As a kid I would help my parents at the Chinese restaurant they owned. Here, I learned to navigate the kitchen system that my dad had designed. I'd spend hours reimagining the mundane daily tasks to make them more interesting — like, how fast can I tally up the orders on the cash register, usher dirty dishes back to the kitchen or prepackage the utensils for togo orders? Can I do them even faster? Can I make it more fun? 

I saw patterns everywhere: rush hour rhythms, customer behavior, how one slow process could jam up the whole operation. I learned that the best systems feel effortless because someone thought deeply about how all the pieces work together.

As a designer today, I still approach projects the same way. By first understanding the system holistically, then identifying the problems and finding ways to make everything work better together :).

In my free time you can find me hanging out with my parrot, eating a bowl of noodles or planning my next trip to Tokyo.