I was never obsessed with one subject long enough to be a proper geek. I was more of a Blerd—a Black nerd who wandered widely. Before design found me, I was a skinny punk-rock skateboarder questioning the status quo, listening to bands like Steel Pulse, sketching in battered notebooks, and driving up to the Angeles Crest Mountains to breathe air that wasn’t thick with the weight of Los Angeles smog.

Art was the one thing that stayed with me. Strangely, it made math make sense—especially geometry. Shapes, space, and logic felt less like equations and more like quiet puzzles waiting to be seen. That way of thinking nudged me toward design.

I studied illustration and Spanish literature at California State University, Long Beach, then spent time at Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende. Back home, a class with Archie Boston helped me see design not just as craft, but as voice.

At Pratt Institute, I learned that designers are cultural shapers—people who look closely at the world and ask what it might become. A master’s in Communications Design followed, and soon after I joined The Moderns, where modular design and systems thinking sharpened my approach.

Later, as art director at Gregory Mountain Products, I helped shape national campaigns and a full rebrand focused on fit, quality, and durability—work that retailers like REI praised as some of the best point-of-sale marketing in the industry.

Eventually I founded Be True Design, focusing on health and wellness communications. Since then I’ve helped organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters Northwest and Kaiser Center for Health Research clarify their stories—because a good brand, like a good trail, should make the path forward easier to see.