Kara Isabella Inc. designs at the forefront of humanity.
Kara Isabella is an entrepreneur and trained Design Researcher and Graphic and User Experience Designer with a focus on product development and strategy. Kara uses systems thinking and human-centered design to develop solutions that solve real needs. She uses ethnographic research, from interviewing to facilitation, to uncover insights and implements this into beneficial and meaningful solutions.
Kara Isabella works at the frontier of network states, AI, crypto, DAOs and web3. She has a passion for Prospera (a startup city based on the island of Roatan) and revolutionizing the way humanity lives and interacts with cities.
Kara has founded two startups. SlyceUp, a marketplace to discover NFTs to lease, and Pattern and Pattern, a sustainable home goods company.
Kara worked in-house at UNICEF to develop a global Digital Workplace for 19,000+ UNICEF employees to enhance output, streamline document management and foster internal partnerships. She created and facilitated workshops on homepage design, information architecture and page template design for division, country and campaign sites. She trained 160+ UNICEF offices to develop SharePoint Online sites for offices and teams, training included one-on-one sessions and development of training assets.
In 2019, Kara joined UNICEF’s Division of Human Resources to launch a new global HR site in 2020 on the SharePoint Modern platform through design research methodologies, including workshops and rapid prototyping. To-date (July 2021), there have been over 698,000 site visits and over 17,000 unique viewers. This site continues to be well regarded within UNICEF 1.5 years later. She trained a network of focal points on using the modern platform, including creating, editing and managing sites/pages and migrating/managing documents to empower them to create 107 collaboration, project and campaign sites and migrate thousands of documents from the old SharePoint platform and local drives.
In 2016, Kara joined the NYC Department of Small Business Services inaugural cohort of Neighborhood 360 Fellows. In this position, she designed the first Weekend Walk (street festival) to engage local community stakeholders to promote health and wellness in the Two Bridges (Manhattan) neighborhood, and she worked with business owners, residents, and local stakeholders to create trilingual signage in New York City’s Chinatown, Lower East Side, and Two Bridges neighborhoods. In 2015, Kara developed a program (Backyard Lots) that transforms vacant lots into safe and local recreational outlets for youth to self-organize sporting events.
Kara created the brand and narrative for UNICEF’s new Policy Planning Unit where she conducted ethnographic interviews to devise insights for the future trajectory of the unit. In addition, she worked professionally with Accenture Digital to develop narratives for new client acquisition and product development, Condé Nast on digital marketing, and American Greetings and Ann Taylor on their content marketing and social media strategy. Kara was the Lead Designer on the American Greetings Blog redesign.
She holds an MFA in Design for Social Innovation from the School of Visual Arts, and a BFA in Graphic Design, BA in the History of Art and Architecture and a minor in Interactive Media Studies from Miami University. In 2016, she was awarded the 18 Of the Last 9 Young Alumni Award from Miami University, and in 2017, she was awarded the 25 Under 35 award from St. Joseph Academy.