Mattel
Design Lead
Multi-year contributions (2022–Present)
Designing Iconic Brands at Global Scale:
As Lead Designer on Mattel's Dolls team, I developed visual systems and product graphics for globally recognized brands including Disney Princess, Monster High, Polly Pocket, Harry Potter, Trolls, and Barbie. My work spanned chip art, packaging, surface patterns, key visuals, and product graphics, translating beloved stories into engaging physical products while maintaining brand consistency across global product lines.
Working independently while partnering with cross-functional teams—including Brand, Marketing, Product Development, Packaging, Licensing, and global manufacturing partners in China—I guided projects from concept through production. Every design balanced storytelling, manufacturing requirements, and retail objectives to create cohesive experiences that resonated with fans worldwide.
My Role:
Every project began by identifying the creative challenge: how to preserve each brand's identity while adapting it to new products, formats, and audiences. I independently developed concepts, established visual direction, and refined artwork through multiple rounds of collaboration with brand partners, product developers, and global manufacturing teams.
Because every product had different physical constraints—from miniature Polly Pocket environments to Disney fashion doll textiles and retail packaging—I balanced storytelling, production feasibility, and brand standards to create artwork that was both emotionally engaging and production-ready.
Creative Impact:
Across multiple Mattel brands, my work helped transform licensed entertainment properties into cohesive consumer products that felt authentic to each franchise. Whether developing miniature interiors for Polly Pocket, textile patterns for Disney Princess, or key visuals for retail launches, I focused on creating memorable experiences that strengthened brand recognition and elevated product appeal.
Beyond individual deliverables, I contributed to larger product launches by ensuring visual consistency across assets, collaborating with global teams, and maintaining creative quality from concept through final production.
Tiny Worlds, Big Adventures:
The Challenge:
The 5-inch Polly Pocket Compact needed to deliver a complete play experience within an extremely limited physical space. Every illustration had to support storytelling while remaining legible at a miniature scale and compatible with manufacturing constraints. The challenge was balancing rich visual detail with clarity so the environment felt immersive without becoming cluttered.
My Role:
I art-directed and designed the compact's interior environments, decorative assets, and supporting graphics. I developed the visual language for the playset, collaborated with cross-functional teams and manufacturing partners, and refined artwork through multiple production reviews to ensure every detail translated successfully from concept to final product.
Design Decisions:
I treated the compact as a miniature narrative environment rather than a collection of isolated rooms. Each space was designed with its own identity while maintaining a cohesive color palette and visual flow across the entire compact. Decorative objects—including furniture, wall art, plush toys, and outdoor accessories—were intentionally selected to reward exploration and reinforce Polly Pocket's playful personality without overwhelming the limited space.
Outcome:
The final compact delivered a cohesive, highly detailed environment that encouraged imaginative play while remaining true to the Polly Pocket brand. The project demonstrated my ability to balance storytelling, illustration, manufacturing requirements, and brand consistency within the constraints of product design.
Polly Pocket:
Designing Tiny Worlds with Big Personality
Working on Polly Pocket meant translating one of Mattel's most recognizable brands into immersive miniature experiences. As Lead Designer, I developed chip art, product graphics, and packaging that balanced playful storytelling with the technical constraints of miniature product design. Every illustration had to communicate the brand's whimsical identity while remaining clear, engaging, and production-ready at an incredibly small scale.
The Opportunity:
I approached each project by treating every compact as a complete story. Composition, color, scale, and visual hierarchy were carefully considered so that every illustration encouraged exploration while supporting play. Working closely with cross-functional partners and global production teams, I refined artwork from concept through final production, ensuring each design remained faithful to the Polly Pocket brand while meeting manufacturing requirements.
My Approach:
I approached each project by treating every compact as a complete story. Composition, color, scale, and visual hierarchy were carefully considered so that every illustration encouraged exploration while supporting play. Working closely with cross-functional partners and global production teams, I refined artwork from concept through final production, ensuring each design remained faithful to the Polly Pocket brand while meeting manufacturing requirements.
Tiny Spaces, Big Play:
The Challenge:
The 3-inch Polly Pocket Compact required delivering a complete play experience within an even smaller footprint while maintaining the brand's playful identity. Every environment needed to feel visually rich, intuitive, and engaging without overcrowding the limited space. The challenge was balancing originality with production efficiency by determining where existing brand assets could be reused and where new artwork was needed to support the product's unique story.
My Role:
I developed the compact's visual direction, designing new environments and graphics while strategically incorporating existing Polly Pocket assets to maintain brand consistency. Working within production constraints, I created artwork that balanced storytelling, functionality, and manufacturability.
