
About
Designer + strategist, creative director, and leader. Sometimes I get emotional about fonts.
I believe in strong, empathetic design leadership for diverse, empowered, creative teams.
My work is connected by a passion for accessibility and inclusion, research-driven design thinking, and a knack for tackling complex problems.
I speak internationally on topics spanning design and research, accessibility and inclusion, design systems, comics for design and mindfulness, and design in politics.
Contact
Work Experience
Led design for the App Design Guidelines and worked on the Polaris design system team contributing visual design, research, and strategy.
Built up a design department to integrate user-centered design principles within product software teams. Directed internal rebrand. Aperture Health was acquired in 2021 by Verisys.
Led and managed designers on the high-priority internal CMS running the nytimes.com front page. Supported homepage design system and visual updates.
Brief product incubation and consulting. Design lead running a quick-turn project to drive voter turnout for the 2020 election.
Hired up and led a team across graphic, UX, motion design, and illustration. Owned creative strategy, visual approvals, and art direction with projects spanning everything the brand touched: web and digital, social media, ads, email, fundraising, merch, print, data viz, and literature in a fast-paced, rapid response environment. Pitched and developed brand projects across channels.
Our work was awarded 1 gold and 2 silver awards in the Graphis Advertising Annual, 2021.
Led design from research to brand and front-end polish. Coached client designers, primarily in government, in lean research and user-centered design principles. Led an a11y redesign for the global design system.
The "Global case processing system" was awarded the USCIS Director's Cornerstone award.
Founded the Rainbow@Pivotal ERG for LGBTQIA+ employees and co-led the grassroots DC DEI group.
Led visual design and co-led UX for Watson Teacher Advisor. After our redesign, this project was a 2019 Webby Honoree for Education Website and Best Use of Machine Learning.
Contributed across various roles based on division needs. Work included visual design, UX, facilitation, and design research across orgs including Analytics, GBS, and Watson Education.
Side Projects
The On Deck Designer Fellowship is an eight-week remote program for ambitious designers who want to hone their skills, increase their impact and grow as leaders.
LWT fellows will spend the day learning about different issues and breaking into teams to come up with ways to solve specific problems facing Americans. Fellows will continue to work on team projects from now until September 22nd, where team leaders will present their projects on the stage, in person, at the Lesbians Who Tech + Allies New York Summit.
Partnered with Tegan & Sara Foundation to create MNTOR, an LGBTQ+ focused mentorship app.
Awards
Awarded to the "Toaster Video" created for Warren for President
Awarded to the "John Legend South Carolina Poster" created for Warren for President
Awarded to the "Blue New Deal" video created for Warren for President
Awarded to the Global Asylum Case Management Software
Awarded to Watson Education Teacher Advisor
Awarded to Watson Education Teacher Advisor
Speaking
Features
In our community Q&A feature, Raquel Breternitz shares her insights and experiences around building accessible products, designing an inclusive political campaign and more
Blue State, the firm behind the Warren campaign, shares the story behind the brand for the first time.
Sharing curated moments for several of the 2020 campaigns that have ended as a way to document much of the incredible design work that has gone into these campaigns and by supporters.
The skirmishes have been fought and a victor has emerged in our 12-candidate single-elimination contest. (Spoiler: it's Warren's)
In 2020, American elections have never been so bitter – and the campaign merch never better.
Political design trends have historically been influenced strongly by winning campaigns, but designers who worked with some of the Democratic primary’s more out-of-the-box visual identities believe a new era of expressive and experimental campaign design is here to stay.
The most diverse field of presidential candidates ever is also pushing the color of campaign branding like never before.
How can you best serve your full customer base when your customers are developers? How is designing for inclusion an essential part of the developer experience? I chat with Jennifer Riggins on The New Stack.