I'm a fan of design because I see it as a tool for exploring and highlighting context. Social context, cultural context, spatial context, emotional context. I feel like so many issues, big and small, spring from a lack of consideration for context. To me, designers are people who want to change that by making things in the world.

It's why designers are so quick to study all the tiny, mundane details. We want to know where it happens, how it happens, why it happens, who it happens to, and what it means to them. We know that it's in the everyday moments that magical things happen, but only if the designed objects, environments, and interactions around us leave space for it.

It's why designers love models. A sketch, a diagram, a prototype. These are a ways of seeing beyond a single object to focus on the web of people, places, interactions, and systems it's tangled up in. Models let us make context the object of design.

It's why designers always want to make things before we even really know what it is. Making things puts us in direct connection with our shared reality, an experience that is both empowering and humbling. The more people making things, the better, because it's how we come to understand and respect our world (and, just maybe, the people living in it).

I strive to be the type of designer that approaches the world with humility and hopefulness, one who empowers others to see, understand, and shape the contexts around them.