Each project started with a curriculum strategy that defined what students needed to learn and accomplish. Working within each curriculum’s established style guide and requirements, my role was to bring that content to life visually and interactively in a way that supported the subject matter.

One of the more immersive storylines placed students in the role of an East African merchant, making decisions about what to trade, where to travel, and how those choices affected the journey.

The experience combined information, markets, maps, decision-making, and consequences. I designed the UI around clear actions and manageable amounts of information so students could explore goods, make selections, plan routes, and see the outcome of their choices without losing the sense of discovery.

Illustration was a big part of making the experience feel like a story rather than a set of screens. I worked alongside another illustrator on the custom artwork, while also creating supporting elements and some graphics myself. We also adapted stock artwork where it made sense, which helped us build a cohesive historical world within the project budget and timeline while keeping the experience visually consistent across the interface.

BioBuddies took a different approach to interaction: an avatar-building experience that allowed students to create a character by combining different biological variables.

The design needed to make a large number of possible combinations easy to understand and enjoyable to explore. I developed the interface and illustrated component system so individual features could work independently while still creating cohesive characters when combined.

Accessibility and representation were also important considerations. Because no finite set of illustrated options could fully represent the range of human biological variation, the system needed to offer meaningful variety without suggesting that the available choices represented every possible difference.