Yanik Wickremasinghe.

I was born and raised in beautiful, sunny, tropical Colombo, Sri Lanka. Growing up, I painted and drew a lot, and I also traveled around the world. Later on, I started creating graphics for my school clubs, designing logos, and learning HTML and CSS so I could create my own websites. I then began creating sculptures, learned video editing, and had a weird obsession with 3ds Max.

Working at an interior design and architecture firm, I got to see my artwork transformed into a two-story mural at a cantilevered bar in Colombo. I also worked on the set design for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka Design Festival.

Last summer, I worked at a creative agency in Los Angeles, where I got to put my graphic design skills to the test in an environment that intersected with luxury, fashion, and PR.

Throughout UC Berkeley, I kept myself busy and never lost my passion for design, even at a college that was not exactly design-oriented. Beyond the Urban Design and Planning work I was doing for my major, I stumbled across theater production design and created physical model sets for productions, along with hand-built set pieces in a workshop through woodworking, laser cutting, and painting.

I put my design skills to use through my extracurriculars at UC Berkeley by creating sets for frat parties, designing experiences for thousands of people, and individually designing posters for each event, over 50 in total, that I organized during my four years of college. I also threw more parties as the Head of External Events for the International Students Association at Berkeley, including Night in Rio and Lost in the Dunes, and then became president, leading a team of 40 international students from all over the world. I helped design a community for the 7,000+ international student population by starting a run club, and organized trips for 40 college students traveling to Las Vegas and Cabo.

Then came AI. I have come to use it to my advantage in my design journey, learning tools such as Lovable and Replit to create websites, like this one, in record time. I have also learned to embrace tools such as Nano Banana and Midjourney to bring ideas to life.

As much as AI is democratizing design, design is inherently human. Everything you see has been designed, and what excites me is connecting humans through design: designing spaces, both physical and digital, experiences, and events.