Júlia Martinez, MS Packaging, Identities, and Systems Design ’25, is a graphic designer and visualizer at the design lab OXMAN, a design company exploring how nature and humans can coproduce, cohabitate, and communicate through biologically informed design and technology. In the following Q&A, Martinez explains how Pratt helped her find a career that allows her to create meaningful change through design.
Can you tell us about your current role and what a typical day looks like for you?
At OXMAN, no two days look the same. My work communicates complex ideas from interdisciplinary teams across architectural, product, and molecular scales, in service of the radical betterment of nature.
Looking back, what was the most valuable part of your Pratt education?
Design is powerless unless it is grounded in the realities of other disciplines and world contexts. At Pratt, I learned the most by pushing my design practice beyond the boundaries of the design school curriculum, enrolling in courses where I engaged with science, cinema, and architecture.
What’s a professional skill you developed at Pratt that you rely on today?
Pratt trained me to develop a strategic sensitivity: to recognize the places, moments, and conditions where design is truly needed and where it can make a meaningful difference, even when they fall outside traditional design contexts.
Can you walk us through your journey from graduation to your first full-time creative role after Pratt?
The period following graduation is rarely straightforward. New York City is a fervent hub for thousands of students who, almost overnight, become professionals driven by ambition and the desire to transform passion into tangible work. Pratt played a critical role in easing that transition by offering continued guidance through mentorship, connecting me to its alumni network, and providing internship opportunities that prepared me for the pivotal, and often uncertain, moment of entering the professional world.
Can you tell us about a particularly difficult professional challenge you’ve faced?
Design, as an action, exists independently until it is given purpose, use, and consequence. One of the most challenging moments in my professional path was realizing that applying my skills effectively did not always mean applying them meaningfully. Design today plays a central role in shaping products, services, and markets, but within that landscape lies a choice about what kinds of purposes and values one contributes to.
Reflecting on this reshaped how I think about where and how I place my work. Personally, I feel fortunate to have found a place where what I do and why I do it are aligned, allowing me to contribute to causes that matter to me both professionally and personally.
Thinking about your portfolio, is there a specific project you consider a turning point in your career?
Designing Distinction: The Search for Identity in American Suburban Landscapes was a formative work in my portfolio and my capstone at Pratt. It brought together place, culture, and people through a process grounded in research, social collaboration, and design experimentation.
The project connected my background in product design, through the prototyping of a modular sidewalk tile system, with my graphic design practice, culminating in a book conceived as the project’s archival memory. Looking back, I see it as an ongoing inquiry rather than a finished statement, but it remains a defining work that clearly articulated my interests, motivations, and approach as a designer.
Has there been a point in your career where you’ve had to consciously pivot or learn a major new skill to stay current or pursue a new opportunity?
Learning continues past the academic threshold. The pace of the world continues to intensify, and as designers, creators, inventors, and artists, we are compelled to stay ahead. I found the workplace to be an active laboratory: a space to learn from colleagues, to stretch beyond the boundaries of a job description as a coauthored framework, and, most importantly, to test new ideas in real conditions. Through this process, I consciously expanded my practice into interface design, art direction, and photography. A more holistic approach not only strengthens cohesion and impact, but also cultivates a deeper sense of ownership and stewardship over the work as a whole.
What advice would you give to a student about making a creative career a reality?
My mother has always told me I am like an ant: not the fastest or the most conspicuous, but persistent, reliable, and deeply purpose-driven. For most people, a creative career unfolds through uncertainty, rejection, and long stretches without clear signals of progress. Over time, that steadiness is what allows talent to take root and opportunity to surface.
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