“Every great design begins with an even better story.”

- Lorinda Mamo, Designer

My Story

I learned the power of a good story when I worked as an interior designer. Presenting a design can feel like explaining something to a person who speaks another language. But when you frame your design vision within a compelling story, things start to resonate. The story helps us understand the 'why'. In a similar way, I could simply tell you that I am passionate about UX design, but that would likely feel hollow without the full story.

I’ve always been creative. As a kid, my favorite pastime was designing my ‘dream house’. I preferred designing over drawing pictures because it gave me a problem to solve. Like many creatives, I was very observant. In high school, I took a class on psychology and my eyes were opened to a deeper level of the human experience. The human psyche fascinated me and I was hooked.

I graduated college with a degree in health sciences and no real career direction. I dreamed of being a designer, but wasn't confident enough to pursue it, so I thought I might go on to grad school. Instead, my husband and I took the opportunity to move into our car and travel full-time.

After 1 year, 50 states, and 60,000 miles, I had pushed myself to do a lot of hard things. I had climbed out of my comfort zone (literally) and all the way to the top of a few 14,000 foot peaks.

I finally had the nerve to go after my dream of being a designer. I got an internship doing interior design in Salt Lake City. It was a painfully steep learning curve. I knew nothing about the business, the design process, or even the software they used. But within a couple of months, I was up to speed and loved tackling so many new challenges. However, I had learned about the concept of UX design and I couldn't get it out of my mind. After two years of interior design, I decided to transition.

I began the UX design program at Thinkful in September of 2019. UX design is a blast and satisfies all of my passions - creativity, psychology, problem solving, and helping people. I feel a bit like Sherlock Holmes, piecing together information and solving puzzles. Now I just need an iconic hat.