when you die” were a common mantra, as a mild case of Stockholm Syndrome bonded our peer groups.

Despite the deprioritization of basic human needs, school is where I realized my love of collaboration. The ability to share ideas, compassionately critique work amongst peers, and trade knowledge and skillsets were the experiences that most realistically reflected the design industry, though we didn’t know it at the time.

Midway through school I knew I had no desire to become a licensed architect. I wanted nothing to do with the traditional track of apprenticeship followed by a year or more of exams, followed by moving up gradually within an architecture firm. What did I want? I wanted to pursue a path of impactful design. Vague, I know. But I tend to carry a metaphorical shovel with me everywhere I go in case I need to carve my own path. I never leave home without it.

What was clear to me was design and architecture impact every life on Earth. Even people who do not study it can find themselves influenced by its’ presence. Design impacts everyone, and good design changes lives for the better.

Good design can create excitement to enter a space. Design can inspire its inhabitants; make our daily tasks easier; foster a more productive experience; it can even nurture core memories. Design’s impact felt limitless to me, and despite not knowing how my career would manifest, I was fully subscribed to the idea that design is a people service, and has an immense power to influence humanity.

2 —

Shoveling

The great thing about graduating from architecture school during a recession is there is no rush to quit a demeaning waitressing position. For seven months post diploma I had the pleasure of asking strangers how they wanted their dead cow cooked.

As they say, “…it builds character”.

Eventually my character building in the service industry was upended by an opportunity to speak with a Director of Environmental Graphic Design at a local design firm. I had absolutely no idea what ‘environmental graphic design’ was, and the big ‘E’ word had me assuming this guy was an expert on recycling or veganism. My desperation to smell less like burgers overruled any skepticism that this job opportunity maybe wasn’t a good fit.

But I quickly learned environmental graphic design (now known as experiential graphic design… because that clarifies nothing) is a scope of work that includes physical 2D and 3D branding manifestations, signage, wall graphics, public space interventions, and artist murals. I also learned that the director I met with was as desperate for assistance as I was to never wear Croc-esque shoes to work ever again. Our informational meeting turned into a job offer.

AutoCAD and Stonehenge paper turned into hours of daily Photoshop and Illustrator designs and becoming intimately familiar with code signage (to this day I can recognize signs that don’t follow ADA guidelines within 1/4”). In two years I worked on parking garage super graphics, public park signage, gated community entry gates, mind-numbing mall signage location plans, and countless presentation documents.

Two years in I started feeling this fatigue coupled with a frustration, which I soon realized was a desire for more. More opportunity for growth, more travel, more face to face time with clients, more scope that encompassed interiors and architecture, and honestly…more money.

Guilt quickly joined my mix of emotions as I contemplated quitting. These people took me on during a recession, they gave me experience, they were patient as I learned new skills, and I had a sense of belonging within the firm that I didn’t take for granted. But I couldn’t ignore this little voice, this inconvenient nudge within me. I didn’t have a job lined up, I just knew I couldn’t spend 40 billable hours a week, every week, doing work that lost its’ thrill.

I gave a tearful one month’s notice, and I was met with so much compassion: “You are too young and too talented to be anywhere you don’t want to be.” I will always be grateful for these words because they gave me permission to pick up my trusty shovel and move on.

I was unemployed for four months. Plot twist, I moved across the country during my professional hiatus and couch surfed in Newport Beach, California, applying to over 100 jobs on LinkedIn every day for a month straight.

I didn’t apply to a single design job. I was afraid I’d jump back into work that I didn’t love and for a salary that didn’t serve me, so I avoided the industry completely, treating my diplomas like an elementary superlative certificate.

But the joke was on me because a recruiter out of Silicon Valley reached out with a contract design job at a major tech company for an hourly rate that had me thinking I was being pranked. And I love jokes so I took the job.

Everything changed.

The abridged version is I spent a year working in Silicon Valley (which I despised) at a company (that I believed in) with a group of talented people (who I loved), and everything I felt I was missing before was suddenly in my lap: growth opportunities, international travel, face to face meetings, exciting design scopes, and… a lot more money. That little voice I followed 3,000 miles was promoted to Trusted Advisor.

3 —

Empire State of Grind

Three hundred and sixty-four days into season-less northern California I booked a one-way redeye to New York City. My boss graciously let me transfer from the Bay Area to the Big Apple, something no contractor had done before, but luckily I got my metaphorical shovel through TSA.

I never thought I’d live in New York City, the aromas alone were difficult to justify a permanent residency, but my Trusted Advisor insisted.

At this time I was still heavily focused on EGD (environmental gra— you get it), but being the only designer on our in-house team who didn’t live in the Bay Area I had created an opportunity for me to at the very least grow my design scope in Manhattan. And not to brag, but to brag, we occupied eight floors of the Empire State Building. This was an opportunity of a lifetime to possibly impact design in one of the world’s most iconic buildings. I was going to need a bigger shovel.

Two years in I became the first official Design Manager on the team and my portfolio grew from New York City to Chicago and Detroit. Then DC. Then São Paulo, Toronto and Mexico City. Refreshes, expansions, relocations, and new builds—it was an incredible time to be at the company and the design industry network I was building was expanding globally.

But I always told myself that I would ride this wave at this company for as long as it served me.

Without getting into the pandemic or office politics or leadership changes, I can’t ignore that familiar nudge that began inching me toward a ledge I was refusing to acknowledge. I was comfortable, yes, but I was also fearful of change. I didn’t want to go through another uncertain period or let go of my steady paycheck. But I was not happy. I felt like I was swimming against a current of politics and incompatible leadership and my not so little advisor was beginning to yell, “GET OUT OF THERE!” I barely noticed that my shovel was hanging in the closet gathering dust.

Sometimes self doubt turns the path we’re forging into quicksand and I felt stuck.

Seven years and seven months in (oh and a temporary exit from New York City to save some money), my Trusted Advisor dared to ask me at 2:30 AM if perhaps I should put in my resignation and that perhaps that would motivate me to move forward and upward in my career.

But twelve hours after this intrusive thought I was laid off in a five minute surprise Zoom meeting. I don’t think I’d ever experienced the expression ‘pulling the rug out from under you’ until that moment. It’s not nearly as painless as Aladdin makes it look.

4 —

New Path

Sometimes the ground beneath us has to crack open for us to see the foundation needs to be replaced.

I started Domícolo to guide myself back to where it all began on that sofa decades prior. I experienced an incredible chapter of growth in the last seven years, and it made me a better designer and a bolder creator. I know my work was, and will continue to be, impactful in the workplaces I touched, but I’ve known for some time that my potential is like a goldfish, and when the tank shrinks, so does my opportunity to serve through design.

I want to help people love their everyday spaces. A home office that feels inspiring, communal areas that create lasting memories, respites that improve mental health, brick-and-mortar businesses with room to grow, and yes, workplaces that enrich careers and collaborations.

If my experience has taught me one thing it’s that design is for everyone, and it should accessible, not elitist.

While I’ve entered yet another era of uncertainty, I can’t say where I’ll be a year from now, and I no longer own a little blue briefcase, I do have my battered shovel and my Trusted Advisor, and I’m ready to carve this path wherever it may lead.

I would love to help you along the way.