Product & Interaction Design
I look for what holds things up
Most of what I do is look at a thing until I can see what's holding it up. A database, a render, a room of people. Same habit, different context.
How I Work
With software I watch what's happening underneath; which request fired, what the database is doing, is there interference or is the process flawed? I learn the logic first and work the issues from there. Same thing when I walk into a room: who sits where, who people go to when something breaks, what nobody says out loud and what motivates each individual. My mind is in a constant state of analyzing and troubleshooting. Am I always right? No, but each mistake informs the next step. I don’t have all the answers but I can get them.
At Sony it has been graphic design one morning, an accessibility audit the next, CSS for a contest page after lunch. The range is what keeps me energized. Fixing problems and learning and growing. That dynamism keeps me engaged and my passive analysis is what helps me be effective.
Liquid / Shopify — Picked it up on the job and built a section that lets non-coders customize artist storefronts. The logic sits in the back end, so nobody has to touch code to use it.
PostgreSQL → Tableau — Took a raw database dump and turned it into a live dashboard: queries, a self-updating web frame, the whole pipeline.
3D / Cinema 4D — Walked into the class having never opened a modelling program. Learned it by understanding the connection between what I see and why do I see it. How does the program handle it’s own logic (primitives, modifiers, etc.).
The Journey
1992–2013 — the long way around
Born in Waterloo, raised in Chile. Wanted to be a pilot, then a lawyer, studied philosophy instead; two years of it and left the country.
2014 — Canada, deliberately
Moved to Toronto at 21 to find the path by living it instead of watching from my family's house. Kitchens paid the rent for the next decade.
2016–2017 — the YouTube detour
Hired to translate English to Spanish for a channel, stayed to edit. Thumbnails, then cutting video, then setting lights and directing people on camera.
2018–2021 — art, through the side door
Drew constantly as a kid, then stopped for about a decade. Came back to it in my late twenties through a foundations program, then a Visual & Creative Arts advanced diploma.
2021–2024 — interaction design
Art kept pointing past itself — toward how things work, not just how they look. Interaction design was where that landed: the visual side and the system-reading side in one place.
2024–present — Sony, then now
Started as a Creative Services intern, building Sony Music Canada's first D2C storefront. Now freelancer, building toward the next thing in Vancouver.
My PHilosophy
Design's job is to make a thing easier to use, or better to look at. Both, when I can manage it.
A master takes in a cat during a storm. It sleeps in the hall while the monks meditate. Years pass, the master dies, the cat dies — and the monks go find another cat, because by now a cat in the hall is just how the meditation gets done.
Mostly I want to leave a thing better set up than I found it. Sometimes that's a website. Sometimes it's a person having an easier time than they were. I'm not precious about which.
OFF-THE-CLOCK
Art
Still drawing and painting, these days mostly for myself. No deadline, no brief, no one to hand it to.
Blender/3D
Learning Blender through a game-art course. The current build is a low-poly version of me, which will turn up somewhere on this site the moment it stops looking like a hostage photo.
Reading
The philosophy habit never fully wore off, sometimes I read it, sometimes I read easy slop and sometimes self-help because why not?
Body
Calisthenics a few times a week.