I ended up a designer by accident. My parents were working overseas, and decided in my last year of high school to move back to the US, so I was home schooled online for my senior year. Because I was online so much, I got into web design, which melded with years of art classes and fiddling around with sketchpads. I tried to do different things, even taking pre-med classes in school. I made it two semesters before I realized that my favorite part of anatomy classes was the drawing. Needless to say, I switched majors, and the rest is history.

Design, as far as I am concerned, is one big opportunity to play, and the person who invented Photoshop doesn't know it yet, but someday we're going to be best friends.

Design, as far as I am concerned, is one big opportunity to play, and the person who invented Photoshop doesn't know it yet, but someday we're going to be best friends. The most common question I get when people find out what I do for a living is where the ideas come from. Inspiration comes from the most random things. For example, I saw a movie once about an old house in a storm, and it made me think of peeling wallpaper in an old mansion, and from that came the Old World Stack. One of the challenges we face is designing out of season - trying to design autumn leaves in April, or summer prints in October - but it is a great opportunity to sit at your desk, earphones in, listening to old Sinatra songs like "Autumn in New York" or "Summer Wind" to get in the right mood. It gives your imagination a workout.

I love old movies, good books, and cooking for friends. I moved into a little house recently and it's been incredibly rewarding to slowly fill it with furniture and art that I love. There's nothing more fun than a good DIY project - particularly if you can rope a few friends into helping you out. I've also become fairly obsessed with photography lately, and carry my Nikon with me everywhere. I don't have great method or talent, I just go nuts and take jillions of pictures; I find there's no need to stress about the perfect shot - you can always edit later. The brilliant thing is that I'm always surprised by how the most unexpected shots are often the ones that turn out to be the most successful. Which I think is a good metaphor for design, and probably, life. My favorite memory is jumping bikes on the dirt hills behind my home.