Who started this?
Gabriela (she/her) is a multi-passionate Designer that works as a Strategic Business Partner providing Design Solutions in the areas of Digital Media, Product and Service Design for Brands and Businesses.
An insightful problem-solver that helps identify opportunities and design strategic plans to support product growth and business development. She works as a bridge-builder between business goals and brand identity, while being a true advocate for end users. She implements an Agile Framework to create effective deliverables through an iterative design process of constant improvement and testing.
Gabriela has more than 15 years of experience in User Experience Design, User Interface Design, Website and App Design, Graphic Design, Brand Identity, Creative Direction, Social Media Content (Video&Photo), Email Marketing, eCommerce, Print Media, Interaction Design, Business Decks, Teaching, Public Speaking, and Art.
About Gaby
WORKING EXPERIENCE
Gabriela currently works independently as a contractor and consultant in the areas of User Experience Strategy, User Interface Design, Brand Identity, and Media Content for Social Media for several clients located in Costa Rica, California, Texas, and New York.
She has experience as a Design and Creative Lead managing other designers and development teams, at Digital Production Agencies like Prodigious and the former Avventa (Accenture today). She helped to provide design production services and manage projects for multicultural agencies across the globe.
Some exciting companies she has worked with are CitiBank, TGI Friday’s, Sanofi, Hewlett Packard Enterprise HPE, USAA, eBay, Firestone, Audible, OnePlace Interior Design, NewHomeSource, SweetRush, SoftwareFX, OrderEats, SpaceBander, Endospacecorp.com, Measured.com, SportsRoasters, and more.
STUDIES
Her studies started at the University of Costa Rica with a Graphic Design and Arts degree. But she has always been inclined towards the business side of design, by learning from startups, entrepreneurship, and leadership styles, Lean and Agile frameworks, and took several courses at UPEACE: Centre for Executive Education, in the areas of Entrepreneurship, Innovation for Social Change, Positive Leadership, Design Thinking, and Social Media.
User Experience Design studies have been a mix of online research, onsite and online team workshops, and online learning platforms like Youtube, Skillshare, Lynda, Udemy, Interaction Design Foundation, Philanthropy University, and SDI Institute led by Danilo Capelli in Costa Rica.
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
She loves learning and growing in all digital design-related topics through design talks, workshops, and coaching sessions. From 2012 to 2014, she worked as a web design teacher at Universidad Creativa and CETAV. In 2019, she was invited as a guest speaker at the WordPress WordCamp. A few days later, she was invited to facilitate a Brand Strategy Workshop using a UX Framework at the Universidad Latina in San José, CR.
She collaborates with a growing community of UX professionals in Costa Rica, sharing knowledge, coaching peers, and facilitating workshops while supporting other UXers to succeed in this arena.