Oen Michael Hammonds

Distinguished Design Executive • IBM

Oen Michael Hammonds is a designer, mentor, and IBM Distinguished Design Executive whose expertise encompasses service, advertising, graphic, interactive, and environmental design.

Photo courtesy of Inside Out

Don’t think of design as only typography or color, pixels, or paper. Think of design as a means to solve problems and improve the human experience.

Oen Hammonds

As a Distinguished Design Executive, Oen helps cultivate effective and inspiring career enablement experiences at a global scale that promote the mission of a sustainable culture of design at IBM. He works with the Employee Experience Design team to drive the design and implementation of impactful IBM HR experiences and career enablement. Aside from collaborating with his team to facilitate strategic projects and workshops, he also works hands-on to help develop visual, UX, and journey systems with his team to help improve tactical experiences for those on the team.

Drawing on the 1984 Apple Macintosh to make t-shirts and brochures for friends and teachers was one of Oen’s hobbies as a child. However, it wasn’t until much later that he realized making art on a computer could also be his career. In school, he designed the student newspaper and club posters to gain real-world experience. While finishing his junior year at Northern Kentucky University, he was hired by Benchmark Marketing (now Anthem) to design Sunday circular glossy ads; after several promotions, he was put in complete control of many brands’ advertising.

Oen’s poster design for AIGA Austin Afterhours.

Photo courtesy of Oen Hammonds

Oen at work on a poster design for Artcrank 2014.

Photo courtesy of Oen Hammonds

Eager for new challenges and experiences, Oen began taking on freelance work and gained experience at Y&R Austin as an Associate Creative Director, primarily catering to technology companies. After joining IBM’s security department, he made the switch to lead and

organize workshops to acclimate newly hired post-college designers. Since being nominated for and beginning the role as Design Principal, his excitement for innovating around employee experience design, along with his passion for mentorship and career guidance, have only grown.

Oen speaking at “Craft Con,” the 2016 IBM Design Bootcamp, created to welcome 1000 new designers to IBM in a 5-year span.

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PErsonal History

After high school, Oen was recruited by the U.S. Army and served for eight years, switching between active and reserve duty while taking college classes part-time.

Photo courtesy of Oen Hammonds

Getting out of Smoketown

“Being raised in a single parent family, my mom kept me busy with as many activities as possible that would keep me off the streets and get me out of living in the Sheppard Square Projects in Smoketown, Louisville. I was involved in Boy Scouts of America all the way to becoming an Eagle Scout in high school, and I was a youth volunteer with the American Red Cross. I was always doing some type of art or design whether it was designing a logo or putting together a brochure. Mimicking is probably the best way I learned to draw and design. Copying pieces that I liked until I could design and draw them without looking at them and then adding my own flair/style to the work. I spent huge amounts of time in the library reading, absorbing, and exploring.”

Getting Real World Experience

“I was fortunate to go to school at a time where design fundamentals, craft, and problem solving were the core of the curriculum. My most influential teachers where the adjuncts like Julie Courtney and Bob Johnson. They brought real world projects and working professionals into the class which helped in my transition to the workforce. Bob’s Senior Portfolio class literally launched my career when he brought in the person who would eventually be my first design boss, John Carpenter, Creative Director of Benchmark.”

Photo of Oen among a group of seven students, in a dim gallery space with paintings, photographs, and graphic prints on the walls behind them.

Oen at North Kentucky University, where he majored in Graphic Design.

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Oen at work in the ideation phase of a project.

Photo courtesy of Oen Hammonds

Driven to Succeed

“I was one of only two people in my design program in college, I was the only person of color in the AIGA Cincinnati Chapter, and I was one of only two people of color in my first design job. I never understood why being the only person of color in a room never bothered me as much as others. I think it stems from my mom putting me into the best schools in Louisville, which happened to be predominately white. I was also harassed and teased as a child by everyone. I think that alone made me diligent to focus on what I wanted to do best designing. I’ve always been more worried about succeeding than answering the question of ‘do I fit in?’”

Variety Creates Excitement

“I never know what I am venturing into when I step into the studio each day. In the morning I may be consulting an HR specialist in Turkey. In the afternoon I may be critiquing a UI for a new compensation planner with a team in Canada. At the end of the day I may be helping a teammate develop an outline for a design thinking workshop. For some that can be tiring, for me I find it exciting.”

There weren’t really any expectations for me. I grew up in the projects of Louisville, low middle class, nearing poverty-level. For my mom, anything that would get us away from the projects would have made her happy. I had two main hobbies growing up; track and field and emulating my brother. He has always been a fantastic fine artist, so I did a lot of drawing on the first personal Mac computers; I was one of the few people who knew how to use the technology, but did not know at the time it was even considered graphic design.

Oen Hammonds