How I Work
Four-plus years as the sole creative at a fast-moving consumer tech company teaches you a few things. Move fast. Think in systems. Make work that holds up at retail, on screen, and in a boardroom. Here's how I approach it.
Start with the brief, not the pixels.
Good design starts with understanding the business problem, not opening Illustrator. Before I touch anything, I want to know what the work needs to do, who it's for, and what success actually looks like. That might come from a PM, a creative director, or a brief I put together myself. Either way, I need to understand the goal before I can do anything useful with it.
Cross-functional is the default.
At Wyze I work with Product, Marketing, Sales, Photo/Video, and retail partners, often at the same time, on the same project. Competing priorities are normal. Feedback from six directions at once is normal. Making a clear creative call when no one can agree is also normal. I've gotten pretty good at all three.
Production is part of the craft.
A concept that can't be built is just an idea with good lighting. I take projects all the way through, from print-ready files and production specs to final delivery. Shot lists, photo shoots, retail display builds, vendor wrangling. The work doesn't stop at the comp.
Systems over one-offs.
I think in frameworks, not individual pieces. Everything gets built to scale, whether that's a packaging system that needs to stretch across 50 SKUs or a template library that helps a lean team stop reinventing the wheel. Work that can't be handed off, extended, or built on isn't finished. It's just a file.
I write what I design.
Most designers hand off to a copywriter. That's not an option for me, and honestly it's made me better. I write consumer-facing marketing copy for packaging, PDPs, and campaigns. When you understand both the message and the medium, they actually start working together instead of fighting each other.
Feedback makes it better.
I treat feedback as information, not a personal attack. Four years of presenting to leadership, navigating cross-departmental opinions, and shipping work under real business pressure has made me good at turning stakeholder input into better creative decisions without losing what made the work good in the first place.