Meet Sarah Liriano Alba | Experience Design & Storyteller

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sarah Liriano Alba and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sarah, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I’m from the Dominican Republic. Specifically, from the capital, Santo Domingo. I grew up, along with my younger sister, in a household where my mother was single and the primary breadwinner. I had many female role models that taught me a lot about what it means to be successful; my mother and my aunts raised me to understand hard work, perseverance and dedication. Through their example I understood that one can have grace and elegance while still going for what one wants, instead of the more common “get there no matter who I need to trample” approach.

My culture also heavily influenced me and who I became as a person and designer. It’s a vibrant and rich culture full of wonderful and fantastic stories, which pushed me to want to become a storyteller and communicator through a variety of mediums.

This may sound cliché, but another one of my major inspirations was Disney. My parents bought me all the movies in VHS which I watched religiously and took me to Disney World often, where I learned what “magic” felt like. From there, I only knew that I wanted to make things that made people feel that way.

Growing up I didn’t really have a template or roadmap to being a designer. My family didn’t have many designers that I could tap for guidance. So in that sense I sort of stumbled around with only a general sense of direction but no clear north or goalpost. This led me to be interested in so many different things. Advertising, graphic design, typography, branding, packaging, and eventually experiential design. From each interest I gained skills and knowledge that allow me to create the experiences I do now which serve so many different purposes and are so very different one from the other.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My career had a lot of twists and turns where I thought I was going one way and ended up someplace entirely different. I’ve managed to learn from each position and compile a set of skills that lend themselves well to designing experiences.

From advertising I learned to think about what consumers want while also meeting business goals. From design, branding, and packaging I learned how to make things attractive, pleasing and functional. From event design I learned how to apply those skills to a 3D space. From UX I learned creative strategy and digital product design. I apply all these skills to my current position.

Was it easy? Not really… The path wasn’t always clear. When we did vocational orientation in high school there was no “Experience Designer” between architect and doctor. Added to that, I chose to build my career in one of the most competitive countries / cities in the world and one that is not my home or even close to how / where I grew up. From these challenges I learned to take things one day at a time, focus on the first step and then the next and so on and by the time you look back, you’re halfway up the mountain. A lot of times things don’t go the way you expect but that doesn’t mean all is lost. Other opportunities that you had not seen become available and if you’re open to them, they may surprise you.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’m a major museum geek. I love to go to all the classics like The Met, MoMA and AMNH. Other smaller museums would probably make the list like the Neue Galerie, the Morgan Library, and the Asia Society. The NY Botanical Gardens are gorgeous in the spring/summer.

I also periodically look at temporary things like interactive or immersive pop-ups or special performances at the Philharmonic. A Broadway or off-Broadway show is a must. Hadestown is my current favorite. NYC is also home to some of the quirkiest, oddly specific specialty stores. My favorites are the bookstores. There are so many things to do that it’s hard to list them all.

For food the classics like NY Pizza, bagels and schmear, and some hot dogs down at Coney Island. I also enjoy surprising people and taking them to have food they’ve never had before. You can find anything in NYC.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I owe a lot to my mother who supported me financially through my education. The rest of my family, my dad, sister, aunts, uncles and cousins all had a hand in encouraging me one way or another to becoming who I am.

A lot of what I do as an experience designer is unseen. Felt in the background while someone plays with an interactive or marvels at an immersive experience. I’m obsessed with magic, fantasy, and the unreal made real and tangible. My childhood hooked on Disney movies set the stage but the obsession started when one of my cousins handed me a book about some kid with glasses flying on a broom. That book turned into a 7 book series that soon exploded into shelves upon shelves of magical stories and movies that are the basis for what I try to achieve through experiences.

Website: https://www.sarahlirianoportfolio.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahliriano/