For this week’s Friends & Family feature, I’d like to give a shout out to my little, Ana! As you guys may know by now, I do these posts around the subject’s birthday, and Ana’s just so happens to be tomorrow so HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY LITTLE! Here’s a little tribute to your beautiful work, I hope you like it 🙂

If you’re wondering why I call Ana my little, it’s because we met when she joined our sorority (Delta Phi Epsilon) a year after I did, and we miraculously met the day her class was picking big sisters, and that first meeting made enough of an impact on both of us that we ended up as big and little. Thankfully, our first impression was right and we were a match made in heaven! 10 years later, we have a beautiful friendship that I cannot wait to keep growing ❤

Ana was an Architecture turned Interior Design major at FIU. Basically, professional crafting on steroids (it’s not for nothing they call it “architorture”), and she’s really really really great at it. Her sophomore year (while she was still declared under architecture) she had to participate in this annual event called a Walk on Water, where architecture students had to build, to put it simply, over-sized floating shoes that would allow them to cross the FIU lake as if they were walking on water. How did Ana do? If you opened the previous link, you know that SHE WON OF COURSE! The structures her and her partner built got them to cross the lake in one minute and thirty seconds flat. They’re even listed on the FIU Architecture Wikipedia page, how cool is that? There were many contests Ana won over the years, including a memorial design. There’s nothing she can’t do ❤

Throughout Ana’s career, she had to build a number of models for her classes, which took a lot of time and dedication (and some of her skin) in the process. Here are some pictures I shot of them with my professional camera:

After going through half of her architecture major, Ana decided to change majors to Interior Design. In my opinion, she would’ve succeeded regardless but this was definitely the right move for her, because her eye for detail is just what is needed in interior spaces. Her portfolio is so strong, that she managed to get an internship at the #1 interior design firm in the world: Gensler, which is a magnet for FIU alum. The internship took place in Texas, and then she applied for a full-time job in the Miami subsidiary, and she got it! She stayed with the company for a few years, until a coffee mogul came knocking: Starbucks! Yes, you read that right. Have you been to one of those Starbucks stores that is different from the others, with cool designs, bigger spaces and very unique decor? Those specialty stores are projects of designers like Ana. Like I said earlier, she’s like a crafter on steroids. Here are some of her digital designs from different companies as well as an “artsy” Starbucks store, for your enjoyment:

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I’m always impressed by her incredible work, innovative designs and polished 360 plans. Out of my entire Friends and Family series, shes one of the two who has turned this crafty gift into a major, followed by a successful career (the second post is coming in September!). I’m so proud of her and everything she has accomplished thus far, and I can’t wait to see how far she’ll go!