Born and raised in Akron, Ohio, I grew up heavily involved in community theater and costume design. From my mother, I developed a love for storytelling through clothing, who would take me with her to all her volunteering gigs at the theater. As I grew up, I became more hands-on, helping my mom and the other ladies to make the costumes. Eventually, my mom and I would take point on a few shows, and won a few community awards for our costumes and design vision. 

 

From this experience, I chose to study Fashion Design at the University of Cincinnati, where I graduated in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science in Design. UC was a great choice because I would have the opportunity to intern (co-op) built into the curriculum. As someone always looking going against the stream, I found internships in London (England), San Francisco, Pittsburgh, New York City, and Athens (Greece). I used these opportunities to try different areas in the industry, such as technical design and merchandising, to see what I like doing. 

 

In my first year at UC I stumbled on rowing, coxing actually, because I’m short, and became a junior coxswain on the Varsity team. Unknowingly at the time, this experience would be extremely useful later in my career and opened a whole new world of sports creating the athlete that I am today.

After college, in 2012, I took my first step into the working world as a Sweater Technical Designer at White House Black Market. Even though I didn’t have the elitist job of a Fashion Designer, I actually loved Technical Design because I was bringing the sketches to life. The job was a beautiful combination of hands-on work, creative thinking, and building strong relationships through open and clear communication with my designers and manufacturers. Seeing someone wear our sweaters 'in the wild' was so rewarding.

 

An opportunity came up to return to Ohio in late 2014 and I decided to take it to be closer to family. My mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer just after college. I decided it was time to come home to help. At Jo-Ann Fabric & Craft Stores, I was the lead designer of the Craft and Queue product assortments. I created seasonal concepts for some of our private brand collections and collaborated end-to-end with the manufacturers in Asia to select the right products, guide them on ways to customize the items to fit our concept, and worked closely with my Product Manager to make sure each item met our cost targets and delivery times. I became confident when it was time to say “enough is enough”, that one more color tweak was not worth causing a product to be delayed. As much as I wanted everything perfect, I learned how to think macro and let go of the unnecessary details.

 

In 2016, I made Aliyah and relocated to Tel Aviv, Israel to participate in Israel Tech Challenge, a full-stack boot camp, to learn basic coding. I recognized my strengths in the technical side of design over the artistic and thought maybe I’d become a front-end programmer. My final assignment (NUSH) opened my eyes to UX/UI Design and thought this might be the best way to bring my perspective and processes to high-tech.

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But before any of that happened, an opening to participate on the National Paralympic team presented itself and I couldn’t say no to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So I took a career hiatus to be the coxswain on the Israel National Paralympic Rowing team. Coxing for para-athletes was very different from coxing an able-bodied boat. I learned a lot about how to lead athletes with different physical strengths, to work together toward a common goal. It was a challenging position, not only because of the language barrier but also because each athlete required different motivations.

 

In early 2019, while still on the rowing team, I took my first UX UI job at Coinmama as their first UX UI Designer. As with everything in life, I jumped in head first (trial by fire). At Coinmama, I leveraged my past experiences a lot in this role as I learned about building digital product experiences end-to-end. I taught myself how to use tools such as Sketch, InVision, and Figma, how to make flow charts, and about design systems. Coinmama, at the time, was not a mobile-friendly website, so I spent a lot of time creating more mobile-first experiences and interactions.

 

Then the pandemic hit. I had retired from rowing, my mom had just died, and I suddenly found myself stuck alone at home. I moved to Israel with two bicycles but wasn’t riding much because I didn’t know where to go. A friend suggested that I join a cycling group and so I took up cycling. Cycling got me outside during the pandemic and gave me an outlet to release all my energy. Creating a routine around training early in the morning and then coming home to work gave me sanity and control during those tough times. 

 

I’m currently looking for my next experience and am open to relocating with my cat, Doris, and five bicycles (yes, they multiplied during the pandemic!) for an exciting new opportunity focusing on creating great holistic customer experiences. 

 

Got a lead? Hit me up → leahsass.design@gmail.com