Khanversations — Raph and Leo
A conversation about accidentally falling into design, modular synthesizers, and making real physical things.
Tell us about yourself and your role at Khan Academy
Raph: Hey, I’m Raph. I’m a first-gen American born in Columbus, Ohio, and I currently live in San Jose, California with my wife. I really like making things — be it tinkering with kinetic sculptures or patching on a modular synth — and going on long trail runs in the California hills. I joined the design team at Khan Academy last year. I’m working on a new product for personalized education in the classroom and delving into design operations and our design system.
Leo: I’m Leo. I’m from Dallas and Guadalajara, Mexico and currently live in Seattle. I have a greyhound named Bea who sleeps behind me while I work. I’ve been at Khan Academy for about 4 years now and started managing about 2 years ago, which has been both a lot more fun and more challenging than I anticipated. I recently started leading the design team that works on our test prep products, and I’m also focusing on our design team operations, which I’m really excited about.
How did you get into design?
Leo: Haha — it’s been a trip. My undergrad is in chemistry, but I never really intended to go into it professionally. After graduating, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I moved to Mexico to be closer to my family for a while and worked in operations for a logistics company.
I eventually decided to move to Seattle to study library science at the University of Washington. I was convinced I wanted to be a librarian, because I loved operations and organizing information. I got a temp job in the mailroom of a consulting company, and my manager suggested I check out the information management masters program instead of library science. So I applied and got in.
I tried to get out of the intro to user-centered design class I was required to take in the first quarter. I wrote to the admissions office and asked if I could replace it with something that was “more aligned with my intended career path.” But they weren’t having it, so I started the class, and within 2 weeks I decided it was what I wanted to do. Some friends and I made up design classes for ourselves with faculty sponsorship, and I eventually landed an agency internship with the help of a friend of a friend in my program.
So basically, I just kinda ended up here.
Raph: I actually fell into design through music. Long story short, I’ve always loved making things and have been fascinated by the complexity of tangible interfaces, like those in control rooms and on modular synthesizers.
During my undergrad, I ended up taking an internship for a company that handled the online presence of musicians like Aerosmith and Run-DMC. I quickly found copies of Photoshop and Flash on the computer, and a few months later, I found myself doing a variety of graphic design work.
I ended up moving on to creative agency work and grad school at CalArts. And in the process, I decided to fully dedicate myself to UX.
What’s something you two have in common?
Raph: We found out we’ve got overlapping musical interests in punk, hardcore, and stoner metal. We love systems design and operations. And we both kinda fell into design and are to some degree self-taught.
What’s something you’ve been learning about recently?
Leo: I’ve been getting really into designing board games lately. To be honest, I’d really prefer to be designing video games, but my concept-to-playtest time is way shorter with index cards and dice than with Unity. But balancing and number tweaking takes forever, so I guess I’m paying the price anyway.
Raph: There are too few hours in a day for all the things I’d love to learn! I recently joined a makerspace, and I’ve been getting into building physical things, like furniture, in addition to digital things. I make lots of art with technology, so I’m constantly trying to learn more about physical computing with microcontrollers like Arduino & Raspberry Pi. Aside from that, I have a strong love of mushrooms and just signed up for a foraging class.
Khanversations is a series of dialogues between designers at Khan Academy to help us learn new things about each other.
P.S. We’re hiring, if you’re interested, check out our job listings!
Links to the series
👉🏽 Here’s May-Li’s introduction to the series, including a list of all the countries that were involved in our formation.
👉🏽 Elizabeth and Vivek on sneakers, fashion, capitalism, and how they got into design.
👉🏽 Louis and Erica on rearranging the furniture, skeuomorphic icons, and working in the federal government.
👉🏽 Cassey and Jacob on how neuropsychology, being an executive assistant, and not wanting to draw Mickey Mouse 1000 times could lead to a career in design.
👉🏽 May-Li and Priya on DJ coalitions, balancing consistency and creativity, and getting design gigs on Craigslist.
👉🏽 Taty and Kitt on impact, college access, and Harry Potter.
👉🏽 Sanyukta and Warren on futurism, weirdness, and side-projects.
👉🏽 Todd and Garrett on archery, beer miles, and career transitions.
