Maya Ealey
Maya Ealey is a multi-hyphenate creative based in sunny Oakland, California. Her love for color, technology, representation and nostalgia is reflected throughout her work. She currently works in the tech industry at work management company Asana as a senior brand designer and illustrator. Outside of her 9 to 5 she is pursuing her entrepreneurial passion through her side business, Just Rewind It, and while working on her first book about anti-black racism.
We spoke with Maya about her path to a career in design, her creative process, advice for designers just starting out, and more.
Hi Maya! Tell us about yourself - how did you get to where you are today and when did you first become interested in design?
I'm a senior brand designer and illustrator based in Oakland, California, and I've been working within the tech industry for 7+ years now. I’ve worked at startups such Darby Smart and Getaround, to more later stage companies like Lyft and now Asana. Over the years, I’ve focused on creating beautiful and compelling brand identities, and stories. Along with that, I’ve honed my skills in illustration that I use for work, freelance, and personal projects!
Outside of my 9 to 5, I started a small side business called Just Rewind It, which is an art lifestyle brand that offers millennial women of color ways to boldly express themselves through 90’s nostalgia themed art and fashion products. Lastly, I’m currently writing and illustrating my first book on the topic of anti-black racism.
Honestly, in some ways I’ve had a bit of a straight career path. I grew up drawing a ton. I spent many weekends with my Grandma, who’s a landscape painter, drawing and painting. PowerPuff girls, Winnie the Pooh, and Sailor Moon were some of my favorite things to illustrate. When I was in high school, my volleyball coach was also the advisor for Yearbook. He encouraged all of his players to join the Yearbook class and I happened to follow up on that. Through being on Yearbook, I was exposed to layout and editorial design, and started to learn Indesign! Luckily, my high school also offered a design class, which I took, and honestly have been in love ever since.
Because of that, I decided to go to college for design and the rest is history.
Brand Designer and Illustrator Maya Ealey
How would you describe your aesthetic and how has your visual style changed over time?
Colorful, Geometric, extremely Memphis and Bauhaus inspired.
When I was a baby designer, a lot of my aesthetic and work that I gravitated towards were things that were currently “trendy.” Although, I would still say I love keeping up with the trends and where design as a collective is going. I found that I have an affinity for straight lines, hard edges, shapes, color blocks, and vibrancy.
As Senior Brand Designer and Illustrator at Asana, what’s a day on the job like for you? What’s your creative process like and how do you approach creative collaboration?
As someone who works for Asana, everything starts there, in the product. We’re huge power users of our own product, which honestly makes work life pretty easy. My day typically starts with me checking out what tasks or projects I have currently. I’m usually working on several projects at once, of varying scope, so that can look like event branding, a explainer video and illustrations for a new product flow. My area of focus at Asana is specifically on the core brand. The core brand team works on a collection of things from brand guidelines, design systems and event branding to brand photoshoots, editorial content, and design.
When working with my team, I like to approach collaboration in a very fluid way. Everyone has a different working style, so its great to be adaptable. There are so many different types of ways to work with one another and being open to that is important. But my favorite, especially in the world of remote work, is just having an open meeting that is a working session just to jam on design work together!
What do you think is one of the most important elements when telling a brand’s story visually?
This is hard question. So much of brand design or telling a compelling brand story relates to things outside of design. I always ask myself, what are we trying to convey? What emotions do we want incite? How can I ensure that the visuals align with message. There was a book my class was assigned to redesign in college, called the “Medium is the Message” by Marshall McLuhan. The medium or visual and the content have a symbiotic relationship. The medium influences how the message is received and thus should be chosen with care when thinking about how best to tell a brand story. Our jobs as designers and visual communicators is ensuring that whatever elements or mediums we chose serve to support telling the larger story.
What’s been one of your favorite projects to work on and why? What would be your dream project?
In 2019, I had the opportunity to design the conference branding for Asana’s company kickoff. The event was a time to bring together all global offices and build excitement for the upcoming year’s goals. This project was particularly exciting to me because not only did I get to create the brand identity for the event, but environmental design was also a huge part of this project as well. It was amazing to be able to think about how to build a system that expands into a physical space. I enjoy projects that are expansive where you not only are thinking about the creation of a singular mark, but also how it translate into a space, or on web, or in video etc.
I really love music. I’m listening to something constantly. It really helps me get into a nice flow and rhythm as I work. So, a dream project of mine would be to art direct, design and illustrate a music video for my favorite artist.
Where do you find creative inspiration?
It’s cheesy, but inspiration does truly come from anywhere. I love movies, fashion, interior design and music. A lot of my inspirations come from other creative fields and industries. I spend a lot time diving into different types of media, primarily print and video. I love magazine or watching YouTube videos of people practicing their various crafts.
Do you have any favorite design resources? (books, podcasts, websites, etc.)
Yeah, most definitely!
Books / Magazines
Podcasts
Honestly, Instagram is an amazing tool to follow different creatives My tip would be to create a separate account to just follow folks that are inspiring to you, so your feed can always be filled with insta inspo vs jumbled up in a weird algorithm storm.
What advice would you give to designers who are just starting out?
Try a lot of things! Take the time to figure out what it is that you like most about the design process. Do you like faster paced projects? Do you enjoy seeing how data relates to the work you’re doing? Do want to tell brand stories? Do you want to build out brand identities? Are you an idea machine and want to work on campaigns? There are so many different areas of design that you can explore so why not give yourself permission to figure out what you love and what’s your jam!
My other advice would be to make connections, and build your network. Don’t be afraid to reach out to other designers whose careers you’re interested in. I learned a lot from others when I was starting out. Folks who so kindly took the time to answer my questions or chat with me I appreciated so much!
Thank you for sharing with us Maya! To view more of Maya’s work, visit her website, follow her on Instagram, and support Just Rewind It.
All images courtesy of Maya Ealey.