Badge Designs

Emblem-style badge marks, each designed to stand alone as insignia.

Meta Infra Data Center

Iconography and logos that gave IDC TeamEx programs and communities their own identities.

Meta Infra Foundation

Identity work that gave the Infra Foundation org and its programs a recognizable look.

Heat Stroke Grill

A warm, welcoming mark for a comfort-food brand — designed to bring an instant smile.

Emblems & Challenge Coins — US Air Force

Coin and emblem designs from my time at Laughlin AFB, including the Civil Engineer Squadron coin and the AF Sergeants coin.

Overview

Stay Hydrated is a drinking water mobile app. The company’s mission: use software to get people to drink more water and eat healthier. My job was to turn that mission into an app people would actually keep using.

The challenge

Most food-related decisions aren’t the healthiest, and people everywhere could be better educated on the long-term damage of not drinking enough water. Most people don’t drink enough water per day, and most could make healthier food-related decisions.

Learning goals

• Users learn the importance of drinking water and eating healthy.
• Users can classify healthy and unhealthy food options.
• Users can monitor how much water they need to drink a day.

Research

Being healthy takes time, money, and sacrifice, so research started with who the users are and what gets in their way. I mapped the user, the problem, and the solution, then tested three assumptions against seven personas, from an engineer to a full-time student.

In their words

“…I have an app before that tracks my food and water but I stopped using it because it was complicated to use, you have to click a lot of button…” — Engineer, 25

“…I have never used an app for that, but I have a water tumbler that I use as my reference of how much water I have taken in a day…” — Call center agent, 30

Insight

• Most personas know health matters in their daily activities, but income, kind of work, and budget limit their options, so they take the cheaper route — usually the unhealthy one.
• Most have tried tracking apps and stopped, because of time, experience, and interfaces that are unfriendly and complicated.
• All value water for getting through the day, and opt for tap.

The less interaction the user has, the more chance they will use the app.

New mission

Build an app that is user friendly and easy to use, with a cool interface that motivates users to drink more water.

Process

1. 1User Research
2. 2Wireframing
3. 3Product Prototyping
4. 4User Testing
5. 5UI Design
6. 6Visual Design & Branding

Paper wireframes for the Profile, Homepage, and Customize screens went in front of users, who answered on sticky notes. Their feedback shaped the prototype before any visual design began.

The solution

Drag a drink, don’t fill a form. “What did you drink today?” — drag the drink icons from the bottom into the open space. Logging a drink is one gesture, because fewer interactions mean more use.

A screen that reacts to you. The home screen shifts from blue to yellow to red alongside the heart-rate reading, with a prompt to “Drink some water!!” when it runs red. A smart watch or Health Kit can be connected.

Progress you can see. The profile shows a status — excellent, enough, or not good — plus points collected by drink, daily to yearly views, and a QR reward to redeem.

A first run that asks little. Sign in with email, Facebook, or Google, connect a watch or Health Kit, and pick the drinks you always have besides water.

Testing & results

Overall, the user testing was successful, and many suggestions went into improving usability. Testers liked that it was “simple and clean,” “easy to use,” and that the icons worked well. The confusion — “I’m not sure what to do,” “what’s the empty middle screen” — came from one place: the prototype’s lack of animation. Users eventually solved it and understood the nature of the app.

Next

Prototype the motion the testers needed to see.

The problem

Bento ordering is fixed-portion and rigid: the box arrives as a set menu — set items, set amounts — and the apps that sell it inherit that rigidity. There is no room to make the meal your own.

Key decisions

Portions you drag, not pick. The signature interaction replaces size menus with a direct gesture: drag the serving line, and the portions change with it. Portion control becomes something you do with your hands, not something you request.

A five-step guided flow. Ordering runs as a step guide — Create, Select, Modify, Deliver, Confirm — so a customizable order never turns into a complicated one; each step asks for one thing at a time.