Design Decisions:
To maximize the compact's limited space, I designed distinct environments—including a pool scene and garden setting—that encouraged exploration while maintaining a cohesive visual language. Rather than recreating every asset from scratch, I identified opportunities to reuse existing brand elements where appropriate and introduced new illustrations where they added meaningful value to the play experience. This approach preserved the recognizable Polly Pocket aesthetic while allowing the compact to feel fresh and unique.
Outcome:
The final compact delivered a cohesive miniature environment that supported imaginative play while remaining true to Polly Pocket's established visual identity. By combining existing assets with newly developed artwork, I created a production-ready design that balanced creativity, brand consistency, and efficient product development.
Crafting Tiny Worlds with Big Personality:
The Challenge:
Transitioning from designing action-oriented brands like Hot Wheels to the highly detailed world of Polly Pocket required a different creative approach. Rather than focusing on vehicles and dynamic environments, this project centered on creating intimate interior spaces that felt warm, believable, and full of personality. Every room needed to tell its own story while remaining cohesive within the compact's limited footprint and consistent with Polly Pocket's playful visual identity.
My Role:
I art-directed and designed the compact's interior environments, creating production-ready illustrations that balanced storytelling, functionality, and manufacturing requirements. I collaborated with cross-functional teams throughout development, refining each space to ensure it met both creative and production standards.
Design Decisions:
I approached the compact as a miniature home, designing each room with its own purpose, atmosphere, and visual rhythm. Drawing inspiration from contemporary interior design and everyday living spaces, I incorporated recognizable furniture, decorative accents, and architectural details that made the environment feel authentic while remaining playful. Every object—from the china cabinet to the room layouts and decorative elements—was intentionally chosen to create moments of discovery without overwhelming the small scale of the compact.
Outcome:
The finished compact transformed a limited physical space into a cohesive miniature world that encouraged imaginative storytelling and exploration. The project demonstrated my ability to shift between vastly different brand aesthetics, adapt my creative approach to new audiences, and deliver production-ready artwork that supported both the Polly Pocket brand and the product development process.
The Design Process:
Every Polly Pocket compact begins with exploration. I start by sketching multiple layout concepts to establish the flow of the environment, identify key storytelling moments, and determine how each space will support imaginative play within the product's physical constraints.
From rough concepts to production-ready artwork, each iteration refines composition, scale, color, and visual hierarchy to ensure every element contributes to a cohesive experience. Throughout the process, I balance creative storytelling with manufacturing requirements, brand standards, and functionality, creating environments that are engaging, intuitive, and production-ready.
The sketches below illustrate how ideas evolved from initial concepts into fully realized miniature worlds, demonstrating an iterative design process grounded in collaboration, problem-solving, and attention to detail.
Designing Magic for Disney’s Cinderella:
The Challenge:
Designing for Disney's Cinderella required balancing one of the world's most recognizable visual identities with the needs of a contemporary product line. Every pattern had to honor the timeless elegance of the original story while feeling fresh, commercially relevant, and consistent with Disney's brand standards. The challenge was creating artwork that could support multiple product applications without losing its visual impact or storytelling.
My Role:
I developed original surface pattern designs inspired by Cinderella's iconic visual language. From concept through final production, I created artwork that translated the character's personality into scalable, production-ready graphics while maintaining consistency with Disney's licensing and brand guidelines.
Design Decisions:
I built the patterns around recognizable visual motifs—including birds, bows, florals, and decorative flourishes—to reinforce Cinderella's story without relying solely on character imagery. Careful attention was given to composition, rhythm, and spacing so the patterns remained balanced across different product formats and scales. Each element was designed to work independently while contributing to a cohesive visual system that felt elegant, timeless, and unmistakably Disney.
Outcome:
The final artwork transformed classic Cinderella imagery into versatile surface patterns that supported a range of licensed products while remaining true to Disney's established visual identity. The project demonstrated my ability to interpret globally recognized intellectual property, build scalable design systems, and deliver production-ready artwork that balanced storytelling with commercial design requirements.
Designing Cinderella’s Signature Look:
The Challenge:
Designing graphics for an 11.5-inch fashion doll required careful consideration of scale, placement, and manufacturability. A pattern that works on screen doesn't always translate effectively onto a three-dimensional garment, so every motif had to remain recognizable, balanced, and visually appealing once applied to the doll's skirt. The challenge was preserving Cinderella's signature elegance while ensuring the artwork performed successfully in its final physical form.
