Design Feast’s Makers Series—125th Interview: Haley Henning & Daniel Crespo Intuitively Surround Themselves and Their Neighbors with Nature

In addition to having green thumbs, Haley Henning & Daniel Crespo seed and cultivate a green mindset through their founding of Wild Plum. Here at Design Feast, they go deep into why they’re plant parents.

When you two met, were y’all plant-forward with each other—Did y’all introduce each other with opening lines about horticulture? Seriously, how did you learn about each other’s strong interest in seedlings and gardening? Then how did you nurture this common bond?

Haley: On our first date, we were walking along Lake Michigan in early spring while Daniel told me about his love for a specific variety of oranges—Minneola Tangelo—due to their intense flavor and juiciness. When summer came around, his Miami-based parents brought us dozens of delicious mangoes—freshly grown on their two large mango trees—which Daniel looks forward to every year. At home, I’ve watched him tend to our houseplants, vegetable garden, and seedlings with care. Daniel helps me understand the joy in having an abundance of the freshest and most delicious fruits, and I admire his patience and desire to nurture the plants living all around us.

Daniel: One of my favorite memories with Haley is digging through her old elementary school assignments and finding one where she was talking about the dangers of cutting down old forests. I wasn’t surprised at all to see this—ever since I’ve known Haley, I’ve become very acquainted with her deep admiration and care for the natural world and all its inhabitants. She’s inspired me to explore the importance of all the different layers of our ecosystems.

What were the initial, critical steps in building Wild Plum from idea to an official company? When was your business launched?

Wild Plum exists, because sustainable gardening and ecological landscape design are some of the best actions people can take to add more beauty and benefit to the world around us.

Indigenous peoples have known for millennia how important it is for our landscapes to be spaces in which wildlife can thrive and people can play a positive role in. Western scientific knowledge is just starting to …
 

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Design Feast’s Makers Series—124th Interview: Anthony Roberts Writes in order to Change the World—even if by a Fraction

Reading “Fly Fishing Might Change Your Life” was (to borrow a weathered cliché) a revelation. A subject absolutely unrelatable to me, made relatable through the smooth-and-connected prose by Anthony Roberts. Inspired after reading. Here at Design Feast, he digs into sharing his call and craft of writing.

Where did your discovery of writing come from? Anything here that pointed you early in the direction of writing?

I’ve been a writer since I’ve had a memory. As a kid, I wrote poetry, raps, short stories and comic strips. But in 5th grade, my teacher assigned us to write a poem, about anything. I wrote about Chicago and I got an A. Then a few weeks later, she told me that she had submitted the poem to an anthology for publication and it was chosen to be published. It clicked in that very moment. I was always writing just as a means of expression, but that’s when I consciously became a student of the craft.

How do you affect your confidence and drive to write?

My confidence is directly affected by my willingness to surrender to what I’m attempting to bring forth through my writing. I’ve worked in various mediums/industries, from advertising and marketing to journalism and prose, with the throughline all being storytelling. If I can allow the story that wants to be told to come through, I’m confident. If for whatever reason I’m forcing it, not so confident …

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Help Design Feast to keep producing this kind of content! Lots of hours are put into making Design Feast—because it’s a labor of love to champion creative culture through hundreds of interviews, dozens of write-ups and more. Consider becoming a supporting Patron with a monthly donation of $1 or more.

What will stay free to completely explore at Design Feast are the 347 insightful interviews with an awesome range of Designers, Bloggers, Makers and realizers of Side Projects.

Design Feast’s Side Projects Series—117th Interview: Product Designer Ken Pan Collaborated on a UX Design Job Board to Help Applicants Save Time

What are you working on—on the side?

We, Gracia (Junzhu) Zhang—Product Designer & Visual Designer, Kyle (Chentao) Wang—Product Manager & Front-End Engineer, and myself, are Ciwei, a name that comes from the Chinese word for “hedgehog.” The hedgehog was our choice, because socialized on Chinese internet, hardworking folks are often lovingly referred to as “Kings of Rolling Up” or “卷王”—much like how hedgehogs curl up into a ball. We wanted to embody this spirit of hard work but in a cuter way, hence: Ciwei.

