I lead the work and build the team.

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My career spans digital products, consumer brands, and the organizations that bring them to market. I’ve led design for Apple and Adobe, built an in-house creative studio at Native Roots, and co-founded Stay Gold.

That experience shapes how I work: understand the customer, make the direction clear, and help the team carry it through. I stay involved in the details, from an early prototype to the campaign, product, or retail experience someone actually encounters.

Approach

Start with the people. Make something we can test.

I use interviews, research, and prototypes to understand what people need and where a business can help. Then I work with the team to decide what to build, what to leave out, and how to deliver it.

The output might be a product roadmap, a brand direction, or a working prototype. It should give people enough clarity to make the next decision.

Leadership

Good work needs a team that can deliver it.

I’ve hired and developed multidisciplinary teams, directed outside partners, and managed the commercial side of running a studio. At Stay Gold, that meant sales, scoping, staffing, and creative direction for a 12-person studio. At Native Roots, it meant building a 19-person team across design, production, and media. Where I’ve worked.

I care about setting a clear standard, giving people ownership, and staying close enough to help when the work gets difficult.

Tools & technology

I build tools as well as the work.

I use code and AI to explore ideas, build prototypes, and reduce repetitive production. For Psychedelic Science, I built a workflow that turned thousands of speaker records into marketing assets.

These tools let me test more possibilities and spend more time on the decisions that shape the result. Two things I’m building now:

CJC.HOUSEA cabin in the San Juans you can walk through, with its design register behind it

HemworksA studio that turns a vehicle mesh into cuttable panels for a fitted cover

Teaching & writing

Teaching keeps me asking better questions.

Since 2017, I’ve taught graduate design at The Brand Studios at CU Boulder; this fall it’s Design for Startups. With David Slayden I co-authored Story (by) Design, and The Futures of Brand followed, both from Kendall Hunt in 2024.

Teaching makes me explain how I work, question my assumptions, and learn from people approaching a problem for the first time.