What do you do at your Nike job?

I help develop the design direction for immersive and gaming initiatives at Nike. Most recently, my team created NIKELAND on Roblox, a minigame with Fortnite in UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite), and virtual products in collaboration with 2K, Rocket League, etc.

It sounds like a good place to be. Can you talk about the path that got you there?

I actually started off as a fine artist and used to draw hyper realistically. In high school my dad was like, "You should learn how to code," and I was like, "Why? I'm going to draw for the rest of my life."

So when did you shift over to digital media?

During my freshman year at USC, I accidentally wandered into a VR lab with a classmate and I was like, "Woah, this is really cool." That inspired me to go on YouTube and learn how to 3D model.

That must have been an intense learning curve.

It was definitely intense, but when I’m passionate about something–I’m chill right now–but when I want something, I go really hard. Sophomore year, when I created my VR project Santiago, I lived, breathed, and slept in the VR lab. When I started that project, I had no idea how to create a game, let alone a 3D render. So, I spent all of my waking hours binge-watching tutorials on YouTube. That’s essentially how I learned how to build VR games, 3D model, and animate.

Did you have a mentor at USC?

Mike Patterson was my biggest mentor and favorite professor at USC. He'd say, "Brenda, don't worry about creating things that you think other people will like. If you make stuff that resonates for you, you'll find an audience." I remember other professors looked at me like I was crazy when I told them, "I want to create a VR experience where a thirteen-eyed fish god takes you on a psychedelic musical journey and I'll make him out of trash and you can touch his eyeballs and he'll play music." Mike just said "Great, you should go do it."

Senior year, your VR project Chrysalis won a "Launch Pad" grant from Oculus. Did that achievement put you in a strong position to get hired when you graduated?

You would think I’d be well primed for a job because I had shipped a game on the Oculus store. I'd hired a whole team myself, managed a budget–all that stuff. I'm not going to lie: getting a job wasn’t that easy.

Really?

Yeah. I got rejected by a few companies at first, but then luckily one day I went to an industry party thrown by Beeple, the big NFT guy. I was standing alone by the bar and noticed someone else there. We started talking and he gave me his business card. We kept in touch and a few months later, he reached out with a job offer at Wave.

Three years at Wave culminated in 2021 when you served as creative director for "Justin Bieber: An Interactive Virtual Experience." How did you put that together?

We built a virtual world in Unity as well as a physical set where Justin Bieber performed live in a motion capture suit. We streamed Justin’s motion data from the suit back into Unity and used that to power a custom virtual avatar of him. We then broadcasted the virtual world to his fans worldwide and built in Zoom integration, messaging boards, and minigames so that they could interact with Justin in real time.

It sounds like a dream job. Why leave?

I really enjoyed my time at Wave and love virtual concerts, but after three years I felt like it was time for me to pursue other passions. I always wanted to try freelancing, so after the Bieber show I decided to take that leap.

In between Wave and Nike, you freelanced for a few months. How did you find work?

I’d always been shy about sharing my work online, but, when I left Wave, I finally got the nerve to post a reel of my work on Twitter. The tweet went viral with 16,000 views, and my inbox blew up with job offers. After that, I was booked for five months solid.

What advice would you give students who want to pursue careers in immersive design?

I'd say build projects you’re passionate about, submit them to tech conventions, go to networking events, post them online, and tell as many people as possible about what you're doing. Also, be nice. Be genuine. Plug yourself but don't plug yourself too hard. People can sense desperation.