THE BACK CATALOGUE
Version
history
No design school. No formal training. Just a job that needed things designed, a willingness to figure it out, and eight years of saying yes to things slightly outside my comfort zone.
TEHRAN EARLY 2,000
I used to Photoshop my long-distance boyfriend's face next to mine in photos. That's it. That's when I knew.
ORIGIN STORY
LDV HOSPITALITY · ATLANTA
When I was young
Brand Manager — Dolce Italian, American Cut, The Regent Cocktail Club
Hired to manage marketing and operations for three restaurant concepts in one building. Ended up designing everything — menus, event flyers, IG stories, newsletters, print collateral, signage, promotional materials for brand partnerships with Pernod Ricard, Diageo, and Bacardi. Nobody told me I was a designer. I just became one.
I had no idea what I was doing. I was also the office manager and vendor liaison. Turns out doing everything badly at first is how you eventually get good at one thing.
BABY STEPS
FREELANCE · WORD OF MOUTH
First real design clients.
Brand Identity · Print Design
Left LDV and started picking up freelance work through word of mouth. Owlquatic was a full brand identity project — logo, stationery, website direction — for an Atlanta spa concept. Le Colonial was a print menu design job. Small projects, but the first time someone hired me specifically as a designer.
Having a client who trusts you to define their brand from scratch is a different kind of pressure than executing someone else's vision. This is when I realized brand design was something I actually loved.
FINDING THE VOICE
DAMN ADVERTISING + CHEFCUTIEPIE · FREELANCE
Social work and survival mode.
Social Designer · Web Designer · Full-service Freelancer
Two very different clients running simultaneously. DAMN was an Atlanta creative agency where I ran social campaigns — the classical statues series being the most fun thing I made that year. ChefCutiePie was a Latina private chef and hospitality brand — I did her entire digital presence solo for over a year: website, social media, product label design, promotional assets, menus, email campaigns. She paid my bills.
I owe her a lot.
The DAMN work was the first time I made something that felt genuinely creative rather than just useful. ChefCutiePie taught me what it means to be someone's entire design department. Both things were necessary.
TWO MANY JOBS
HUDGENS CENTER + LAUNCH INTERACTIVE · SIMULTANEOUS
The nonprofit and the agency.
Digital Designer (Hudgens) · UX + Visual Designer (Launch)
Held both roles at the same time. At Hudgens — a nonprofit art museum in Gwinnett — I ran all visual design, social media, newsletters, event design, and program materials solo. At Launch Interactive, I worked on UX and product design for clients such as Salesforce, Grammarly, and Coursera. Two completely different worlds. Two completely different muscle groups.
Designing for an art museum that must constantly feel culturally relevant on a nonprofit budget is genuinely hard. Doing it while also learning product design at an agency made me a faster, more versatile designer than I would have been otherwise. Would not recommend. Also, I would do it again.
MONEY HONEY
MAIN STREET GUNS & RANGE · FREELANCE · LILBURN, GA
The unexpected one.
Brand Designer · Social Media · Merch Design
Not a client I would have predicted. But it's where I first seriously explored AI-generated imagery as a design tool — building holiday campaigns with AI scenes before most people knew what Midjourney was. Also designed their merch, including a retro illustrated t-shirt that's probably my most fun single piece of work from this era.
Range means range. You can't only design for brands you'd personally follow. Also, the t-shirt illustration was genuinely fun to make, and I'm not apologizing for that.
FINALLY
MURDER HORNET · CONTRACT · ATLANTA, GA
They called first.
Visual Designer · Social Media · UX Design
Six months. Four clients. First time an agency came to me instead of the other way around. Handled social media for TAZO, Lipton, Wabe, and Old 4th Ward Distillery — and did a UX revamp on the Old 4th Ward site when their existing pages needed structure. Short run. Solid work.
I'd been reaching out to agencies for years. Then one reached back.
WE ARE HERE
FIRE SPIRIT · CITY OF ATLANTA · ATLANTA, GA
Fantasy and bureaucracy.
Visual Designer · UX Designer · Communications Designer · Web Developer
Content and social design for a fantasy book series launching this year — templates, character systems, newsletter, and a full Wix rebuild. UX, systems design, and communications infrastructure for the City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management. Two tracks. Both active. Neither is slowing down.
One job has dragons. The other has eight departments and a governance workflow. I'm not sure which one is harder.
