News and features

The Office of Global Affairs is delighted to feature Dustin Mara for our March 2023 edition of the Global Visionaries series. The Global Visionaries series highlights the University of Washington’s global impact by featuring innovative, globally-engaged faculty, staff, and students.

Dustin Mara, Class of 2022, graduated cum laude from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication Design and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies. Dustin was recognized as a 2022 Husky 100 and he is passionate about rowing, bringing awareness to gender based violence, and creating diversity in predominantly white sports.

Dustin shares about his global upbringing, his vision for intersecting culture, language, and type design, and what he is looking forward to about his future career.

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To me, being Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) means that family, including close family friends, comes first. Much of my mother’s side lives in the Philippines and on the west coast, and my father’s on the islands of Guam and Hawaii. I definitely didn’t grow up with a majority of my family nearby, but nonetheless we all felt very close despite the spread. It’s interesting to compare and contrast the ways of living in each of these places and piece together how that represents who I am today.

So much of that spread across the pacific, and then being very privileged at a young age to travel the world, inspired my interest in geography and culture. This eventually led to me studying International Studies alongside Visual Communication Design. I think that this awareness of who I am, in addition to my interest in the world around me, influences how I approach design. In design, we discuss our audience and users and how to be most empathetic to them and how to fill their needs and wants. I think that coming from many places and seeing and living many realities helps me with design, curating a global worldview.

I’m very proud of my cultural background and way of life. It’s exciting to say I have family from everywhere and get to visit those places frequently.

I was actually one of the first people to put Rowers of Color Community (ROCC) together. I had a friend from the rowing team reach out and say hey I have an old teammate from highschool who has toyed with the idea of ROCC. She brought the three of us together alongside a few other friends/teammates and we hashed out how to create a safe space for BIPOC rowers in the sport — our primary goal was to create a safe space for BIPOC rowers to talk about the difficulties of being the only person of color on a team.

For me, our mission was very personal. As a youth athlete my team was very white, and I was for most of the time the only BIPOC athlete — fortunately, it was never a big deal, or perhaps I was just too naïve then. It wasn’t until joining the team at UW that I started to see how different I was compared to my non-BIPOC teammates. It’s an unfortunate truth, but that was one of the things that factored in when I had to choose between the Design program and being on the rowing team.

I couldn’t imagine that I was not the only person who felt this way, whether a youth athlete, collegiate, or even an adult. I wanted to share with others that those feelings aren’t isolated, as I’ve learned from being close friends with other BIPOC athletes. As ROCC slowly grew we were meeting people who had these feelings all across the country. Through ROCC I was able to work with nonprofits, small organizations, and podcasts that were all dealing with the same issues. It was reassuring to know that people felt the same way, and it’s even greater to know that people are actively making space for BIPOC athletes in the sport.

DesCare is a Registered Student Organization (RSO) that encourages design students to build a stronger community by discussing the issues of the creative field or even distracting from it.

The group was put together after one of our alumni presented their senior capstone about mental health in the design program, and the unfortunate truths it held. As someone who related to the project, one of my personal goals was to create a culture shift within our program. The UW Design program provides a truly world class professional education and network, but in doing so there was an air of competition amongst peers which is mostly put forth by the students themselves. There was also a large sense of siloing between each class and the three majors in the program. I wanted the design student body to feel a bit more cohesive and approachable, knowing that we are all going through the same thing together and will have to face the creative industry together.

As the first President of DesCare, I spent my time learning about what the student body needed and what our role was as part of the program. Our very first steps were to support students with very clear mental health resources, for example bringing in speakers who had experience talking about imposter syndrome, group lead meditation, or just sharing the UW mental health resources. Eventually we shifted to a more ‘fun’ based program structure, as we learned that we just needed a space to socialize and talk about our struggles in design with one another. So eventually that looked like having socials, or turning the studio into a game lounge, or sending candy grams.

After I graduated, I heard that the sense of competition and siloing has gone down significantly. It’s hopeful to think that maybe that culture shift was achieved or at least kick-started. It’s exciting to continue to see what the current DesCare group has done with the RSO and their plans for the future, especially with how young it still is — so much potential for within the program and beyond!