A visual language rooted in Japan. The mood board grounds the design in Japanese culture, where the bento box began; its interiors, gardens, and bonsai set the tone the interface follows.

The result

The final screen set pulls the system together: the landing page opens on the menu categories and the steps ahead, and the box that arrives is portioned by the person who will eat it. One direct interaction loosens a rigid format.

The problem

Google’s identity is unmistakable, which makes it hard to extend: the series has to stay instantly recognizable while saying something new — experimental layouts that balance bold typography, photography, and the iconic identity, without breaking the brand.

Key decisions

Play with the logo’s letters. The first drafts establish a brand-consistent aesthetic, and the first version builds the posters from the wordmark with letters dropped. The feedback likes the background colors but asks the right question: with letters missing, does it still communicate? The layout goes back to work.

Rebuild on a modular grid. The second version answers with structure: a modular grid system creates a more dynamic hierarchy across typography, photography, and identity. It also plays the logo as it appears on Google’s search page — a search engine that already knows what you’re looking for.

Push the playfulness, and add the ask. The next feedback round asks for a call to action and even more play. The final direction sets the series among everyday objects from home and workspace, and weaves in Android’s dessert names — Cupcake, Donut, and Honeycomb.

The result

The final feedback lands where the series aims: the posters’ playful tone captures the company’s identity — and each poster now closes with its call to action.

The problem

The effects of television, video games, and music on children are easy to dismiss as harmless — adults often neglect them entirely. And they land hardest where supervision is thinnest: at home.

Key decisions

Speak to the parents, not the children. Every message addresses the adult: the posters ask “Aware?” and the campaign asks whether we are all responsible enough. Awareness is framed as the adult’s job.

Give the campaign a watching eye. The identity builds on a single eye mark set over a pattern of faces: the nest is the home, and the eye is the attention the campaign asks adults to pay.

Confront each medium directly. Television, video games, and music each get their own poster — no abstract danger, just the everyday inputs named one at a time, in the series below.

The result

Three media, three posters, one question for the adults in the room. This project is dedicated to my nephews and nieces.

The collaboration

This started as a conversation between two creatives, not a client brief. He had the songs and a clear sense of who he wanted to be. My role was to translate that into a visual identity through photography, typography and album artwork, pushing each idea further while keeping him the author of his story.

Every collaborator has a creative mind worth protecting. That belief shapes how I direct.

Each release became a chance to explore something new while building a recognizable visual language. When he took a new stage name, the challenge wasn’t to start over. It was to carry forward what we’d built and give the next chapter its own voice.

1. 1Listen & talk through the story
2. 2Explore directions together
3. 3Direct & shoot the session
4. 4Design cover & type
5. 5Release & read the response

The creative decisions

One monogram, everywhere. A bold TV monogram became his signature. It lands on the covers, the portraits, and the heart of the QR code.

Three covers, one winner. For one record I developed three directions and we chose on concept, not an audience test. The mirror won: him confronting his own reflection, with the flipped S letters in the title echoing it.

Every release gets its own world. For “Magic Man” the song felt hopeful and assertive, so we built a world to match: a lone figure on another planet. I directed and shot the sessions myself in Valley of Fire.

A business card that connects listeners directly to the music. The portrait goes on one side, the monogram and a QR code on the other.

Chapter two: a new name

When he changed his stage name to Vé Tristan, the brand had to move with him. The overall theme stayed bold red and black, but he wanted to try a different logo style: flashier and edgier than the original monogram. Engagement on Instagram kept pointing to the strongest work, so “Savior” leans into it: the same high-contrast photography, plus a brushed red title that cuts across the frame like a slash.

The result so far

It is still unfolding. Every release adds to a system people can recognize, and the response to each one shapes the next. The follower growth reflects the whole release effort, not the design alone. What the design did was give the audience something instantly recognizable to respond to.

It is also where I am growing most as a leader: pushing ideas hard while guiding without taking over.