I was 9 years old the first time I was asked to weigh in on a design problem. My mom wanted to rearrange our family room furniture and asked what I thought. Before then, rearranging furniture was something she did occassionally that just made me change the position I watched TV in. But I remember being brought into the process made me realize how relative the room's layout was. Every room must need to be planned by someone, and maybe everything else kind of did, too. As an adult, I would be very skeptical of a 9 year old's interior design skills, but I'm grateful my mom asked my opinion, and opened me up to thinking about design.

Design and trying to understand its context has influenced most of the rest of my life. Because we live within the consequences of past decisions, I became interested in history, the social sciences and philosophy to try and understand why the present is the way it is. I eagerly studied these subjects at Ohio Wesleyan University, earning a bachelor’s degree along the way. Approaching graduation, I felt continuing my education into law school didn’t feel right, but knew a bachelor’s in sociology and philosophy might not be enough to find work in then recession-hit Ohio. Instead of environmental law at Pace University then, I took a hard left and earned a technical welding certificate at Columbus State Community College.

I leveraged my welding certificate and college metal working experience to get a jeweler apprenticeship at Jared the Galleria of Jewelry. This turned into a 6 year long career as a bench jeweler in several stores, and eventually taught me enough to start my own jewelry business, Moriarty Jewelry. I’ve since repaired, refurbished, and fabricated thousands of pieces of jewelry, and helped hundreds of people design pieces for loved ones. Meanwhile outside of work, a passion for new music led me to start creating album cover art for underground music labels and musicians. Under the name JohnMoProductions, I gained experience in graphic design, A&R work, contract negotiation and communicating with people all over the world.

As interesting as jewelry work can be, changes in the industry and economy made me realize it may be smart to investigate other career options for designers. A software developer friend clued me into UX work and I was excited to learn more about the field. Discovering the possibilities of UX design led me to pursue an intensive program where I learned the design process and familiarized myself with industry expectations. I was surprised that I liked the research aspect of the field as much as the visual design portion, and so hope to keep my skillset broad and versatile. I’m optimistic that with my unorthodox background I can approach design problems with fresh eyes, and am happy to be in this new chapter of design in my life.