Award-winning MLD/Mel Lim Design to Celebrate 10 Years of Design TENacity

SAN DIEGO, CA- March 8, 2013 - Now in its 10th year, San Diego-based MLD, a globally recognized design + innovation studio, will soon celebrate a decade of empowering brands, designing experiences, and shaping a better world through design and thought leadership. For 10 years, the multi-platform MLD, known for its dimensional thinking, has worked with start-ups and Fortune 500 clients across a landscape of industries, from healthcare to data governance, to software, and has earned numerous prestigious accolades.

In 2012 alone the design firm's awards included the 42nd Creativity Media, American Web Design USA, Interactive Media Award, Communicator Award of Distinction, and a nomination for The Webby. Not bad for a pre-teen. With its solid history of transforming a broad range of environments into design experiences that embody mindfulness, global thinking, and a passion for authentic beauty, MLD is kicking off its 10th year with exciting new projects and opportunities that illustrate its understanding of the human-centeredness of design.

A small firm with big heart, big ideas, and the big-time TENacity to do BIG things, MLD is focused on getting the word out about design methodologies in business innovation. Building on last year's invitation to share information and spark an exchange of ideas internationally in workshops (UX Design & Design Management, China Productivity Center, Tai Pei) and lectures (Designing Life & Brands Through Aspirational Thinking, Taichung, Taiwan), MLD will begin traveling nationwide in March, 2013, to host workshops and speak at conferences over a several month period.

On March 6th, 2012, MLD hosted a well-received webinar with RGD Ontario on Using UX Design Principles & Methodologies in Design Management & Innovation. With the success of these webinars, and the energy and enthusiasm they inspire, the design world can expect more MLD hosted conversations in the months and years to come. From April 29th-April 30th, Silicon Valley will experience a Mel Lim immersion as the Principal and Creative Director of MLD speaks at the upcoming RE:DESIGN/UX Design conference in Menlo Park. Her session, titled What We Can Learn From a Rule-Breaker, will teach attendees how implementing rule-breaking processes facilitates managing cultural expectations in a global setting, oversees failures and aspirations, guides entrepreneurship and frugal innovation, and enhances business and client relationships. Attendees participate in salon-style discussions where they engage in spirited conversations around a table with industry leaders and peers. Then from May 22 – 24, MLD packs off to Portland's Oregon Convention Center to speak at WebVisions. The May conference explores the future of the Web and mobile design, UX, digital media, and technology. Lim will host a workshop — Using UX Design Principles and Methodologies in Design Management and Innovation – and also share her insights in the session Designing Life & Brands Through Aspirations.

When MLD officially celebrates its 10th anniversary in October, 2013, it will already be well into the planning stages for both 2014 and for its next 10 years of solving problems holistically, designing strategically, and helping great clients live their brands authentically. Anticipate a future informed by the talent and aspiration of MLD, which consistently reminds us"When you aspire, you design the future."

About MLD/Mel Lim Design:
MLD exposes, strategizes, and creates ideas, products, and partnerships.
A multi-platform innovation studio known for its dimensional design thinking that transforms the smallest idea into the largest deliverable, MLD has been powering start-ups in various industries from telecommunications, software, service, fashion, food and retail to Fortune 500 companies nationwide since 2003.

About Mel Lim:
Mel Lim cares to design a better world. She knows that begins with the individual and a commitment to holding fast to one's dreams, wherever they may lead. This award-winning, Malaysian-born design leader received her foundation design diploma from the London Institute's Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design and then moved across the world to attend the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California where she graduated with highest distinction, earning a Bachelor's of Science in Environmental Design. Mel helps lead the industry in exploring how to use design methodologies in business innovation. Intent on actively shaping a better world, she is committed to understanding the processes of creating and producing products and ideas, and the ways in which those efforts impact businesses and customers, both socially and environmentally.

Mel has more than 15 years of international and domestic experience in project management, commercial spatial design, and brand and product development. She has worked with top architectural and design firms in the United States, and since establishing her own firm in 2003 has been consulting and designing for top Fortune 100 companies and others, including Comcast, UGG/Deckers, and Axure. Mel's work, which can be seen in London, Tokyo, Copenhagen, and all the way to the UAE, has won numerous awards including the Creativity Annual, PRINT, W3, IMA, American Institute of Architects (AIA) LA, The Webby, and has been featured in more than 500 magazines and blogs worldwide including New York Times, Wall Street Journal, C Magazine, Lucky Magazine, Riviera, Interiors, and DMI-Design Management Review.