ABOUT
Hi, I'm David. A UX designer who got here the long way.
I'm a UX product designer based in Mesa, AZ. I'm finishing an MS in User Experience at ASU's Fulton Schools of Engineering (expected Spring 2027), and I came to this discipline the long way around.
I started in fine art: photography, 3D modeling, and video production. They taught me how to look closely and build a frame around someone's attention, but I kept circling the same question: how does art actually reach people? Practical art, the kind that earns its place in someone's day, has to be functional. It has to serve more than the person who made it.
That question pushed me into marketing and social media design: design as a way to reach an audience instead of waiting for one to find me. But the audience that mattered most to me was still bigger than what marketing could reach. I figured out, somewhere along the way, that the discipline that touches the most lives is the one shaping the products people open every day. So I went back to school for UX.
Now I take native Mac and iPhone apps from research to a working build. I design every product decision myself; when there's no engineer in the loop, I treat AI as a stand-in pair: useful, but the kind of tool I'd hand the keyboard back to a real engineer for in a heartbeat. WikiClaw, the case study I'm proudest of, is a Mac app I designed end-to-end and shipped to the App Store under exactly that setup.
Off the clock, I 3D-print things I don't need, lose evenings to video games, and share a desk with a cat who has very firm opinions about which chair is hers.
MY VALUES
🎯Design should reach people.
Art for the gallery is one thing. Design that earns its way into someone's pocket is another. The question I keep asking, on every project, is the same one: who else could this be for?
🧭Stay curious, even when it's inconvenient.
I've changed disciplines twice: fine art, then marketing, then UX. Every move was less about “I figured it out” and more about “wait, what's over there?” Curiosity is what got me here, and I try to keep it pointed at the next thing.
🛠️Ship, don't just sketch.
A Figma frame is a draft. A deployed app is the real artifact. I'd rather argue about an interaction someone can actually use than a pretty one stuck in a prototype.
🤝Tools are tools.
Figma, Xcode, and AI all serve the work. None of them are the work. I use whatever gets a good product into people's hands, and I'd swap any of them out the moment something better comes along.
Thanks for stopping by. Let's chat.
Whether you want to talk about a role, a project, or a cat, I'd love to hear from you.