Creative Director who has been building brands for over a decade, from NYC to Boulder to Toronto to Woodstock and now back home in Dallas.
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My career started on a stage and somehow also in a lot of strangers' bathrooms. I was auditioning in New York, managing short-term rentals to survive, and quietly cataloguing every single thing that didn't work. The checkout flows. The shelves. The light switches in the wrong place. I couldn't fix any of it. I just kept a list.
Then my wife and I bought a Victorian Inn in Woodstock and fixed all of it at once. Built the brand, the website, the guest app, the events, the merch. Grew it to 17K followers with zero ad spend. Sold it for 3x our investment. Then started the next thing.
That's mostly what I do. I run a brand strategy and creative direction studio with my wife out of Dallas. We work across hospitality, restaurant tech, spirits, fashion, and a few categories that don't have a clean name yet. I also consult directly with growth-stage companies on brand positioning, content systems, and the kind of creative infrastructure that scales. The through line is always the same question: does this actually work for the person using it?
For a long time my only formal training was acting, which taught me more about people than any design class could. I came to visual design the long way around, and I think that's why I ask different questions. I graduated with a B.A. in Graphic Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in 2026, Cum Laude, and I'm currently completing my M.A. in Graphic Design and Visual Experience, also at SCAD.
Design that works for everyone just works better.
The Herwood Inn
Founder & Creative Director · Woodstock, NY · 2018–2021
After managing 20+ NYC Airbnbs, my wife and I took those lessons upstate to build the getaway we'd always dreamed of. Every design decision served both guest experience and operations. 17K+ organic followers, $0 ad spend, $1.25M exit.
The Full Story
From Housekeeper to Hospitality Founder
Started as a NYC housekeeper while auditioning for theater. Managed 20+ Airbnbs, couldn't renovate, but noticed every improvement opportunity. My wife and I took those lessons upstate to build the getaway we'd always dreamed of.
Platform beds flush with floor (nothing rolls under). Open shelving (guests don't forget items). Mini dishwashers in each kitchenette. On-site laundry (controlled quality, no missing linens).
Complete brand ecosystem: direct booking site bypassing OTA fees, custom iPad PWA for guest info and local product ordering, content strategy that drove 17K+ organic followers with $0 ad spend. Sold 2021 for $1.25M at 23% cap rate.
The Full Story
After managing 20+ NYC Airbnbs, my wife and I took those lessons upstate to build the getaway we'd always dreamed of. Every design decision served operations.
Platform beds flush with floor. Open shelving so guests don't forget items. Custom iPad PWA for guest info. 17K+ organic followers, $0 ad spend. Sold 2021 for $1.25M.
The Herwood Collective
Anti-Conference + Hospitality Education Platform · 2024
A fully realized concept for an anti-conference and year-round education platform built for independent hospitality operators. Developed through SCAD's Practical Rhetoric program, applying everything from building and selling The Herwood Inn into a replicable model others can actually use.
The Anti-Conference
Built from what I learned running The Herwood Inn
Traditional hospitality conferences cost thousands and cater to big hotel chains. Independent operators managing one to ten properties get left out entirely. The Herwood Collective is designed to fix that.
The event rotates between real working properties over three days. Attendees experience great small-space hospitality firsthand rather than sitting in a generic conference room. Local wellness and food businesses showcase services. PMS software gets tested in actual context, not a trade show booth.
The NFC passport system is the centerpiece. Vintage hotel keychains double as NFC business cards. Complete eight analog challenges across the property and win founding membership. Phones down, connections real. Everything the industry forgot to build.
The year-round PWA platform extends the community beyond the event: a 10-week hospitality course drawing on everything from building and selling The Herwood Inn, an operator directory, scheduling, and ongoing education built for the people who actually need it.
The Anti-Conference
Traditional hospitality conferences cost thousands and cater to big chains. Independent operators get left out. The Herwood Collective is the event I wished existed when I was running the inn.
Events hosted inside real working properties. NFC passport challenges. Vintage hotel keychains as business cards. Phones down, connections real. Plus a year-round PWA with a 10-week course built from everything I learned building and selling The Herwood Inn.
A queer-founded urban thermal spa with permanent locations in NYC and San Francisco. I designed HALOGEN to reach people at corporate conferences first, so that when they land in our cities, they already know exactly where they're going.
How it works: We show up at major conferences with a multi-zone experiential booth. People get their aura portrait taken, make something with their hands, drink mineral water, choose a crystal. They leave with a luggage tag and a printed portrait. When they land in New York or San Francisco, HALOGEN is already in their body memory.
Where light meets the body.
Queer-Founded Thermal Sanctuary · SCAD Identity Project · Nauman x Opie
HALOGEN is an urban thermal spa with permanent locations in NYC and San Francisco. The conference booth is how we find our people before they ever walk through the door. Attendees move through five sensory zones, leave with a printed aura portrait and a luggage tag, and think of us every time they travel.
The concept grew from a SCAD art history comparison of Bruce Nauman's Double Slap in the Face (1985) and Catherine Opie's Self-Portrait/Nursing (2004). Nauman made bodies visible as neon spectacle: distance, electricity, a loop that never resolves. Opie staged her own queer body on her own terms. Intimacy, care, survival. HALOGEN is designed to hold both.
Five zones named for the five halogen elements guide the journey: F · Arrival, Cl · Mineral Water, Br · Aura Portrait (your energy photographed, not your face), I · Community Making (hands in clay, no agenda), At · Rest — the rarest element, somewhere to simply be still.
