Nice to meet you Amber Lindholm
Where are you from?
Here’s the quick version. I was born in Bossier City, Louisiana at Barksdale Air Force Base (both my parents were in the Air Force), and then moved to Okinawa, Japan until I was five. We came back to the States and followed jobs around, moving almost every year. I lived in a bunch of different states: Florida, New York, Arkansas, Ohio, Missouri. We moved to Chillicothe, a small town in central Illinois, when I was starting high school.
How did you end up at ID? Where were you before?
After graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I moved to Chicago and worked as a graphic designer for Rotary International. I was keeping up with changes in design and knew there were some skills that I wanted to build on top of my traditional design education. A woman I worked with, Reiko Takahashi, was in the MDM program at ID and recommended that I go to an open house. A week later, I sent in my application.
Tell us quickly about a project that you’re working on now that you’re really excited about.
In an Interactive Product Workshop with Kei Sato we are prototyping concepts to solve problems that occur in the elderly experience in activities around the hospital bed. I’ve done a lot of conceptual and high-level planning projects while at ID, so I’m looking forward to some hands-on product prototyping and experimentation.
What do you do in your spare time?
Hang out with my husband Tom and our three cats: Dewey, Zoe, and Penny. We like to hang around in our neighborhood, Lincoln Square, and go downtown to the Chicago museums. When it’s warm I get out and run, bike along the lakefront, and swim in the lake. I grew up swimming and it’s my favorite sport; now I also do triathlons.
What would you do with 20 million dollars?
Travel everywhere. Buy a house with an outdoor pool, an observatory, and a horse stable. Have a huge library of old books and an art collection. Basically, the same stuff that I used to dream about when I was a kid.
What super-power would you most like to have, and why?
Is being able to swim like a dolphin a super power? I’d love to be able to do that.
What are the websites you could not live without?
Delicious and Google. And I use Wikipedia, Pandora, and Twitter a lot.
Is there anything you would like to say to ID?
When things get really serious, take a break and breathe. Laugh with others. It’s easy to get caught up in the work and neglect what really matters. Of course, it’s easier said than done!