Our journey began with a group of UX graduates—all of us working tirelessly to land jobs in a highly competitive market. Realized we were spending a lot of time each day looking at new job postings, filtering out those that matched our qualifications and finally applying. This was a time-consuming process, and we knew there had to be a more efficient way. That’s when the idea for Ciwei was born—to help everyone find suitable job opportunities quickly—leaving more time for self-improvement and networking.

(My other side project is creating a UX New Graduate Community—consisting of 500+ members from almost every major design school in the US. That’s the “a group of UX graduates” I mentioned earlier.)

Here’s what we do at Ciwei: our community members, who are also job seekers, contribute by adding job openings they find during their search to our platform. Behind the scenes, we categorize and analyze these job listings. With the help of OpenAI’s engine, we highlight important information that our users care about. For example, if you’re a fresh graduate, you might be overwhelmed by the vast amount of unrelated job recommendations on platforms like LinkedIn. We filter through the noise for you, picking out jobs with lower experience requirements so that you can focus on opportunities that really suit you.

This is already something pretty helpful to our job-hunting journey. But we’re not stopping here. We’re currently looking into features like helping you auto track of jobs you’ve applied, and even providing insights into your interview success rate. More than just a job search tool, we want Ciwei to be a supportive community for UX graduates.

How do you manage to work on your side project(s)?

The driving force behind Ciwei, first and foremost, is my passion for community organization and helping others. The struggles of job hunting, something I’ve continuously observed in our UX new grad community over the past year, made me desire …

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What will stay free to completely explore at Design Feast are the 347 insightful interviews with an awesome range of Designers, Bloggers, Makers and realizers of Side Projects.

Design Feast’s Side Projects Series—116th Interview: AI Product Designer Steven Phung Equips Extensively the UI & UX Design Community with UX Gears

What are you working on—on the side?

I am the humble creator behind UX Gears, a vast design repository that seeks to inspire UX, UI and product designers across the globe. Within UX Gears, you’ll discover a delightful collection of over 500 handpicked links—carefully curated with love. From an abundance of UI, UX tools to ingenious AI-powered design tools, captivating illustrations, charming typography, delightful iconography, invaluable accessibility guides, comprehensive design systems and a never-ending wellspring of inspiration, UX Gears is here to support your creative journey.

Throughout my own seven-year design expedition, I’ve witnessed firsthand the remarkable impact UX design has on organisations and their products. It is like a hidden gem, a humble gear that quietly drives startups, fuels the growth of scale-ups, and empowers enterprises to reach new heights. Its significance may not always be apparent, but make no mistake—it plays a pivotal role in maintaining order and propelling the entire engine forward.

That’s precisely why I created UX Gears, a comprehensive repository of design resources that will help not just junior designers to accelerate their career in very competitive industry but also provide meaningful aid for pro-designers to create impactful digital experiences.

With UX Gears, my aim extends far beyond a mere repository. It is a friendly haven, a space where designers of all skill levels can find solace, inspiration and the tools they need to thrive in a fiercely competitive industry.

How do you manage to work on your side project(s)?

Managing UX Gears, alongside my full-time job, goes beyond traditional time management. It’s about balancing my passion, commitment and adaptability. There are some techniques and strategies to manage my workload …

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Thank you for your curiosity! Continue reading this interview at Design Feast on Patreon.

Help Design Feast to keep producing this kind of content! Lots of hours are put into making Design Feast—because it’s a labor of love to champion creative culture through hundreds of interviews, dozens of write-ups and more. Consider becoming a supporting Patron with a monthly donation—all that’s asked is $1 or another tier that feels good to you.

What will stay free to completely explore at Design Feast are the 347 insightful interviews with an awesome range of Designers, Bloggers, Makers and realizers of Side Projects.

Design Feast’s Makers Series—123rd Interview: Information Designer & Consultant Sandina Miller Materializes Honest and Humble Clarity

It was the typographic nerdy of Sandina Miller’s Twitter feed that led me to her work that focused on a discipline I cherish a lot: Information Design. Here at Design Feast, she articulates her passion for making communication that’s as clear as it can be to guide effectively its recipients.

Firstly, congratulations on exceeding a decade as a Typographic Designer and Consultant! What does independence mean to you? As it relates to creativity, making, working.