This is always a hard question to answer and keep concise… I can talk for ages about how my two degrees, Visual Communication Design and International Studies, have always complimented each other, even if it’s not an expected pairing. So much of design has to be empathetic and aware, and it has to come across in understanding where people are coming from — both literally and figuratively. To understand one’s culture and the way they speak plays a major role in the way I research and craft design solutions.

This intersection comes from my longtime fascination with language from a young age. It is interesting to think that the syntax and colloquialisms of language frame the way we think and lead our lives. This ties in directly with designing type. Typefaces are the visualization of our spoken language. At a basic level a font can say the meaning of a word/phrase as it is, but it can also add additional meaning to that word or phrase in the way the font looks and feels. It’s almost like we are shifting the framing of language via the way the letterforms are crafted, and in a lot of ways we are! In addition, I’ve always seen typefaces as the building blocks of visual communication design (and the building blocks of written language) and so distilling the vastness of design into a single thing, which can take hours to craft with all the minute details, is why type design drives my practice.

If you look at one of my capstone projects for example, Meskla Sans, I designed a typeface that represented my condition as someone whose family is spread across the pacific and receiving a design education on the mainland. I looked into the smallest features of each letter and tried to build in features that represented the cultures of the various places I call home. It comes through more in some letters and less in others, but as a whole the typeface represents me.

I try to keep this global lens with every project I take on. I think understanding that the United States has its own design sensibilities helps determine what solutions are more viable that others.

I interned at Lippincott the summer/fall right after graduation! I was fortunate to meet an alum in the program, who guided me through the interview process and eventually hired me as a Lippincott-er. It was my first ‘real’ job in the design world, and I have to say the UW Design program prepared me so well for it; it just felt like a continuation of school. It was also amazing to work alongside a super diverse group of designers, both in their personal and professional backgrounds. The office was full of creatives in different fields so it was great to see how people are expressing their creative problem solving in many ways. New York itself is a massive cultural melting pot so getting to step out of the office and have so much inspiration at hand was incredible.

During my internship, I was fortunate to see client work from all over the world, from all of the different offices. It was interesting to see how the design process was nudged around to fit cultural differences, again something that is so key to my own personal practice. I learned so much from my internship and that learning has only pushed my work deeper into the intersection of my interests.

I can’t say enough how both my education in Visual Communication Design at the School of Art + Art History + Design and in International Studies at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies have prepared me for what I hope to be a very successful, and very global career in design. I can’t wait to explore different areas of design and to continue to push my freelance design practice — I help many nonprofits and small businesses with design!

The University of Washington has provided me with the skillset, experience, and network that allows me to feel comfortable to pursue jobs and further education worldwide and not just limit myself to the Pacific Northwest or the United States. I am excited to go out and explore the opportunities that exist internationally to bring my unique background and design sensibilities. I also hope one day I will have the opportunity to come back home (to UW!) and share my stories to come with future students.

The Office of Global Affairs is excited to celebrate Orie Kimura for our February 2023 edition of the Global Visionaries series. The Global Visionaries series highlights the University of Washington’s global impact by featuring innovative, globally-engaged faculty, staff, and students.

Orie Kimura, Class of 2022, graduated from UW Tacoma with a Bachelor of Social Work. Orie is currently studying for her Master of Social Work at the University of Washington with a focus on children and families. Orie was recognized as a 2022 Husky 100 and was previously President of the Student Social Work Organization and Vice President of the Husky-kai (Japanese Union) at UW Tacoma. Orie shares her thoughts on cultural humility, social justice, and the power of cross-cultural exchange.

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I was born and raised in a suburb where there are many people from different countries in Japan. Growing up in the environment, I had opportunities to learn about various cultures and grew my love for learning about them. As I interacted with people with varied cultural backgrounds in the environment, I also learned to see people’s behaviors through cultural perspectives.

