EVERYWHERE! CREATIVITY IS
19 reasons why you shouldn’t drop out of design school
kate bishopp, uw design 2026 lilly murphy, uw design 2022 + blink ux visual designer
LILLY MURPHY
graduated from univerisy of washington with a bachelor of design in visual communication in 2022. since then, she has been working with blink ux in seattle, currently working as a visual designer, bouncing between projects and teams. lilly is a firm believer in the power of creativity and the limitless potential of pushing underbaked ideas.
WHAT SPARKED YOUR INITIAL INTEREST IN STUDYING DESIGN?
Throughout my freshman year at UW, I was trying to take advantage of all the fun opportunities and activities going on. So I went to a talk in the Art Building about the School of Art + Art History + Design and I was intrigued by a flyer for Design 166. I signed up for the course without knowing much about it, and I was very charmed by Karen Cheng and her sense of humor. I was into it and so impressed by the whole environment, everything about it was so different from anything I had experienced, and I remember thinking,
“I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS ALL EXISTS, IT SEEMS SO APPLICABLE TO EVERY INDUSTRY!”
WHAT STEPS DID YOU TAKE TO SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS AFTER GRADUATION?
During my senior year, I really focused on building up a strong portfolio. It reminds me of when I was prepping for the SATs, I was freaking out about studying, and my dad said the best way to study is to go to school and do really well in your work. So I adopted that mindset my senior year in UW Design, and instead of freaking out about building this crazy portfolio for every specific job, I decided was going to be passionate about my school work senior year and hope that it would naturally build me a good portfolio. That’s what I did, and UW Design was so helpful with portfolio building for the showcase. During our senior year in the program, we got to listen to quite a few guest speakers, and if I found someone particularly interesting, I would make sure that I made a connection with them so they would remember who I was. I also began to reach out to more UW Design alum and ask them about their career path, which ultimately led me to Ben Shown, the Head of Design at Blink UX. He encouraged me to apply for their summer intership. So I compiled my portfolio deck and website from the design show, I didn’t change anything, and applied for the internship. It was a little out of my comfort zone, as most of the work I’d done was print-based, but I got it!
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU OFFER TO CURRENT OR PROSPECTIVE DESIGN STUDENTS?
Design is a one of a kind experience. I recommend it to anybody but I’ll definitely be honest in my pitch and make people aware of what they’re committing to. In design, you’re committing to mastering a unique set of technical skills, but you are also gaining the soft skills of giving and receiving feedback, learning to navigate critique, presenting your work confidently, and being able to articulate the thinking behind your decisions. In studying design, you are taught the “best” practices and learn that there’s a right way to do things, but not one right answer. Getting critique that is ambiguous or at times subjective can be difficult. There was no one way to ace my midterm, I just had to be really creative and hope that it resonated with people. It’s a big shift in your mindset to learn that the field is about creative expression and feeling confident in your thinking.
WHAT IS THE LATEST YOU STAYED UP WORKING ON A PROJECT IN DESIGN SCHOOL?
I think 6:15 in the morning, but that was during finals. It was very late, but it was kind of fun. Part of me would convince myself that the more delirious I got, the more creative my thinking would get and maybe I would be able to sprout something great. We would get slurpees and make a night out of it. It was never awful sleepless nights, it was kind of fun sleepless nights. You just have to embrace it.
HAVE YOU MAINTAINED CONNECTIONS WITH THE PEOPLE YOU MET IN UW DESIGN?
Oh absolutely! The UW Design alumni group is strong even across different graduating classes. It was a huge part of how I got in at Blink and I’ll always be willing to talk with students in the UW Design program. As a student I would always reach out to people in cohorts ahead of me for advice. In June, I was down at Config in San Francisco and met up with a bunch of designers from my cohort, and I actively keep in touch with one of my former TA’s, Cal, who I have seen at some design events around Seattle. We are all so bonded from being apart of such a tight-knit, supportive program and from spending so much time together.
Lilly designed a symbol set for Bon Appetit in Karen Cheng’s Marks and Symbols course.
Lilly’s “The Clothesline Series”, includes clothing installations that highlight the various contexts and sentiments associated with everyday clothing.
for Evidence-Driven Design.
blink ux is a design agency driven by collaboration, research, and creative innovation.
CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT YOUR INTERNSHIP WITH BLINK UX?
It was just the best experience, and talk about having a lot of power and agency in your work! The Internship program at Blink has a pro bono project, and I was the visual designer, another intern was the UX researcher, another intern the was UX designer, and so on. We had mentors, but we were the ones doing all of the work. Being thrown in a professional setting but also having that mentorship taught me so much. At the end of the internship, I ended up accepting a full time offer as a visual designer and have been with Blink since then.
The internship exposed me to so much research-based design for the first time. How cool is it to have real data being the factor that informs our design choices! I get to tell clients that the typeface, color scheme, etc. we choose statistically resonate with the audiences their company is targeting. It shows how decision making is scientific which I find to be so cool!