My Role:
I developed and refined the surface pattern, testing artwork directly on garment prototypes to evaluate scale, placement, and overall visual impact. By iterating throughout the development process, I ensured the final design aligned with Disney's brand standards while remaining production-ready.
Design Decisions:
Rather than evaluating the pattern as a flat graphic, I tested scaled artwork on prototype skirts to understand how the design wrapped around the garment and interacted with the doll's proportions. This process informed adjustments to motif size, spacing, and placement, ensuring key visual elements remained visible from multiple viewing angles. Through repeated refinement, I optimized the artwork for both aesthetic appeal and manufacturing accuracy.
Outcome:
The final pattern translated seamlessly from concept to product, preserving the elegance of Cinderella's visual identity while fitting naturally within the scale of the fashion doll. The project demonstrates my ability to bridge two-dimensional design with physical product development, using iterative prototyping to create artwork that is both visually compelling and production-ready.
Bringing Ariel’s World to Life:
The Challenge:
Designing chip art for Disney's 2023 live-action The Little Mermaid required translating the film's richly detailed underwater environments into graphics that would perform at the scale of a doll playset. The artwork needed to capture the updated visual language of the live-action adaptation while remaining clear, production-ready, and consistent with Disney's licensing standards. Balancing environmental detail with readability within a limited physical space was central to the design process.
My Role:
I developed production-ready chip art inspired by the film's underwater environments, creating illustrations that translated cinematic storytelling into engaging product graphics. Working within Disney's brand guidelines, I refined environmental assets that supported both the play experience and the visual identity of the live-action film.
Design Decisions:
To preserve the atmosphere of Ariel's underwater world, I focused on creating layered environments that conveyed depth and movement without overcrowding the composition. Coral formations, marine life, and environmental details were arranged to guide the eye naturally through each scene while maintaining visual clarity at a miniature scale. Every illustration was designed to complement the toy's physical layout, ensuring the graphics enhanced the play experience rather than competing with it.
Outcome:
The final chip art successfully translated the cinematic world of The Little Mermaid into a cohesive product experience that remained faithful to the live-action film while meeting the technical requirements of consumer product design. The project demonstrates my ability to interpret licensed entertainment properties, adapt complex visual worlds into scalable product graphics, and deliver artwork that balances storytelling, brand consistency, and production requirements.
The Final Design:
The final chip art translates the visual richness of Disney's live-action The Little Mermaid into artwork optimized for product design. I used a watercolor-inspired illustration style to create a sense of movement, depth, and atmosphere while maintaining the clarity needed for production at a miniature scale. The soft transitions in color and texture helped capture the fluid nature of the underwater environment without sacrificing readability.
One of the most rewarding aspects of the project was illustrating the flying gurnards from the "Under the Sea" sequence. Interpreting these distinctive creatures for product graphics challenged me to balance accuracy with stylization, ensuring they remained recognizable while fitting seamlessly within the broader visual composition.
Every environmental element—from marine life and coral formations to color palette and composition—was intentionally designed to reinforce the film's visual identity while supporting the toy's play experience. The result is a cohesive piece of production-ready artwork that translates a cinematic world into an engaging physical product, demonstrating my ability to combine illustration, brand stewardship, and product design within the constraints of licensed consumer products.
Crafting Playful Worlds that Spark Imagination:
The Challenge:
The original concepts for the Polly Pocket Animal Locket series lacked the visual depth and environmental storytelling that define the Polly Pocket brand. Each miniature scene needed to feel more immersive while fitting within the physical constraints of the locket and adhering to established brand guidelines. The challenge was to elevate the artwork without sacrificing clarity, manufacturability, or playability.
My Role:
I reimagined the locket environments by developing new concepts, refining character illustrations, and enhancing each scene's visual storytelling. Working within the Polly Pocket style guide, I created production-ready artwork that strengthened the overall product while maintaining consistency across the collection.
Design Decisions:
Rather than treating each locket as a simple backdrop, I designed every environment as a complete miniature world. Layered compositions, environmental details, and thoughtful perspective created greater depth while guiding the eye through each scene. From the safari landscape and farm setting to the performance stage, every illustration was carefully composed around the toy's physical placement, ensuring the artwork complemented interactive play while remaining faithful to the Polly Pocket visual language.
Outcome:
The redesigned Animal Locket series delivered richer, more engaging environments that better reflected the Polly Pocket brand. By strengthening composition, storytelling, and environmental detail, the artwork transformed each compact into a cohesive play experience while remaining production-ready and aligned with established brand standards.