After moving to the United States from Japan, I had more opportunities to interact with people from various cultures as I have become a part of the migrant community. As a person assimilating into the mainstream cultures and facing cultural differences in the U.S., I further understood how much influence culture has on our lives. Through these experiences, I learned that it is crucial for people to commit themselves to the lifelong learning of others and their own cultures and to welcome various cultures in order to effectively communicate with each other, to deeply understand peoples behaviors, and to come together to collaboratively create a comfortable environment for all.

When I was a high school student, I had the privilege to be chosen as a representative of my home prefecture in Japan and stayed in Malaysia for a week. Malaysia was a beautiful country with amazingly kind and friendly people, delicious food, and diverse cultures. I stayed with a local Malay family who is Muslim and learned about their ethnic and religious cultural traditions. During the stay, I also had the opportunity to visit a Hindu temple, a mosque, a local high school, and many other places. When I visited Malaysia, it was during a week-long Hari Raya Puasa, in which Muslim people in Malaysia celebrate the end of Ramadan by gathering with their families and friends and enjoying feasts together.

While visiting several families with my host family, I was surprised by how curious they were about learning about my culture. As a visitor, I thought I was the one who needed to learn about their culture and assimilate. However, they were also willing to learn about my culture to accommodate each other to minimize our cultural differences instead of isolating me or forcing me to assimilate into their culture. Back then, I remember wondering if this curiosity about different cultures is how Malaysia has maintained cultural diversity without major conflicts between ethnic/religious groups. People in Malaysia made my stay comfortable and special while further teaching me the importance of cultural humility.

As a President of the Student Social Work Organization at UW Tacoma, I spread awareness of social justice issues by bringing group discussions and events related to social justice issues on campus. We held monthly discussion meetings covering numerous social issues, such as microaggression, missing and murdered native women, and sexual assaults. We facilitated conversations around challenging topics while opening a space for people to share their lived experiences and learn from each others’ stories.

It was nerve-racking to facilitate conversations around microaggression, as the conversation brings up the topic of racism. However, we decided to cover microaggression in our meeting using a discussion format because it is through hearing peoples’ lived experiences that we can better understand why the issue is problematic, become empathetic toward people experiencing the issue, and decide to become an advocate for the issue. We also held one event related to social justice issues every quarter. We held a donation drive for people experiencing homelessness, filmed video clips for Afghan refugees for the Afghan American Cultural Association, and collaborated with the Formerly Incarcerated Student Association to hold an on-campus lobby day advocating for state bills that impact incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals.

The Global Ambassadors Program fosters friendship and cultural understanding between international and domestic students at UW Tacoma. While working as a Global Ambassadors Program Coordinator, I facilitated weekly group meetings, organized local trips related to social justice issues, and took students to fun off-campus events to flourish their friendship. In the program, international and domestic students engaged in discussions about social justice issues, such as ableism, the treatment of indigenous people, racism, poverty, health disparities, religious oppression, the treatment of the LGBTQ+ community, and immigrant, migrant, and refugee rights (through global and local perspectives). The program provided a place for students to share how these issues are similar in their home countries or countries they have visited.

By coordinating the program, I learned that many of the issues we believe are local are often experienced in other countries. For example, our conversation around the inequality in the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine around the world revealed that there are some social justice issues that the world as a whole needs to work together. The experience made me realize that there is always something I can learn from each country in the world to better the situation in my home country. This role taught me how to develop a program and facilitate a group of people with various viewpoints and it made me realize how much I enjoy interacting with people from diverse backgrounds and learning about different cultures.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, more people got pushed into poverty, and there was an increase in education inequality in Japan. In Japan, people need to pass entrance exams to enter universities. Therefore, many high school students go to cram school after regular school to study for entrance exams. The pandemic made it challenging for more families to pay for their high school-aged children to attend cram schools. Furthermore, many of the students who were no longer able to go to cram school also lost the opportunity to spend extra time learning from their teachers after school when classrooms moved online.

I believe the opportunity for education should be distributed equally to people regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds and I wanted to do something to address the worsening education inequality in my home country. This is why I joined a group of university students during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to tutor and provide study tips to economically disadvantaged high school students in Japan.