About

Hey! 👋 I'm David.

Welcome to Everyday Design.

Here's a little of my backstory...

I always excelled at math and science when I was young. I had lots of people telling me I should be an engineer. Somewhere along the way, someone told me I sucked at drawing (which I really liked doing) and all my creative pursuits of art, music, writing... took a hard stop and stayed dormant for many years.

In high school, I was exposed to web development and loved building interactive applications. This seemed like an acceptable form of creativity with its strong ties to technology. So I studied Computer Science in college, but after graduation, I spent the next 15+ years working in a global non-profit.

Like many non-profits, I've worn lots of hats. Those hats included team leader, event planner, product manager, strategy director, marketing director, experience designer, researcher, project manager, program manager, portfolio manager, scrum master, agile coach, head of production and director of digital experience.

Most of those roles were connected by a thread of designing user journeys that involved both in-person and online experiences. Many of the teams I built and led operated more like startups. Over time they tended to be more distributed and cross-functional. Even while my teams were small and focused, I still had to lead and communicate at the scale of a large organization.

In 2019, I returned to designing again, and I took a role in creative production. It was a fun mashup of agile coaching, visual communication, and design thinking. My teammates we all creatives, and during that season, my own creativity awakened again. I began drawing and writing more. I also explored creativity through designing and building in physical spaces.

Then in 2021, I became the director of digital experience for one of our divisions. This role provides a nice return to tech as I take what I learned in years of experience design and apply it more specifically to UX in web and mobile design. I'm relearning to code, which is fun, frustrating, excited, maddening...you know the drill. 😅

Throughout this journey, I've used writing to organize and synthesize what I'm learning. I began this blog to continue my learning and synthesis. I'm taking a project-oriented approach, and I plan to release a curated content project in the form of a guide 2-3 times a year. The themes of these guides will vary in nuance but will usually be related to core topics of leadership, design thinking and agile mindset.

My most recent guide, Cultivating Leaders, is a collection of insights and learning from over 15 years of leadership.

You'll also find other content like reviews and videos of my DIY design projects.

Wherever you are in your journey, I'm guessing you want to have an impact on the world around you. I hope Everyday Design can provide encouragement, inspiration and guidance. I'd love to connect and hear about your journey as we're all learning and discovering together.

You can following me on Medium, reach out on LinkedIn or shoot me a message here on the site.

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