DOROTHEA LEE

Age: 38

Ethnicity: Chinese American

Occupation: Art Director-Designer

Boulder resident Dorothea Lee provides strategic and thoughtful art direction and graphic design, helping companies develop their brand and use elevated and cohesive visuals to speak to their target audience and achieve their business goals. She has designed for startups and nonprofits to agencies, consumer goods, and corporate Fortune 500s. Some past work includes Scholastic, Leblon Cachaça, and Think!Chinatown.

How would you describe your job?

As a one-woman company, I do everything from the design work to the pitching, project management, and admin tasks. Every day and week are different depending on the client and the projects, and I view this variety as a positive for keeping me on my toes and the creativity flowing!

What advice do you have for students curious about graphic design?

Design from a place of curiosity and empathy—recognizing assumptions and asking good questions deepen understanding and help you connect with your client and audience on a much better level, which only helps you make better design choices.

As a Chinese American woman designer of 15+ years, Lee has fought against the societal expectations of what her ethnicity and gender should mean in the workplace. She believes diverse voices and leadership are imperative in the art and design industry.

What do you love about this work?

I love the satisfaction of creatively and visually solving complex problems with others, and learning more about every subject I design around in the process. The thing I’ve been appreciating most recently, however, is finding that there is space for leaning into my identity, and that it has actually furthered the success of projects.

Being intersectional and keeping my own world diverse enables me to better empathize and represent minority groups in the materials I design. Some of the work I’m most proud of include a children’s book that won approval of a First Nations leader and a bilingual series that includes a wider spectrum of people and abilities not evident in the original manuscript. Even turning down opportunities that don’t fit me has given me a better appreciation of my own identity, the many ways we’re beautifully different, and excitement about finding room for others.

What are your hobbies/interests?

I love nature and travel, exploring personal projects, thrifting, and my derpy rescue dog Toby Falkorson.