About

I'm Alexis.

A product designer who came to design the long way, through stages, cameras, and screenplays.

I'm a bilingual product designer based in San Diego. My background in acting, visual art, photography, and film shaped how I work today: understand people, find the structure underneath complexity, and make experiences feel clear.

Alexis Medina smiling outside, wearing a One Piece Straw Hat Crew shirt

My story

I came to product design through storytelling.

I started acting in high school, where I learned that making someone feel something begins with understanding the person in front of you. That instinct stayed with me as I moved into visual art, photography, and eventually film, sharpening how I think about composition, sequence, and the details that make an experience feel intentional.

In college, I studied film with a focus on digital media production and screenwriting. Learning to structure a story taught me to think in journeys: what someone needs at each moment, how one decision leads to the next, and how individual pieces work together to create a larger experience. Those same questions now shape how I approach products, flows, and systems.

Outside of school, personal creative projects became another way to build my craft. I learned Photoshop and Illustrator by making, experimenting, and refining, developing the technical precision and attention to detail that pulled me toward digital design.

Then a YouTube video about UX showed me that the things I had been drawn to across acting, visual art, photography, and film could all live in one discipline. That realization sparked my curiosity, and I began exploring UX and product design on my own. What started as exploration quickly became a direction I wanted to pursue seriously, so I enrolled in a UX/UI design bootcamp to turn those instincts into a real practice.

Today, I approach my work by understanding people first, finding the structure underneath complexity, and designing experiences that feel clear, useful, and considered.

Experience

Lead Product Designer

International Association for Geoscience Diversity
2026

Led research and systems design for an accessible, mobile-first resource hub supporting 15,000+ geoscience professionals, students, and educators.

Product Designer

Good Samaritan Shelter
2025

Owned the service-discovery architecture for an app built to help 5,000+ people a year find essential services, offline and under stress.

Product Designer

Cooley Creative LLC
2023

Led UX direction for a creative-education startup, designing its website and research-backed recommendations for the CEO.

Education

B.A. Film Studies — Digital Media Production

Pepperdine University
Minor in Marketing · Screenwriting focus

UX/UI Design Certification

Springboard
700+ hour course · Human-Computer Interaction

off the clock

When I'm not in Figma, you'll catch me deep in a film or a novel, lifting, collecting action figures, eating tacos, at the beach, or finding any excuse to see my family.

Current film recs

Constantly logging what I watch on Letterboxd.

Hamnet

Chloé Zhao · 2025

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The Daniels · 2022

Eternals

Chloé Zhao · 2021

On my shelf

What I'm reading and re-reading.

The Song of Achilles

Madeline Miller

The Spear Cuts Through Water

Simon Jimenez

The Odyssey

·   Currently reading
Homer
Lifting weights at the gym
Portion of my Marvel action figure collection
A plate of delicious tacos
At the beach with friends
My family together outside

Let's talk!

Whether it's a role, a project, or a good design problem, I'd love to hear from you. Or honestly, just to recommend me a movie. I keep a running list and I take it very seriously.

Currently open to product design roles