All great stories start with a conflict. This is ours.

On a hot summer day in June of 2006, I packed up all of my belongings, crammed them into my silver Toyota Corolla, and set off to hopefully land a design job and dive into the local art and music scene of Austin, Texas. I was 23, fresh out of college, fresh off a bad breakup, and driving fast to an uncertain future.

I moved into a small room in my sister’s house and accepted an entry-level design gig at the first place I interviewed. During the day, I was a junior in-house graphic designer making templates, learning brand standards, figuring out the mechanics of design and marketing. At night, I was an aspiring emcee in a conscious hip hop group called Unspoken Levels with my brother and friends. We were trying to use music and storytelling to tap into some truth about humanity and inspire people to see the world differently. This was basically my first intro to nonprofit work, because we sure didn’t make any money.

I ended up spending the first part of my career at that same design job. My role grew from an entry-level template designer to the Creative and Marketing Director, leading a great team and making successful work. The exploration of music faded into the background and shifted into spiritual growth and creative writing. Seven years in, I realized there was a growing disconnect between my career path and my internal compass. I eventually decided to embark on a new chapter to explore the world and better understand my place in it.

I left my job, sold most of what I owned, and said goodbye to my friends and family. I spent the next year backpacking on my own around the globe. I explored 17 countries from South America, Europe, Asia to Oceania. The trip taught me more than I can name here. But one morning, sitting on a hillside above the Ganges in Rishikesh, India, I understood something I’ve been working out ever since.

The things that actually move people are the ones you can’t see. The current under the surface. The shape of the land from a bird’s-eye view. I had spent nearly a decade trying to design and change the surface. I came home wanting to shape the land.

I didn’t have language for it then, but I do now. I call it invisible world-building. It’s the felt sense someone has of a thing before they can articulate why. The hard work of branding is to find what’s already true about an organization and give it a form the world can recognize.

This insight led me to nonprofits and purpose-driven organizations. Where everyone involved is being moved by those intangible, hard-to-grasp qualities of shaping a mission. All the pieces are there, but what’s usually missing is the form.

It took most of the next decade to put that into full practice. Three years leading creative inside a mission-driven agency taught me how nonprofits actually run. Board dynamics. Donor sensitivities. How a small team carries a big mission. Years on my own taught me how to bring that work directly to the organizations that need it.

With Studio is where all this life and work experience has found its full form. Where my mission and expression are fully aligned, and where I can help my clients find that same alignment and build new worlds.

None of this exists without my wife, Katie, who I met shortly after I got back to Austin in 2014. She’s been the foundation under every winding path since. Our son Sam was born in 2019, and the story has shifted from mine to ours.

Today, I’m 43, raising Sam alongside Katie, and driving steadily to a future I can finally see.