La Somar

As a kid, I often spelled my two letter name backwards. Soon after, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. Dyslexia is defined as a disorder that affects areas of the brain that process language. Growing up with this disorder, the school system taught me ways to mask and suppress my disability in order to perform on the same level as the other children. Unfortunately, I became so preoccupied with this task that it wasn’t until I began design school that I became aware of the potential I was masking. It wasn’t until my first year of college that I realized it was up to me to define what having dyslexia looked like. Now, I choose to view dyslexia as my superpower regardless of what it is perceived as by others. Design allows me to turn a complicated world of moving numbers and letters and present it the way I see it; Joyful, curious, boundless. Design has the power to turn uncertainty into beautiful moments of wonder, steadfastness into opportunity, and an unknown end into endless iteration. These are the reasons I wake up everyday with an urge to design, to innovate, and to get my crazy ideas out into the world, in hopes that I can help someone realize that if you utilize design to flip your perspective, even your greatest insecurities can be your superpowers.