Caltrain, After Effects, and a stubborn suspicion that everything could be easier. A collection of vibe-coded experiments exploring playful interactions, gesture, and the joy of creation.
I work best when I'm making things I genuinely enjoy, things I'd make even without payment. That's when the best work happens.
Problem
I had this idea stuck in my head and wanted to make it—a small playful thing just for fun. So I did it, with After Effects. But it took me almost the whole day, learning After Effects from zero just to create that moment.
That's when I fell in love with vibe-coding. Once you have some ideas and a smart tool to help bring them to life, that feeling is addictive. The friction between idea and reality disappears.
The question that drives it all: Why should making things be hard? Why should there be so much friction between an idea and its realization?
The difference between learning something because it's trendy vs. learning something because you're genuinely curious is everything. FOMO-driven learning feels like obligation. Curiosity feels like haha.
Every experiment here came from pure curiosity. Not "should I learn this?" but "I have an idea and I want to see it come to life, whatever it takes." The tools are just the means to the end.
The experiments
Birthday card
A moment of delight
A small moment of delight. A reminder that design doesn't need to be grand—sometimes the joy is in the details, the unexpected animation, the gesture that makes you smile.
On creation tools
The best creation tools don't drown you in options. They give you one powerful, focused intention. You think in blocks: your idea → your prompt → your output.
No fussy settings. No analysis paralysis. No endless tweaking. Just flow. The tool becomes invisible and only the delight remains.
What makes design playful
Playful design is when you stumble on surprising interactions. A gesture that feels right. An animation that makes you smile. A workflow that feels effortless.
These aren't accidents. They're moments of careful thinking disguised as haha. The designer sweated over the details—the easing curve, the timing, the haptic feedback—so the user could experience pure delight.
The core belief: If I can remove friction, amplify joy, and make creation feel less like work and more like haha, then I've done my job.
Why this matters
In an era where creation tools are becoming more powerful, the question isn't "can I make it?" but "can I make it joyfully?"
The Caltrain moment taught me that the friction matters. Learning a tool shouldn't be a barrier to your idea. Tools should accelerate you toward the joy of creation, not away from it.
These experiments are evidence of that philosophy: small ideas, vibe-coded into existence, with no apologies for taking the scenic route or trying the unconventional approach.
- Apple — GenAI Prototyper (May 2025 – present)
- Meetfood — Founding Product Designer (Mar 2021 – Dec 2022)
- Cornell — Physical Computing & Interaction Design (Jan 2023 – May 2023)