I'm searching for my soul-people.

People who are excited to invent, build, explore, and try to shape the world around them, and it's my goal to find myself working with those people on a project that I believe will make lives better. 

Who am I?

I'm your friendly neighborhood Spiderman. 

If I did have a superpower, it would be my indestructable belief that we can make anything happen and then find a way to get it done. I love to coordinate, plan, motivate, ...and even document! I love to be hands-on. I also love to get people set up with the right tools and find processes to keep them moving. I believe in transparency among teams, so that people can make informed decisions using their expertise to achieve results. I rebel against authority that exists only to uphold bureaucracy. 

How did I get here?

When I was in college, I had a decision to make: how was my art going to become my career. I loved painting, drawing, sculpting, but the first step to where I am now actually came in the form of Photoshop. A friend who worked at a local magazine invited me to work as a graphic designer with her, putting together ads and page layout. I had never considered graphic design before, but I was excited by the prospect! 

Graphic design turned into Product Design, User Experience Design, User Interface Design, Web Design, Service Design. Having the opportunity to grow my digital design abilities with Cantina, a digital design agency, allowed me to try applying the principles of design across so many industries and spaces. I was able to meet people who thrived off learning how technology can change our lives. I was both overwhelmed and amazed at how much I didn't know, but it was so exciting to be a part of it. The only downside was that our clients weren't usually the type that needed very creative work, so I felt I needed to try something else.

In 2017, I gave myself a year to pursue fine arts again. I had felt a loss during all of my digital design years not making physical things with my hands. So in 2018, I was able to get the opportunity to build props and interactive spaces at 5 Wits, now Box Fort. It might've been the best job in the world, but I suppose I had to learn a very hard lesson about ego there, and I'm both glad and sad for that. 

Fortunately, right at that time a new opportunity appeared: to direct the creative and product user experiences and visual designs at BevSpot, a B2B software that followed the pipeline of money and inventory from vendor to consumer. I hadn't thought I would go back to product design, but here was an opportunity to really infuse a company with personality and delight, something that is too often overlooked in enterprise software. It was demanding and delightful, and I worked with fantastic and talented people. We got to solve some incredibly challenging interaction problems, some of which I still don't understand how we were able to untangle it all ;). 

That brings me to 2020, I learned that there was a world in which my artistic abilities could actually be combined with my product design skills: Gaming. I joined GSN Games to work on the WorldWinner product as Lead UX/UI Designer. Technically I was hired as Lead UI, I just added UX in because it's impossible to uncouple me from that. I've had an amazing year and a half here, but at the end of May, WorldWinner was sold to another company. At the moment I'm evaluating if the new direction we're being sent in aligns with my values. 

If you made it this far, thank you for taking that time. My experiences have shaped me, and I thought that you might get a better picture of who I am through them. 

--Stevie

About Stevie:

• She/her or they/them, 
• Neurodivergent & genderfluid
• Enthusiastic & Eager
• Likes to build things with purpose and systems, but also just do shit because it's awesome
• Swears too much, especially in inappropriate places like this.
• Is inconsistent with periods on bullet lists.
• Reads a lot of self-improvement books but also fantasy novels
• Loves people, gets a high from creating amazing things with them, thinks we should do a lot more of that.
• Will die trying to pet something she shouldn't 

617-390-3116 • write me • @ifyoumake.it • Boston, MA