Hello! My name is Ursula and I would love to share more about myself. First, my design journey began in Lima, Peru, where I was born. I attended the Peruvian Institute of Advertising and Design, learning the foundations of graphic design, color theory, and visual communication. After completing their program, I moved to the USA to attend the Media and Communications and Technology program at Bellevue College.
After my studies, I joined a small consultancy design team, where we secured a project to work on the intranet for one of the world's wealthiest individuals. His home contained incredible historical artifacts, and although I'm under an NDA and can't describe them, I was responsible for designing a web interface to catalog all the items. I created a user map to navigate his home and find each artifact, detailing its history, author, and style.
My next adventure took me to Expedia, where I was hired as a visual designer for the Merchandising team. After a year, I transitioned to a product design role for Expedia's luxury travel division. As a lead designer, I collaborated with the usability team, engineers, and program managers, working with dozens of stakeholders.
In 2010, I took a sabbatical to focus on raising my three small children, now teenagers. During this 10-year break, I ran a DIY modern crafts blog from home, monetizing it and partnering with brands like Tiny Prints and Pottery Barn. In 2019, I launched another business called Beautiful Word, designing home decor with a Christian message. I taught myself to build a Shopify store and successfully launched my business.
In 2021, I joined a San Francisco start-up called AllTakes, led by Minal Mehta, with whom I had previously worked at Expedia's luxury travel team. At AllTakes, I transitioned to the UX world, teaching myself Figma and other prototyping tools to design for an online meeting platform called the Roundtable. It was an incredible experience to design features like a webinar platform and a content library organization system, working alongside some of the smartest people in technology, including a former founding engineer director at Google.
As AI's relevance grows daily, it's an extraordinary phase to be part of the tech industry. I eagerly await to see what the future brings! Feel free to drop me a message at ursularosien@gmail.com. Let's connect!