Hello.  My name is Jonah, currently I am pursuing my bachelors degree in Industrial Design; enrolled at the Cleveland Institute of Art, with time formerly spent at the Strate School of Design in Paris, France.

I have a passion for creating captivating design concepts that push brands forward.  My design approach is holistic in nature - I focus on maintaining the big picture throughout the entire design process; the mission of the brand, the purpose of the product, and the desires of the users.
I am open minded and place a high value on people's perspective; discussing ideas, collaborating, and brainstorming with others always gives me energy to push towards the final objective.  It is my passion to create. It is my mission to be a leader wherever I am, to inspire my peers, and to positively affect the communities that I am a part of.

I am excited to be graduating this May and to see where my next adventure lies.
My journey to this current moment has been an exiting one...

In the summer of 2016, I got my first ever internship at Cleveland Cyclewerks where I helped to generate a brand identity for their electric platform; I worked directly with the engineering team to create a concept for a production motorcycle, the bones of which inspired the launch of their most recent bike, the Falcon.

In the fall of 2016 I did an exchange semester at the Strate School of Design in Paris, France.  The design philosophy that is embedded in the culture at Strate influenced me and helped to shape me into the designer that I am today.

After another year of school, I landed an internship position with the Tata Motors group in the UK.  Though the internship fell through due to visa issues caused by Brexit, I ended up working from home in the US and video conferencing with the interior design team to share my work - it was a summer that would prove to prove to be influential on me.

That same summer I acted as the teacher for the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Transportation Design Summer Pre-College course.  Sharing my knowledge and passion with students looking to find their creative path was a point of importance for me, and it is to this day.

I returned to school in the fall and participated in the Cadillac sponsored studio - at the end of our project, the GM gave out awards to a select few students.  I was given was the Best Mentor Award; an award which goes to the student whom is nominated by their fellow students as the best leader. This accomplishment I hold with greater pride than anything I could have done within my own personal project.

Before completing what was scheduled to be my final semester at CIA, I elected to take a leave of absence in pursuit of another internship - during the winter and spring of 2018 I interned at Faurecia Design North America, a French based interior automotive supplier.  There I worked on concept and production projects for brands all across the globe, including: Ford, Hongqi, Jeep, Infiniti, and Subaru.

In the summer of 2018 I took an internship at General Motors, where I created three advanced design proposals for the Chevrolet brand; I worked directly with creative sculptors to bring two dimensional concepts into a three dimensional VR experience

From there I went to an exterior design internship at the Genesis Advanced Design Studio in Frankfurt, Germany.  Where I assisted with studio projects, and after the release of the Genesis Mint in early April, I focused my time on the development of an in studio personal project - this would prove to be one of the most challenging experiences that I had; it was an experience that would push my skills and challenge the way that I thought about the design process.  My experience with the heavily digital design process that the team at Genesis used at the time, is one that continues to shape my opinions on design today.

After completing my internship at Genesis in May of 2019, I went on to intern at Rivian -  the first half of which I was focused on exterior design; generating design proposals for future Rivian vehicles.  The second half of my internship I focused on interior design; and worked exclusively on in studio projects for production programs.  It was an exciting experience  that helped me push my passion for interior design to new levels.
In January of this year I returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete my final semester; upon my return to school I decided to treat it as a sandbox for me to further explore the digital design process.  During my current Mustang sponsored studio project, I have been focused on what I believe to be the next format that designers and artist will be creating in, virtual reality.  I have been working closely with Gravity Sketch, a VR application for three dimensional sketching and modeling.  

If you would like to know more about this current work in progress project, feel free to reach out to me on the Contact page.
In the meantime, you can view the work that I have put up in the Project section.
I am looking forward to sharing more work with you in the future!

To all of those whom have made the journey to this point a fantastic one:

Dan Cuffaro, Ed Covert, Eric Stoddard, Scott Colosimo, and Aaron Pizzuti
Chris Nichols, Paul Hoste, Matt Braun, Zulf Ali, Nick Malchowski, Jeff Hammoud and Jesse Post
Arseny Kostromin, Sasha Selipanov, Guillaume Piron, Emilie Fattal, Julien Maugeais, and Jean-Pierre Hu
Justin Salmon, Andrew Smith, Soo Kim, Dagoberto Tribia, Kevin Smit, and Zach Carter
Aurélien François and Olivier Boinais 
Carlos Avalos, Hélène Couperot, Florent Thiemann, and Benjamin Louis
Zach Whitaker and Aurlien Doisy
Mike Leavy, Cécilia Talopp, Arthur Coudert, and Sydney Hardy 
Constantin Sohier, Jérôme Petitgrand, Alexis Porlier, and Thibaut da Soras
Simon Turac, Axel Charpentier, Xiao Sun, Aaryaman Mistry, Xiaodi Yang, Chun Wei Lei, Gejsi Tafa, Sunny Duseja, and Hu
Luke Fakult and Austin Higbee
Brandon Rodriguez, Alex Pawlusik, Carter Gao, Ginikanwa Uzegbu, Steve Aviton, Jay Ramdene, David Benman, and Owen Davenport
David Acosta, Konnor Bartels, Nathan Zabarksy, David Doern, and Daivd Porter
Scott Schaible, Johnny Barker, and Cam Sant

THANK YOU

 Your passion, hard work, collaboration, words of wisdom, encouragement, and guidance have inspired me!

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