A designer based in Kansas City, Anna Matuella appreciates the window into the world that design offers, leading her to explore and investigate others’ ideas and viewing them with her own perspective. “As a designer, I am constantly given the opportunity to take note and ask questions,” she says. “Paying attention allows me to discover patterns and details in the everyday that I can carry with me into my design work.” Initially, Matuella attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, for math and aerospace engineering, but her fascination with form and construction led her to take a foundational design course—and then it clicked for her. “It was with this design education that I found a throughline of meaning throughout my entire life—all the things I find interesting, all the things I love and the things I hate,” she says. Upon graduating, she worked at Kansas City–based design firm Carpenter Collective, where she learned how to work with clients; then, she made the leap into advertising and now works at ad agency Barkley. “My approach is iterative,” Matuella says, explaining that she finds inspiration from the creative processes of artists like Vivian Maier and Joan Miró to the act of cooking. “I believe in simple, ownable solutions—things that feel familiar because they’re made up of parts and pieces you’ve previously interacted with but arranged in a manner that feels new. I also believe in the juxtaposition of friendly, inviting, regimented structure. If there’s a way I can emulate the feeling of being invited over and welcomed into someone’s home, I’d like to do that.”