The First Layer

I’ve always wanted to write about design, especially because it has consumed my life for over 15 years. My journey into design started around 2008 after spending a year in university, taking what felt like a million core classes in search of what I truly wanted. I still remember the exact moment I discovered design.

I was in a sculpture class, and we had an assignment to present a sculpture consisting of 1,000 objects. I submitted a 1,000-piece puzzle that had taken me a week to complete. Then, I found an old lamp in my mom’s garage and tried to shape the puzzle pieces around the shade. It sounds clever, but it was actually awful—no one understood the concept. I remember crying in the parking lot afterward because I felt like I didn’t “get” the art part.

That moment was pivotal. I realized I wanted to create functional sculptures—objects that people could use in practical ways. When I got home, I opened my laptop and Googled “lamp designer,” which led me to furniture design. Eventually, I discovered the legends George Nelson and the Eames, and that’s when I knew I wanted to be an industrial designer.

But there was one big problem: how on earth was I going to completely switch my life to pursue this career? I researched design schools and fantasized about moving to New York to attend Pratt, studying internationally, or heading to San Francisco. But the cost deterred me. (Even now, I kind of wish I’d gone to one of those schools for the full art school experience.) I didn’t want to go into debt—this was 2008, we were in a recession, and going $100K into debt felt like a terrible financial decision.

Then I found out that my university had an industrial design program. Since I was already there, I figured I might as well try. The University of Houston’s Industrial Design program was new at the time, only about five years old, and it was the only one in Texas. It was experimental, but I decided to go for it.

I cobbled together a portfolio, gathering my terrible sculptures and IB high school art projects. I took photos of them against white backgrounds with a point-and-shoot camera, mounted them on fancy linen paper, and stuck everything into an extremely expensive photo album that cost me an entire month’s worth of bar tips. Then I waited.

I wasn’t entirely confident I’d get in, given the 10% acceptance rate, but I did! I’m not sure what they saw in me—maybe it was my carefully assembled portfolio, or perhaps it was the projects themselves. Regardless, it was one of the proudest moments of my life. I had made this decision on my own, put in the effort, and discovered a passion that felt uniquely mine. That moment marked the true first layer my journey—the one thing I continue to improve with and the one thing that I have remained passionate about all these years later.