Thank you! The time’s gone fairly quickly. When I initially moved from on-staff to freelancing, my focus and background were in wayfinding as well as print typography with a smattering of digital design. Now I’m increasingly focused on communications.

Being independent means I can be flexible and more in control when working on my own projects. It also means I bring a different perspective when I do projects with on-staff design teams. Creatively, it can be both freeing and taxing. I decide my own schedule which means I can take a break when I need it without worrying about contracted hours. However, the flip-side is I can get engrossed in work and forget to take a break—this is where the office tea-breaks are handy! Also, working at home alone means I don’t get to enjoy the team-vibe of being in a studio. I miss the catch-ups, chatter and impromptu feedback that improves my ideas and stimulates me to think in different ways. I also miss the mutual support of agency life: being in a studio and able to turn around and ask for or offer help.

How did you become interested in a career involving typography, information design, communication design? Who, what helped motivate you?

Good question! I’ve always had varied interests—from philosophy to maths (yes, really although my maths cells now seem to have deserted me)—but design won. Before university, I did the International Baccalaureate (IB) at an international college. IB schools emphasise extra-curricular activities and I did a few, including writing and doing layout (Anyone remember PageMaker?) for the college magazine. When it was time to apply for university, I chose the University of Reading where I got a scholarship to study typography and graphic communication. The Reading course was a great mix of hands-on vocational work with history and theory to keep me more intellectually engaged.

My university mentors (especially Gerry Leonidas, Paul Stiff, Sue Walker and Paul Luna) supported and encouraged me on several major projects: from type design to wayfinding to my dissertation on newspaper design.

After I graduated, I worked with Mark Barratt and the Text Matters team in Reading, UK. It was an intense time, and I grew a lot as a person and as a designer. I learned so much about practical adjustments, working with clients from academic, public and non-profit sectors, real-world digital design, and accessible, inclusive design.

Over time, I became a facilitator as well as creator. Whether I worked on a map, a poster or a social media marketing plan, the core was managing different elements, content and people to develop solutions. The people I met, worked with and learned from—whether at university or professional working at Text Matters—all helped me build on my formal training to become …
 

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Help Design Feast to keep producing this kind of content! Lots of hours are put into making Design Feast—because it’s a labor of love to champion creative culture through hundreds of interviews, dozens of write-ups and more. Consider becoming a supporting Patron with a monthly donation—all that’s asked is $1 or another tier that feels good to you.

What will stay free to completely explore at Design Feast are the 347 insightful interviews with an awesome range of Designers, Bloggers, Makers and realizers of Side Projects.

Design Feast’s Makers Series—122nd Interview: Ashley Lukasik Designs Immersive Experiences that Stoke Deep Collaboration and Ideation

Photographed by Miriam Doan.

The cultural trifecta of the Bauhaus (especially the legacy of László Moholy-Nagy), Design Methods and Human-Centered Design culminated in discovering Ashley Lukasik, who is one part documentarian, one part curator, one part facilitator—all parts designer. She founded and leads Murmur Ring—specializing in immersions. Here at Design Feast, she elaborates on this tactile, visceral offering and her creative process to stimulate collective curiosity as a humane, holistic asset to enhancing business strategy.

During your talk to the Chicago chapter of CreativeMornings, I wondered (verb intended, since the team of your talk was aligned to the CreativeMornings theme of “Wonder” at the time) what an accurate, even precise, job title would apply to you. Iterations included Metaphysical Yenta to Director of Narrative Vibe to Keeper of Stimuli. Yet, I kept returning to you as an Experience Designer. When you describe the kind of creative work you do to people who don’t know, what do you call yourself?

Wow, all of these titles are 1,000 times more interesting and lyrical than those I’ve mustered for myself! I tend to refer to myself primarily as a producer of experiences and stories, grounded in the ethos of human-centered design. I’m mainly driven to unearth the creative talents of others and bring them to wider audiences who can expand upon them. When done well, it is a very organic and collaborative process.

It was at IIT Institute of Design where you discovered the label, concept, discipline of human-centered design. Is this true? Can you describe this process of discovery?

