octavio shapes visual worlds from concept through execution.
Octavio Martinez is a New York based visual designer and artist working from concept to system. He develops ideas into visual languages that can move across identity, campaign, social, product, film, and physical space. Drawing, writing, image-making, and ai-assisted development are all part of the same practice: understand what the work needs to say, then choose the medium that carries it best.
How I think
Transdisciplinary thinking
I start with a specific problem, investigate the people and immediate context around it, then zoom out to understand the larger system. From there, I determine where an intervention makes sense rather than choosing the medium in advance.
Strategy
I think about potential interventions in relation to economics, time, technical feasibility, organizational capacity, risk, dependencies, and the value they could create.
Design
I use design as a way to investigate problems, visualize complexity, test possibilities, communicate ideas, and make abstract thinking understandable through experience.
Communication and facilitation
I am interested in translating complex thinking into something other people can understand, react to, participate in, and use to make decisions.
Design practice
His design practice spans brand identity, campaigns, and digital systems. At Veya, a hospitality discovery and reservation platform launching in Lagos, he developed the brand from the mark outward, including its identity, website, launch creative, and the content system behind it. Veya Social Club extends that world into culture, apparel, illustration, and campaign.
Art practice
His independent art practice explores who controls images, what survives, and what gets erased. His thesis, Digital Arson: The Library of Alexandria, moves between physical objects and interactive technology, fossilizing corrupted digital imagery onto UV-printed stone while a companion web work allows images to decay and disappear. He completed his MFA at Parsons in 2026 and was selected for the Adobe × Parsons "Not Generated" Creative AI Lab.
CV
Strategic Designer · Venture and Brand Design · Generative AI in the Design Process · Bilingual (English / Spanish)
New York, NY · 619-816-8284 · octaviomartinez24@gmail.com · octxio.com · linkedin.com/in/octxio
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Designer who takes ventures from framing to shipped product. Founding Creative Lead at Veya, a restaurant reservation platform built from zero and launched in Lagos, now on the App Store in the US, EU, and Africa: I framed the brand, built the identity and website, and designed and coded the production tools the team runs daily, testing every build with its real users the same day. Background in business development and a B.A. in Business Administration, so I think in desirability, feasibility, and viability, not only in visuals. MFA in Transdisciplinary Design from Parsons. Selected for the Adobe × Parsons Not Generated Creative AI Lab; co-facilitating a UN Global Pulse creative AI workshop this month. Fluent in Spanish.
Experience
Founding Creative Lead
2026 – Present
Veya, reservation and experiences platform (live on the App Store in US, EU, Africa)
- Framed and built the brand for a pre-launch venture in a market with no incumbent: tone and territory, identity system, brand book, website, App Store creative, and the launch social system, with the founder as the only other team member.
- Designed and built the Veya Post Studio, a browser-based content tool (Claude Code, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, React on Base44), so non-designers can produce on-brand posts daily. Shipped 30+ versioned builds, each tested in the live workflow the same day, with features kept or cut based on what people actually used. The founder now produces the majority of Veya's content himself.
- Built one system with two modes: the brand, clean and service-focused so the platform reads as secure; and the club, Veya Social Club (crest, apparel line, store page, Instagram system, events), the louder city-by-city world where I do the image-making by hand.
Creative AI Workshop Co-Facilitator (contract)
Aug 2026 – Present
Liminal, for UN Global Pulse
- Recruited by Adobe Sr. Engagement Manager and Liminal founder Julienne DeVita to co-facilitate a hands-on creative AI workshop for UN Global Pulse on Adobe Firefly Boards; designing exercises a mixed, mostly non-technical audience can follow and apply.
Freelance Art Director, Designer & Illustrator
2022 – Present
Independent, New York, NY
- Client-facing from brief to delivery for recording artists, an author, and an independent artist: campaign concepts, websites, a commissioned illustrated book, and music videos I directed, shot, and edited.
Digital Media & Marketing Specialist
2022 – 2023
Austin Technology Council, Austin, TX
- Led creative for digital campaigns, social strategy, and brand identity for a regional tech membership organization, across marketing, events, and communications.
Business Development Representative
2023 – 2024
House Max, Austin, TX
- Consultative outbound sales: discovery conversations, qualifying prospects, presenting to decision makers. Prospects screened collectively qualified for up to $12M in credit lines.
Selected Projects
Digital Arson: The Library of Alexandria
Interactive web installation and UV-printed stone tile series · 2024 – 2026
Concept-led research into digital memory and loss, prototyped as a browser-based real-time image corruption engine I coded, then produced as phone-sized stone tiles. Extended with Adobe Firefly trained on my own illustration archive. Exhibited in New York (April 2026); featured by Dezeen (June 2026).
Recognition
- Adobe × Parsons "Not Generated" Creative AI Lab (2026): selected for a two-day intensive on generative AI, authorship, and responsible practice; presented a Firefly implementation plan and was interviewed for Adobe's film on the program.
- Dezeen (June 2026): Digital Arson featured in Dezeen's coverage of the Parsons × Adobe Creativity in the Age of AI program.
Skills
- Strategic design: problem framing, concept development, rapid prototyping, iterative testing in live workflows, brand and identity systems, storytelling assets, tradeoff thinking across desirability, feasibility, and viability
- Generative AI in the design process: Claude and Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Adobe Firefly and Firefly Boards, Base44, Replit; AI-assisted research synthesis, ideation, prototyping, and production pipelines; deciding what to delegate to a model and what to keep
- Facilitation & communication: workshop design and co-facilitation; presenting rationale to non-designers, clients, and decision makers; discovery conversations
- Tools: Figma, Miro, Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Fresco, Premiere Pro), HTML/CSS/JavaScript, React, GitHub
- Languages: English and Spanish, fully bilingual
Education
2026
M.F.A., Transdisciplinary Design
Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York, NY · May 2026
Minor: Transmedia & Digital Storytelling · Thesis: Digital Arson: The Library of Alexandria
2023
B.A., Business Administration
St. Edward's University, Austin, TX
I'm an artist, too. The independent practice runs alongside the client work.
Give me a brand problem and I'll come back with the thinking, the system, and the first round of work already made.
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