About Val

👋🏼 Hey there! I'm Val, a Brooklyn-based product designer, illustrator, and design mentor. From building my first HTML site (unknowingly) on Neopets in elementary school to building my wardrobe on Figma, I’m always geeking out over topics and building things(hello, hyperfixation!). Luckily, now I nerd out and build things for a living as a product designer, with some of the other perks of this career - the people and relationships. I enjoy building relationships, foster collaboration and understanding. You can catch me seeking mentorships from people in various roles, mentoring junior designers, and scheduling meetings with engineers to understand their technical constraints. My communication style is direct (Hey, I am a New Yorker after all), but my goals are always to get things done and lift people up.

As a product designer, finding the right balance between creativity, practicality, and scalability is the heartbeat of my work. I let myself think big and outside of the box first, but also value communicating with engineers about technical effort early on in the process.

Design and I go way back. My design background started long before digital product design. With a background in business administration and art, I've designed services and curriculums for university students, led teams on Census Bureau projects designing products that facilitate understandings of open federal data, and did graphic design for a museum.

I am an accessibility advocate. My cherished bond with my 84-year-old grandmother in China, enriched by video calls and voice messages, often make me wonder how we might design better for older adults and individuals with disabilities.