My path to graphic design began long before I had a job title for it. As a teenager, I collected and studied postage stamps—tiny, highly constrained design systems where color, symbolism, typography, and printing technology all have to cooperate within a few square centimeters. Looking back, philately was my first design education. It still shapes how I think about visual economy and meaning. I remain an active member of a local philatelic society, which may be the most quietly obsessive design community imaginable.

Over the past twenty years, my professional work has lived at the intersection of design, multimedia, and education. I began as a multimedia producer and instructional designer at University of Oregon College of Education, where I worked on projects that translated complex ideas into accessible visual and interactive forms. I see design as a form of translation—from complex systems to usable understanding. That experience continues to inform my approach: design is not decoration; it is a tool for thinking.

Much of my work serves scientists, educators, and institutions working with complex technical material. I currently work as a graphic designer at Applied Scientific Instrumentation, focusing primarily on advertising and communication for scientific optical equipment. Designing for this field requires a particular kind of creativity—the subjects are precise, technical, and often visually restrained (black, silver, white, and the occasional hint of copper). The challenge is to create clarity, hierarchy, and visual interest without misrepresenting the science or overwhelming it.

Alongside print and digital advertising, I have a long-standing interest in virtual environments as educational spaces. I worked extensively with platforms such as Second Life, where I designed and managed virtual islands for instructional and research purposes, and published on the pedagogical potential of such environments. I continue to work in these fields because I enjoy making difficult material approachable without simplifying it into meaninglessness. While platforms evolve, my interest in three-dimensional, spatially driven learning environments remains constant.

That early fascination with postal design later resurfaced through my work in virtual environments. In Second Life, I designed postcards and postage stamps depicting virtual cities, museums, and architectural landmarks—objects that deliberately blurred the line between physical and digital place. These designs were produced in limited circulation through Zazzle, back when customized postage stamps were still possible. This experience connected my teenage interest in philately with the spatial and conceptual possibilities of virtual worlds. A similar logic now draws me to web design: building this site directly in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript has been another exercise in translation, structure, and constraint. Designing the system itself, rather than relying on templates, remains the part I find most engaging.

I have published on typography, instructional design, and virtual environments, and I regularly review manuscripts for scholarly journals, working comfortably within APA style and academic conventions. I tend to be more interested in systems than in styles, and in longevity more than trends. Whether designing for a journal article, a microscope brochure, or a virtual classroom, my guiding principle is consistency of meaning across contexts. If there is a common thread across my work, it is a preference for designs that remain useful after the novelty wears off.

Ulad Slabin