There’s a story in the details, cracks in a subway wall, stretching like rivers after fresh rains. Rust stains blooming in puddles, brown and red. Paint peeling, layers refusing to be suffocated by the one that came after. Life in these details. Not just designing spaces— excavating them. Listening to the stories they want to tell, amplifying whispers into bold declarations.
In *When They See Us*, it was about recreating Harlem—not just through the spectacle of our many builds, but the human pulse embedded in them. The work earned 16 Emmy nominations and a Peabody. In *Random Acts of Flyness*, another Peabody recipient, it was about breaking the rules. Surreal worlds. Poetic ones. Spaces that felt like they were dreaming. *Wildlife* demanded something quieter. Evoking an era through restraint—small-town simplicity, the pressure in silence, the ache of a family unraveling. In *The Woman King*, the challenge was different—bringing western African history to life, their spirituality, ritual, community, pain, the textures, colors, and glyphs all, speaking of a past of beauty and pain, a reverberation of which lives today, and to see that resonance through the young woman in the theaters excited to view for a third time, the 114 different awards nominations. Even in commercials, the intent is the same. Cannes Lions, Clio, Ciclope, Shots— all recognized projects where we tried to hit a deeper resonance Every project is a question: what stories can this space hold? What truth?
Fresh out of UCLA, I found myself bound to Burbank, working as a producer’s assistant at NBC. Budgets, schedules, the dull click of office computers. The days were long, and the work repetitive, but the skills garnered, necessary. By 2003, I traded studio lots for sawdust and subway noise in Brooklyn, becoming a visual display artist under the tutelage of Todd Shearer, a veteran creator whose peers in display art once included Andy Warhol. Todd taught me to see the patterns in the details. Together, we created intricate displays for Chanel, Dior, Christie’s Auction House, and Cartier. Big names, simple lessons: details, tell a story.
I launched All of Us Design. Brooklyn artists, high-end fashion brands, the raw meeting the refined. Valentino, Levi’s, Diesel—they wanted the energy we brought. It worked. Mild successes, but it served as a bridge. Film pulled me back, applying my designs to new mediums—music videos, commercials, feature films. My work grew in scale but never lost its humanity.
That philosophy shapes the way I teach today. As a lecturer at UCLA, I focused on empathy—teaching my students to see spaces as more than settings, but as characters that carry their own stories.
The work doesn’t need to shout. It’s in the cracks, the stains, the layers of paint—where life leaves its fingerprints, quiet but unmistakable. For me, design isn’t about perfection; it’s about truth. Spaces can be messy and layered, or they can feel empty and forgotten. They can be stylized or stripped of style, alive with meaning or waiting to be seen. What I hope we do as creators, is invite people to pause, to notice, to look closer, to recognize and be recognized. To see the quiet beauty in what’s real—the resilience, the history, and the stories held within the walls, if we listen, they speak.