WHAT ARE THE MAIN PROJECTS YOU FIND YOURSELF WORKING ON?
At Blink we do a lot of UX design, but the scope of our projects can vary a lot. Sometimes we will have smaller projects that are primarily branding, such as creating an identity for a conference or a specific portal, so we’ll have a couple visual designers work on those. Others may be end to end projects where we are working from early stage concepts into final development, and those are crazy long. More often than not, we’ll help an agency or consultancy with a few flows, or with redeveloping their onboarding experience for an existing service.
WHAT DOES COLLABORATION LOOK LIKE IN YOUR WORK AT BLINK?
Blink is a small to mid sized company, we have around 200 employees total. I love how each project is staffed with a UX researcher, a UX designer, a visual designer, a director, and so on. These people make your project team, so you get the chance to collaborate closely with creators from different specialties. There are so many opportunities to bring in a larger group of people and get outside perspectives, which is beneficial to be able to both give and receive fresh ideation and feedback in differing problem spaces.
WHAT’S MOST IMPORTANT IN YOUR CLIENT INTERACTIONS?
I love how much I interact with and work with clients, and I have always had a lot of pride in my people skills. There are often moments of not feeling like I’m the best designer, but I do always feel like I have great skills in connecting with people, which is just as important.
I think it is a crucial practice to always be clear about articulating your choices when presenting ideas and developments to clients. In the past year I have learned that it is okay to tell a client I don’t know the answer. It is better to be fully transparent and be shameless in saying, “thanks for bringing that up, we’ll take a look and come back to it.”
Mirroring the energy you want is a big thing. If you can get the vibe from a client and sense that they are okay with being more conversational and casual, definitely lean into that, because we are all humans. Even if the client does not give great feedback, I try to remember that any feedback is more helpful than silence. I would rather have some conversation than none because that means there is progress being made.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE PROJECT THAT YOU’VE WORKED ON AT BLINK?
My favorite project has been the pro bono internship project because of the camaraderie between our team and the company. We helped design a digital tool for Partner to Decide, a nonprofit that provides resources and informs people, especially the many experiencing language barriers or lower literacy levels, about all the available options surrounding labor induction. It was one of the more research-heavy projects I have worked on, which is one of the aspects I love most about Blink. I learned so much about Partner to Decide and the work they are doing to make information surrounding labor induction more accessible. It was a very emotionally powerful project to work on, and it has been rewarding to see how that project is still prevalent over two years later. The Partner to Decide digital tool actually just went live a few months ago. We use that case study in sales pitches for other healthcare organizations and it won an award at San Francisco Design week, so it’s cool for that to have been my first project with Blink.
what i love most about my job is i get to bounce around a lot, be curious, and learn from a lot of different people. it keeps me on my toes and constantly learning.
WOULD YOU GO BACK IN TIME AND PURSUE DESIGN ALL OVER AGAIN?
Totally! I do not want this to come off as a slam to people working in other fields, but the work in design is unique, interesting, and fun. We are still learning and applying all of these professional development skills, just in a more unique form, and having way more fun doing it. Also, the amount of diversity in the design community is truly special and is something you don’t see as much of in other fields.
Lilly and her Blink friend and mentor, Megan, smile
UW Design Alum “Blinkers” return to campus to teach a Workshop Workshop.
the process of building, tearing down, discovering, and rebuilding is what leads to your strongest work. it’s these real, open discussions—where you’re actively talking through ideas—that help drive that process forward.
WHAT ARE THE TOP CREATIVE CHALLENGES YOU FACE IN YOUR DAY-TO-DAY?
At times, I find it challenging to voice my creative ideas, which is such an essential part of the process! I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself to refine an idea before presenting it to a larger group, as if it is too precious to share in its early stages. However, sharing underbaked ideas often helps them transform into something bigger and better than you could have imagined. It is always a good reminder to ease up on that pressure. Share all the ideas, even the silly ones.
HOW DO YOU DEFINE CREATIVITY AND APPLY IT IN YOUR CAREER?
To me, creativity is all about generating ideas. It is not limited to any one medium—you can be creative with anything, whether it’s a physical space, a digital canvas, or how you choose to approach a problem. Creativity is everywhere, and the key is recognizing those moments when you can push boundaries and explore many new perspectives. I feel incredibly fortunate that my career encourages this kind of thinking and places a strong emphasis on the value of creativity.
WHAT’S ONE PIECE OF CREATIVE ADVICE OR A TIP YOU WISH YOU HAD KNOWN EARLIER IN YOUR CAREER?
The more meaningful conversations you have, then the better your work can become—whether it’s with clients, collaborators, peers, or friends. Even brief discussions about concepts or visuals can have such a big impact. I used to think I preferred silence over constant critique and comments, but now I feel the opposite. The process of building, tearing down, discovering, and rebuilding is what leads to your strongest work. It’s these real, open discussions—where you’re actively talking through the ideas—that help drive your process forward.