Where light meets the body.
HALOGEN is a queer-founded thermal sanctuary with locations in NYC and San Francisco. The model: Conference booth, experiential taste, luggage tag takeaway, permanent location visit, membership.
CEDARS
South Dallas Heritage Platform · SCAD Design Systems · 2025
An inclusive district identity connecting transit, technology, and community storytelling. NFC-enabled plaques let visitors hear oral histories in residents' own voices, no app download required. Design that works for everyone just works better.
Routes & Roots
Designing Change With Community, Not To It
Growing up in Dallas, I watched neighborhoods change, sometimes erasing the stories that made them special. The Cedars is experiencing that tension now: gentrification pressure meets deep Black heritage that deserves amplification, not displacement.
The system meets people where they are. Tap your phone on a brass NFC plaque and hear a community elder tell their story. No app download, no barrier. The PWA works offline with full audio descriptions. Poppins for readability, Georgia for warmth. Every choice serves access.
DART integration is strategic: 50,000+ daily riders, many without cars, see the branded train wrap moving through the city. The station sits at the heart of the district. Transit becomes storytelling infrastructure.
Routes & Roots
Growing up in Dallas, I watched neighborhoods change, sometimes erasing the stories that made them special. This system meets people where they are.
Tap your phone on an NFC plaque and hear a community elder tell their story. No app download. DART integration reaches 50K+ daily riders. Seven touchpoints create a complete heritage journey.
DONOTDISTURB
Luxury Refillable Hotel Amenities
Born from running a boutique inn and never finding the right product line: sustainable, vegan, nourishing, bulk-refillable, and beautiful. So I designed what I wished existed.
The Full Story
Designing What I Wished Existed
When I ran The Herwood Inn, I spent years searching for the perfect amenity line. I wanted something sustainable, vegan, genuinely nourishing, available in bulk for refilling, and beautiful enough that guests would photograph it. That product didn't exist. So I designed it.
DONOTDISTURB is named for the universal hotel ritual. The moment you hang that sign, you're choosing rest, self-care, privacy. The brand extends that feeling to every touchpoint: the shower, the sink, the yoga mat, the room itself.
The refill system is core to the concept. Hotels buy bulk refills, bottles stay in rooms permanently. This reduces single-use plastic by 85% compared to traditional hotel amenities. Luxury and sustainability aren't trade-offs. They're the same thing.
Warm, muted packaging feels spa-like without being clinical. The dark charcoal labels read luxury without screaming it. Every product uses simple single-word names: CLEANSE, HYDRATE, WASH, SOFTEN, SOAK, RESET, CLEAR. Calm design for calm spaces.
The Full Story
When I ran The Herwood Inn, I spent years searching for the perfect amenity line. Sustainable, vegan, nourishing, bulk-refillable, and beautiful. That product didn't exist. So I designed it.
DONOTDISTURB is named for the universal hotel ritual. The refill system reduces single-use plastic by 85%. Luxury and sustainability aren't trade-offs.
arc. pilates
Concept Project · NYC Boutique Studio · 2025
Social content system for a boutique Pilates studio on the Upper East Side. Your encouraging best friend who takes the 6 train and happens to be really into core work. Movement is joyful, not punishment. Very "ran to class from the L, grabbed a matcha, still made it."
The Concept
Joyful Movement, Zero Intimidation
The fitness industry loves intensity. Crush it, kill it, earn your rest. arc. takes the opposite approach. What if working out felt like meeting your best friend at the studio after she texted "running late, save my reformer"?
The brand voice is warm, cheeky, a little flirty. Never try-hard. Captions read like texts from someone who genuinely wants you to show up, not guilt you into it. NYC-specific humor that gets the struggle: subway delays, $18 salads, walking 40 blocks because the train wasn't coming anyway.
Visual system uses signature coral + cream, retro-bubble logo, and lifestyle photography that feels aspirational but attainable. The kind of content that makes you screenshot it and send to your group chat.
The Concept
What if working out felt like meeting your best friend at the studio after she texted "running late, save my reformer"? arc. is warm, cheeky, a little flirty. Never intimidating.
NYC-specific humor that gets the struggle. Content that makes you screenshot it and send to your group chat.
What Have I Been Creating Lately?
Find your
brand mixology.
Nine instinct-based picks. No wrong answers. In two minutes you'll know exactly what kind of brand you have, what's holding it back, and what to do about it.
Brand strategy and
creative direction
built to last.
Herwood Creative is the studio I run with my wife Em. We build brand identities, digital experiences, and content systems for founders who want work that actually does something. Strategy-led, story-first, built for the long game.
Recent Projects
7 works · 2021–2025
I've cleaned a lot of toilets.
This is the only one I'd put in a portfolio.
While I was auditioning in New York, I managed 20+ Airbnbs to pay the bills. I couldn't renovate anything, but I noticed every single thing that was wrong · the furniture that collected dust, the shelves guests always forgot things on, the check-in process that made people feel like a transaction. I kept a mental list for years. When my wife and I found a Victorian Inn in Woodstock, we finally got to build the place I'd been designing in my head the whole time. No ad spend. No shortcuts. Just a brand that made people feel something.
Custom-built direct booking experience. No third-party platforms taking a cut.
In-room iPad PWA for local recommendations and direct product ordering. Built it myself.
Merch, staff uniforms, and retail that made the brand feel like something you could take home.
Weekly programming that turned one-time guests into people who came back every season.
"Every design decision at The Herwood Inn supported one goal:
make guests feel like locals and locals feel like family."