We recently asked our graduates to tell us what’s new with them.
Here you can read about their work, and more generally, about
their lives since graduating with a Design degree. Use our
alumni update form to tell us
what’s new with you.
Interests: Interiors, Furniture, Architecture, Graphic Design, Art History
Design alumna Morgan Simko began working for an architecture firm
in Northern California doing drafting and interior design
immediately following graduation. She works in both AutoCAD and
Revit building construction documents for healthcare facilities,
as well as creating color boards and making finish selections.
She is also building her portfolio to apply to grad school for
interior design.
Diane Wu graduated in Interior Architecture and Design with a
Civil Engineering minor in Sustainability. Upon graduation, she
served as a Green Building Analyst at the UC Davis Energy
Conservation Office where she earned her LEED AP and led energy
conservation initiatives to LEED certify campus buildings
including Hutchison, Mrak, and the Math Sciences Building. In
2015, she returned to her passion in interior design and designed
corporate spaces for clients including Netflix, Tesla, Santa
Clara State University, and various tech firms in the Silicon
Valley.
Design alumnus Randall Hom is a product designer at BetterWorks,
helping design an enterprise goals platform that drives companies
to become operationally excellent. After exploring multiple
disciplines of design—print, motion graphics, web—he found
himself in product design working with startups around Silicon
Valley. He enjoys how designing for software products encompasses
so many facets of design: UX, UI, interaction, visual design,
motion graphics, user research & usability.
Interests: Product Design, UI Design, Visual Design, User Experience
Alyssa Murray is a Product Designer at Highfive, a startup
company based in Redwood City. After exploring a number of design
disciplines, Alyssa graduated with a B.A. in Visual Design from
UC Davis. She moved to San Francisco and began working at various
companies, including freelance work, which helped to build her
portfolio. Alyssa specializes in UI design for web and mobile,
visual design, user experience, user testing and
copywriting
Adam Taylor is the graphic designer for the Jan Shrem and Maria
Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis. With a background in
visual communication, and a predilection for creating narrative
environments, his freelance work comprises brand development, set
design, environmental graphics and exhibition design for cities,
museums, non-profits, and universities. He has studied
architecture and design in Denmark and Iceland. Design Interests:
Narrative Environments, History & Theory of Design, Urban
Intervention, Wayfinding, Typography.
Alumni Nora Cary recently left a graphic design and editing job
to remodel an 1893 house in downtown Winters. She is planning a
trip to Paris, raising a two-year-old and expecting another child
October 2015! She always has plenty of design projects going on
and is currently working on a collaboration with a painter to
design clothing with her hand-painted fabrics.
Living in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York. My roomates
are 2 other UCD Design graduates! While they are in tech and
graphic design now, I am launching Catbird’s new website as
their Project Manager, and integrating it with an e-commerce
inventory management system and POS for our retail store
on Bedford Avenue in the heart of Williamsburg. If you check
back in a few months, www (dot) catbirdnyc (dot) com will be
brand new and more beautiful, and hopefully function 10x
better than it does now.
Design alumnus Dennis Robinson graduated in Visual Communications
and Design. Since graduating, he moved back to SoCal and worked
as a graphic designer in the manufacturing and medical fields in
addition to doing a bit of freelance work. One of those freelance
gigs led to his job as Chief Creative Officer for a start-up
vending company formed by fellow Aggie Erica
Harris that provides healthy, all natural, and organic
snacks as well as eco-friendly products for children 0-5 years
old.
Allen Tram is a dress designer within the fashion industry. After
graduating from UC Davis he moved to Los Angeles to start his
career in fashion where he worked at BCBG Max Azria and KELLWOOD.
He then moved to NYC to persue his dream of working with designer
Thom Browne. Following his time at Thom Browne, Allen began
working at New York and Company; a wear-to-work retailer for
women. To expand his experience in dresses Allen designed evening
dresses for Kay Unger New York. He is now taking all of his
experience to enhance the dress business at White House Black
Market.
Interests: Graphic Design, Architecture, Fashion, Art History
Design alumna Li Lai completed her undergraduate degree in
Fashion and moved to New York City, working various internships
until falling in at Victoria’s Secret where she worked as a print
stylist. Five years later, she attended the University of
Edinburgh for an M.A. Textiles degree where she explored her
affinity for Graphic Design. Back in the States, she moved to
Chicago and is now working at a marketing agency as a graphic
designer.
Interests: Fashion and Costume Design, Wearable Art
Design alumna Rebecca Wendlandt has a custom fashion
and costume design business that she runs out of her home. She
started her business in Fall 2006 and has been doing custom
design work and sewing as well as teaching private sewing lessons
ever since then. She also continue to create wearable art for
exhibitions and competitions. In Fall 2014, her piece “Water
Dancers” received an honorable mention in its category in New
Zealand’s 2014 World of WearableArt Awards Show. She traveled to
New Zealand to see the show in September and was able to receive
her award in person.
Interests: Professional Portrait Photography, Music production, 3D explorations with Cinema 4D
Here is what I am doing these days:
Art directing and managing Apple’s worldwide App Store Content
Design Team. If you shop for Apps on the App Store on iPhone,
iPad, or Mac you have seen my team’s work. We create conceptual
artwork to highlight editorially-chosen themes of Apps for
consumers to browse, shop and easily find what they need.
I got married a year and a half ago, and my wife and I just
bought our first house in San Jose! We are very excited and
looking forward to starting a family.
Eloise Leigh is currently living in Berlin and “soaking up
this side of the planet.” She is a freelance
graphic designer and illustrator, mainly for print clients
in publishing and music. She reports that she is also involved
with community radio and alternative zine/art/music events, and
is becoming more and more interested in teaching children.
But most of all, she is “traveling as much as possible!” Check
out her website at www.eloiseleigh.com.
Design alumna Leah Huntsinger is currently employed
by Christy Rilling Studio, a high profile tailoring and
custom design Atelier/Agency. As part of her job, Leah works with
celebrities, fashion magazines and production companies, fitting
and tailoring clothes for events, advertisements and editorials.
Design alumnus Derick Daily is the Creative Director at Spring
Studio, a User-Experience Design Boutique in San Francisco.
(http://www.springstudio.com).
He oversees a team of 6 Art Directors and they build digital
experiences ranging from websites to mobile applications and
everything in between. Spring has deep expertise in the Financial
Services sector but work with clients in all industries.
We want to hear the latest news from all Design faculty,
students, alumni and staff. Tell us about your upcoming events or
shows, or let us know about your recent job promotion, award
received, publication, or other news of interest to the Design
Department and community.
Please fill out the form, including the event date as
appropriate. We will only share your contact information if you
check the “yes, share …” box.
What are you doing these days? We want to hear about your life
since you graduated with a Design degree. Are you working,
attending grad school, or starting a family? Please fill out this
form to tell us about your travels, accomplishments or
future plans. If you have a website we would like to post a link
to that as well.
