I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, in the town of Kaimuki. I began attending the University of Washington in Seattle in the fall of 2002 and graduated in June 2006 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Visual Communication Design (VCD).

Hawaii has an incredible cultural diversity that has undoubtedly played a large part in shaping who I am. Growing up surrounded by the co-existence of many different Asian, European, and Pacific cultures has made me very open-minded and appreciative of the unity and diversity that exists amongst all of us not only in design, but life.

At a young age I showed a strong interest and love for art, often time spending hours drawing on stacks of used computer paper at my father's office. My parents encouraged me to pursue this talent and I quickly found myself admiring and emulating the work of other artists while at the same time developing my own styles and techniques. During intermediate and high school I played the trombone in the school wind ensemble and marching band as well as taking piano lessons once a week. I also studied and practiced drawing, photography, and glass blowing in high school.

I quickly began to notice the similar and overlapping characteristics of these many art forms. During my first year at the University of Washington I had plans to get a degree in business and took the required pre-requisite classes. While I did well in them, I had no passion or enthusiasm for the subject. At the end of my first year of college I took it upon myself to find an academic focus that I could be enthusiastic and passionate about, challenge me, and most importantly provide me with a medium through which I could not only enrich myself but also those around me.

I enrolled in an introductory VCD class which also doubled as the first part of an admissions test into the program. The subject of design thrilled me. In my design history class viewing the works of Paul Rand, El Lizzitsky, and Armin Hofmann opened my eyes to a world that I had never knew existed, but had undoubtedly always been there. In my classes, learning about the reasoning behind why and how things are designed was fascinating and invigorating. Putting them into practice even more so.

I finished and passed the admissions test the following year, and with 21 other classmates traversed four years of typography, vectors, photography, critiques, exacto knives, spray mount, studio marathons, and many a sleepless night.

Through it all, I've been given incredible opportunities and had even more incredible experiences. Design has provided an outlet for me to exercise my artistic creativity, create with a purpose (the ideal of "function and form" working hand-in-hand), and see the world in a new light. People will often ask me what graphic design "is", and how do you study and practice such an "abstract" and "invisible" concept. In these situations I often draw upon the following quote from the book "Paul Rand: The Modern Designer" by Jessica Helfand:

"Graphic design is the most ubiquitous of all the arts. It responds to needs at once personal and public, embraces concerns both economic and ergonomic, and is informed by numerous disciplines including art and architecture, philosophy and ethics, literature and language, politics and performance. Graphic design is everywhere, touching everything we do, everything we see, everything we buy: we see it on billboards and in Bibles, on taxi receipts and on Web sites, on birth certificates and on gift certificates... It is complex combinations of words and pictures, numbers and charts, photographs and illustrations, that, in order to succeed, demand the clear thinking of a particularly thoughtful individual who can orchestrate these elements so that they all add up to something distinctive, or useful, or playful, or surprising, or subversive, or in some way truly memorable. Graphic design is a popular art, a practical art, an applied art and an ancient art. Simply put, it is the art of visualizing."

Design is what I eat, drink, breathe, and sleep. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

↑ Top of page