Hi! I’m Sara, a visual and UX designer based in Austin, TX.

Work

I'm currently a visual designer at IBM and work on user experience and visual design for digital experiences.

Design has always been a passion of mine, but my academic background is in psychology. I studied for two years at Sarah Lawrence College then transferred to and graduated from UT with a BA in Psychology.

After working in the field for a number of years conducting clinical and neuropsychological assessments with individuals with severe mental illness. It was rewarding work that taught me a lot, and I'm really grateful that I had the opportunity to do it. However, it helped me realize that I should pursue a career that would allow me to combine my love of psychology and passion for design.

With the aid of books and free online resources, I've become a self-taught visual and web designer. In my five years of experience as a designer, I’ve worked directly with multi-disciplinary teams and cross-organizational stakeholders to craft delightful websites and mobile apps and am now very happy to be working with and learning from a team of really amazing strategists and designers.

The intersection psychology & design

While having a formal education in art or design could possibly have gotten me to my current place faster, by taking a longer path, I've gained an understanding of human cognition which has made me a better designer. I'm able to apply my psychology expertise along with my innate eye for aesthetics and strong core of empathy when considering users’ preferences and the way they think, act, & make decisions.

If you’d like to learn about some of the specific psychology principles I apply to design, you can check out my Medium post, The Intersection of Psychology and Design.

Outside of work

I'm definitely a maker at heart! In my free time, you can often find me crafting. That could mean creating detailed paper cut art, working on my hand lettering, cross-stitching an original design, or a number of other things. I also spend time with my cat, Delilah, and my two dogs, Trip & Gaspode.

I also love learning new things and talking to people about things they're passionate about.

Collabs

I think it's super important to give back, so I try and donate some of my skills to non-profits. Between that and work, I'm pretty busy so I'm not taking on any freelance work at this time. However, if you're a fellow creative and have interest in a collab, please reach out!