I'm Luca—a product designer, tool-maker, and lifelong learner.
I'm a designer drawn to adaptive, artistic interfaces. I've tackled product and user challenges at Cubic, shaped a large community at Design Co, and studied HCI at UC San Diego. Currently seeking design internships and new grad roles!
What I've made
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About me
In pursuit of righteousness and sophisticatication.
When you're a designer, everything should matter. The painting lessons I took as a child in SF, and the smudged graphite all over my left hand after sketching in class. The talks about life with my family, from dumb things to serious societal topics. The incessant number of running gags that I come up with on retreats with friends. The love and meticulousness put into cooking and plating meals for myself and others. It all matters - it's shaped who I am, how I empathize with problems, and what I want to create. Am I stating the obvious? Kind of, but it's important to remember that our own experiences and sensibilities influence us, whether we're building empathy for users, understanding product needs, or wielding our ingenuity with new tools like generative code. While always eager to learn and grow, I'm careful to consider that my path to righteousness and sophistication isn't right—it's just mine. That's the kind of designer I am.
“If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.”
This quote by Steve Jobs is poignant. Jobs, as much of a visionary as he was, is a great example of the myth of the ‘lone genius.’ Despite this, I truly agree that exceptional work is produced by strong beliefs that manifest themselves elegantly in design, while also recognizing the dangers that this opinion presents. The tricky thing is how you shape your ego, knowledge, and skills to produce things that are genuine and bring meaning to the world.
My core beliefs
Do different.
It's safe and easy to repeat the same workflow. Humans are creatures of habit, and that's admittedly useful for shaping our mental and physical well being. In design though, there are enough rules and systems. Do something different every once in a while.
One step at a time.
Design is interdisciplinary: there are so many little skills and optimizations that can elevant one's work. It can feel daunting, but I've found great success using every project as an opporunity to really hone in on one of them and improve my craft layer by later.
Invest in others.
As the Creative Director of Design Co at UCSD, I've seen many people come and go. As a student organization, it's in our nature, but I've seen the power of advocating for budding talent firsthand. It's how I joined in the first place, and how so many others have grown.
Shot in the wild
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