About

Part 1: Boxes

I believe my interest in design showed itself with an early fascination for packaging/boxes and containers. Yes indeed, that is what fascinated me. I loved interesting boxes, and all the different ways people managed to contain something. I would collect the ones I thought were most interesting, try to recreate them, and then started using them as building blocks for making mini furniture designs.

Part 2: America's Best Dance Crew

As I continued with my interest in boxes (which grew into a fascination with furniture and otherwise), I in parallel grew to be deeply intrigued by America’s Best Dance Crew (a televised urban dance competition). It might seem silly, but it did catapult me into discovering urban dance and then taking it up later in life. Dancing now continues to be my way of releasing and expressing. It can be anxiety inducing and relieving all at once, but that's a sign to me that I should keep doing it. As I learned more about design, I have found that developing and staging choreography is a product design process of its own. Our performance choreography is a product that we create by conducting research, ideating, "wireframing" and prototyping, then iterating on our designs.

Part 3: IDEO and Design

Enter: Lisa as a sophomore in high school. They tell me, "choose a major, young grasshopper." Sure thing, omnipresent? voice. The only thing that really pulled me in was the Industrial Design major. I went to a technical high school, so everything else was rather technical and non-creative. I learned that this was a way to do "practical art." Perfect, I get to express myself and make interesting products. It was a go! From there I started to learn about form and materials, sculpture and creative problem solving. The first project we did in class was make a chair, a chair someone can sit on, out of a set amount of cardboard. This was it, I had landed in the right place. I’ve been preparing for this my whole box-loving childhood!

How is IDEO involved? Well, one of my teachers put on a video about what IDEO does, and I’m thinking, there are places out there that do THAT? Creatively solve problems, all day ? This was fantastic news. He proceeded to show a video on Apple’s design principles, and I quote that video to this day (to the dismay of my partner, who’s now fed up with my personal design analysis TED talks).

“I have a rule: If I keep complaining about something, I either do something about it or let it go.” - Tina Roth Eisenberg of swissmiss

Part 4: Why are you telling me this, Lisa?

Thanks for still being here...

To tie this all together, art and dance have always been my ways of visualizing music, and I found that design does that for everything else. It is a storytelling tool, and I want to use that tool to tell stories, help others on their journey, or maybe just make them feel that bit of emotion when they see something Well designed. As design has left its mark on me throughout the years, and being the collection of all of the design I have seen and soaked up, I want to share those experiences and keep making more. It can be in the form of an app that can help someone in their recovery journey, or help them build the thing they’ve always wanted to build. Good design is a powerful tool - and I aim to keep practicing the use of various perspectives in design to create powerful and elegant products.

A bit about me.

Part 1: Boxes

Part 2: America's Best Dance Crew

Part 3: IDEO and Design

“I have a rule: If I keep complaining about something, I either do something about it or let it go.” - Tina Roth Eisenberg of swissmiss

Part 4: Why are you telling me this, Lisa?

Thank you for stopping by!