It was summer camp and I was fifteen.

Ariel Hitchcock

Currently UX Design Lead at We The Collective. If you’d like to connect about a spicy project or other opportunity, shoot me an email.

I was crushing hard on one of my camp counselors, and soon learned that this 22-year-old man, in addition to an irresistible mop of curly brown hair and dimples, had a career in something called “graphic design.” He was cool and cultured; he played De La Soul for us on a portable CD player while we lounged about on our rickety bunks in the dry Idaho summer air.

He gave nicknames to all his favorite campers, and one picnic lunchtime he sketched mine out onto my brown paper bag: two triangles and a circle that looked something like the letters A-Y-O. I was entranced. He had effortlessly taken the essential sounds of my name and turned it into this simplified, exotic geometry. What sorcery! Was this the power of the graphic designer, to reframe the familiar into something new, elevating it into an even more exciting reality? Maybe it was just hormones, but I thought it was magic.

Conjuring up my own design magic since 2004.

Skill set
Art direction
Interaction
User interface
Concept development
Content strategy
Usability testing

Starting from the quick and dirty world of newspaper ad design at my hometown newspaper, I’ve been lucky to have a broad range of career experiences that make me the versatile designer I am today. From freelancing to fast-paced agency work, I’ve learned to self-manage but also to get the most out of working with a talented team. Through all my career evolutions, my education in visual communication and design methodology bolsters every project I tackle.