Very much so. I entered the field of design when it was rapidly gaining attention and application in industry at a broad scale. In large part, corporate interest was stimulated by the rapid advancement of digital technology that was forcing organizations to think differently about how their products/services/culture could appeal to people and–more importantly–how they would contend with what was emerging, murky and not yet codified.

At ID, my role was to shepherd in new research and projects in collaboration with organizations who were interested in adopting tools from design. I also produced events and content to broadcast the incredible work of our design community but with the goal of making fairly abstract content and projects more accessible (penetrable?).

At first, arriving in the world of design was like landing in a Utopia. Really?! There are other nerds out there who are just as interested in trying to make sense of the mess of the world?! With real methodologies to go about it?!

As time went on, I became interested in how we can effectively infuse more creativity back into the discipline. I get bored easily and was starting to find the typical design project to be formulaic. The heavy focus on …

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Thanks for your curiosity! Continue reading this interview at Design Feast on Patreon.

Help Design Feast to keep producing this kind of content! Lots of hours are put into making Design Feast—because it’s a labor of love to champion creative culture through hundreds of interviews, dozens of write-ups and more. Consider becoming a supporting Patron with a monthly donation—all that’s asked is $1 or another tier that feels good to you.

What will stay free to completely explore at Design Feast are the 346 insightful interviews with an awesome range of Designers, Bloggers, Makers and realizers of Side Projects.

Design Feast’s Makers Series—121st Interview: From Indie to Industry, the Wild Journey of Apparel Designer Jessica Caldwell

Whether it’s Denver or Colorado Springs, the Centennial State is a core part of my U.S.-travel fandom. While recently revisiting The Mile-High City, I wanted to meet Jessica Caldwell—in person this time. Originally discovered her and her work (check out my first interview in 2014) via Twitter where I noticed a (former) feature about “Independent fashion design for modern, badass women.” She ran her apparel business Machine Apparel—where the spare and sharp aesthetic, expressed throughout its collections, appealed greatly to me.

Today, Jessica designs outerwear for The North Face.

Here at Design Feast, learn about a few main aspects about how she made such a gritty, at times harrowing, all-around exciting, transition from fashion business founder to joining one of the world’s best clothing brands.

You were an independent designer for how long? Five years? Which is a lot of time. Each of those years was definitely dense with your hustling, your grinding. Bootstrapped. You’re in it, totally. You were your own kind of war room, so to speak. You're in the trenches.

When you made that shift from independence to entering the world of a renowned, popular, formidable fashion brand, what were those independent fashion design sensibilities that stuck with you as being more true now than it was then? What were those practices as an independent, hard-working fashion designer and maker that you still carry with you—that you still tap into in your role at The North Face?

I had my own line, Machine Apparel (samples from fashion collections below), just about four years. It was a rollercoaster of creativity–lots of experimenting, trial and error, and working with very limited resources to make things happen. I still look back at that time as one of the most creative periods in my career, because it was total freedom. There were a lot of ups and downs though—as I navigated my way through building a creative business.

Working for myself really helped me develop all those key skills beyond design that I still implement daily. I had to self-manage, know how to jump back and forth between many types of tasks (marketing, accounting, operations, etc.), and still find a way to satisfy my creative side as well. Working at The North Face keeps me on my toes in the same ways. I’m working on multiple seasons at a time in all different stages of development, I’m going to fittings, talking with athletes, and still sit down and actually design product! I’ve learned to stay flexible, organized and to ride each wave as it comes.

Everyone has their own information architecture. I would be very curious to see how you not only collate but also curate your collections of stimulation. Because one of your independent practices, which you still carry through, is your persistent scouting and collecting of inspiration.

When I was a kid, I used to cut out pictures from magazines and save them in a shoebox. Then I’d craft these big collages on the walls of my bedroom. I still do that today, only now it’s all digital. I am constantly saving posts from Instagram. I’ve got my Pinterest algorithm dialed, and I always have a notebook with me to write down ideas, or quotes from books, songs, etc. I’m constantly taking photos when something catches my eye too—my camera roll is a …

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What will stay free to completely explore at Design Feast are the 346 insightful interviews with an awesome range of Designers, Bloggers, Makers and realizers of Side Projects.