Product Designer · Brooklyn, NY
Bonnie Silva
designer, artist, community member
I've spent my life in rooms where presence matters — at a bar, at a birth, at a design table. Each role taught me to listen before I speak, to meet people where they are, and to build something that actually holds.
What I do
What I care about
The longer version
My parents came to the US from Brazil with little more than ambition and an unshakeable sense of who they were. Growing up first-generation American in a household that moved between two languages and two worlds gave me something I didn't have a name for until much later: cultural fluency. The ability to walk into a room, understand the room, and make the room feel like it belongs to everyone in it.
That fluency showed up first behind a bar — fifteen years of it. Bartending is, at its core, a service design problem. You are managing flow, mood, timing, and expectation all at once. You learn quickly that the best experience is one nobody notices because it just works.
"Every role I've held has been about translating complexity into something a person can hold onto."
Then for ten years, I was a doula — a full spectrum doula, present at births, through postpartum, and at end of life. If bartending taught me flow, doulaing taught me stakes. I learned to translate dense medical information into something a frightened person could actually act on. I learned that good design — whether it's a birth plan or a navigation menu — is the difference between a person feeling lost and a person feeling capable.
Now I work as a UX/UI product designer. The thread running through all of it is the same: simplify the complex, and do it with care.
Outside the screen
I'm a sculptor. Right now I'm building a clay sculpture exhibit centered on mental health — pieces that try to hold what language sometimes can't. I've also worked in wax, creating figures inspired by women: their gestures, their weight, their presence.
I practice modern dance, which keeps me honest about the body and about rhythm — that there's a timing to everything, and when you ignore it, people feel it even if they can't name it.
I volunteer at animal shelters. I'm a cat mom. I show up to things. I believe in neighbors.
A note on how I work
My background isn't a footnote to my design career — it's the whole reason I design the way I do. I come to every project asking who this is for, what they're afraid of, what they already know, and what they need to trust. That's not a framework I learned in a bootcamp. That's years of sitting with people in the hardest moments of their lives.
I'm drawn to healthcare, wellness, and social impact work, but I've found these instincts translate anywhere users deserve more than they're usually given.
Design I believe in
Accessible. Plain-spoken. Built for the person who is tired, anxious, or in a hurry — not the ideal user. Tested by real people, not assumptions.
What I'm looking for
A team that takes inclusion seriously, gives a damn about craft, and understands that good work takes multiple rounds and honest feedback. Culture matters to me as much as the job.