Art Director + Creative Lead + Creative Manager
SHINE LA
Encourage Community. Encourage Health.
Los Angeles is a city of millions, speaking dozens of languages, scattered across hundreds of neighborhoods. Underneath all of it runs a quiet crisis: more than 80% of its young people aren't moving enough, and the burden falls heaviest on low-income families, communities of color, and women.
The brief of the brief was to get a whole city moving 10% more before the 2028 Olympics. The effects of this increase would be tracked by a team of Cedars-Sinai data scientists through devices provided by Garmin. Finding new ways to communicate the vast offerings of The Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks turned park spaces into hubs through unique, on-site activations created through signage, local artists, activities, and recognizable iconography that encourage a taking a few "extra steps" through challenge and play.
I was part of a small design and advertising team that developed and refined ShineLA through a Fellowship provided by DesignMatters, ArtCenter College of Design. My roles on the Team were centered mostly in community engagement, environmental graphics, branding, and illustration. Systems created were applied across: mobile app, LA Rec. and Parks website, a gamified reward system, environmental graphics, and print.
This is design in service of one of the largest studies of physical activity ever attempted, with 150,000 participants. Built to scale through intentional design decisions that speak to the multilingual and multigenerational worlds that exist in LA's historic neighborhoods.
Graphic Identity
Fifteen years working directly in these neighborhoods shaped the identity from the inside out. The system had to speak across languages, generations, and dozens of distinct communities without flattening any of them: research, community outreach, and lived familiarity informing every color, icon, and illustration.
Primary Color
Secondary Color
Tertiary Color
Typographic Style
Iconography
Illustration Style
Application Splash Screen
DISCOVER & CALENDAR
Calendar
Search for Experience
Experience
Digital Systems
A culturally tailored app built for the real Los Angeles: multilingual, multigenerational, mobile-first. Community information, local programming, exercise incentives, point-of-sale, and family scheduling — designed around the needs of distinct target communities rather than a single assumed user.
Favorites
Level Up
A gamified rewards system designed to motivate and build community: badge collection, shared momentum, and time-based goals that turn individual activity into something neighbors do together.
Web Design for a Multicultural Audience
Simple, motivating, and built to engage through video, layout, language, and graphics — shaped by research, community interviews, and stakeholder input, with a diverse audience at the center of every decision rather than an afterthought.
Wearable + Data
Custom-branded Garmin wearables turn movement into data and data into momentum. Each device feeds the broader study while giving participants a tangible, daily connection to their own progress.
Printed Media
Coordinated visual language across city-wide and park-specific campaigns; unifying the message, sparking curiosity, and making a sprawling initiative feel like one coherent invitation.
Environmental Graphics
The most personal part of the system. Rather than decorate parks, the work hands them back to the community; turning underused wall space into community-directed art through design briefs for local artists, resident participation, and a partnership with the LA Department of Cultural Affairs. Reimagined four-square, wall ball, and hopscotch turn bare concrete into an invitation to play.
