Elisha Coad
Programmer Turned Designer Finds the Best of Both Worlds at Apple Internship and More
Although art and technology don’t seem to go together on the surface, Elisha’s deep passion for both forced him to carve his own path in combining the two. Both a programmer and an artist, Elisha’s story combines STEM and the humanities in fascinating ways.
Elisha Coad is a University of Idaho alum with a B.F.A. in Studio Art and Design. He attended U of I between Spring 2018 and Winter 2022. He currently works at John Deere as a user experience (UX) designer.
When he first arrived, Elisha was drawn to a double major in Virtual Technology and Design and Computer Science since he was great with computers and fascinated by virtual reality and 3D modeling. In high school, Elisha cultivated his skills in computer programming and design, even working on freelance job opportunities by building websites for clients.
“I liked that world of design and technology, and mixing those two,” he said. “I would work with my brother on projects. He would do the back end... and then I would do the front end, which is the visuals of the code.”
A love of technology ran deep in Elisha’s veins, with his father being an inventor and his two brothers being computer scientists. “That was kind of the general path [for me],” he admitted.
Art was an unexplored territory considering his family background, making it more difficult for him to reconcile his passions for art and his love and familiarity with technology.
His parents were very involved in his education and provided opportunities for him to explore his passions. Elisha said that this set him up with confidence and space to do what he loves. “If I really put my mind to something, I can do it and I can achieve it. I think that’s helped a lot,” he said.
“Some people have the mentality of… ‘don’t make your job your passion because you’ll lose that passion,’ but I feel like I was always raised up with ‘find the job that you’re passionate about and you never work a day in your life,’” Elisha shared.
For his field of study, he ultimately settled on interface design, figuring that it was the perfect intersection of technology and art. “It was the right kind of challenge that I was looking for, so I ended up switching my major… into an art [degree],” he said. He dropped Computer Science as a second major and went fully into Studio Art and Design, with an emphasis on interaction and graphic design.
“I enjoy programming still. I program games on the side,” he said. It gave Elisha comfort to know that he would still be involving himself with the tech field while doing what fulfilled him most.
“Usually its designers going into [user interface/experience design (UI/UX)], so having that programming background already and doing internships as a programmer… I was able to have a stronger position [in the field],” Elisha said.
Elisha was involved in “makerspaces” throughout his middle and high school career, which are programs designed to let young people express creativity and explore different mediums.
“I worked there for a long time and found a passion for creating things,” he said. “That ability to create beautiful things is just something I hold really dear to me.” Since his love of art was always present and encouraged by those around him, he found his place easily with the College of Art and Architecture.
On campus, Elisha was a part of the Campus Christian Fellowship for all four years of his enrollment. “I feel like a large part of my success in college can be attributed to having that support network,” he said.
He also started the Developer Student Club, a Google-sponsored program for programmers. He was also a part of the University Honors Program, which gave him a strong sense of community when he first arrived on campus.
Throughout college, Elisha still worked on freelance website design projects, which helped pay for a portion of his tuition. One of his biggest projects was creating a brand for a cryptocurrency education company, which allowed him to practice being firm in project timelines and pricing expectations for his work. He also worked on branding for the TEDxCoeur d’Alene event in 2020.
Elisha appreciated the teachers in the Art + Design Program that “had high expectations for students” and gave a “higher level of understanding” to the field, specifically naming Greg Turner-Rahman, Dave Gottwald and Delphine Keim. He said that his professors would allow him to modify projects if he thought they aligned with the freelance work he was doing. “I was really thankful for those opportunities where teachers allowed that,” he said.
He also took on several internship opportunities each summer, most of which involved programming until he realized his passion for design. Elisha found most of his job opportunities through his incredible network that was created and sustained by his freelancing projects.
One of the employers he worked for over the summer allowed him to shift his position from a programmer to a designer. Because he had insight into the design field, Elisha was able to step into the new role with ease, therefore showing them Elisha’s “value as a designer.”
Elisha had an amazing opportunity to intern as a UI/UX designer at Apple the summer before his senior year. He traveled to California and got to engage with the design system team, who helped him figure out his strengths and weaknesses as a designer.
“A design system is something for interface design. It's the building blocks from which other designers use to build [a website],” he explained. “For example, buttons, a dropdown or dialogue menu, or pop ups. All that stuff would be a piece in the design system.”
“I feel how my brain works is well-positioned for design systems because you have to think of all the details of each component,” he said. “I also really like it because I can support other designers. I see myself as a support role for the whole design team.”
“I helped [Apple] redo their website [in what’s] called the information architecture of the website,” he said. “How do we organize [information] in a way that makes sense to people using this website?” Since Apple is a very high-security company, they don’t rely on cloud services to store their information. Instead, they created their own internal system, which is what Elisha fixed during his time there.
Elisha now works at John Deere as a UX designer for their farm management platform. This platform is used by farmers who want to keep track of the goings on of the products they’re using for work.
“They can have a high-level overview of what's happening at any given moment, see where their machines are on a map, [and] they can see… what kind of work they've done over the year,” he explained. Elisha creates and manages the design system of that platform alongside some product advertising design.
Long term, Elisha says he’d like to work for a startup tech company, an ode to his childhood growing up with a love for technology and programming. Through his network, he knows many people interested in starting tech companies, and Elisha says he looks forward to seeing where that journey takes him.
He espouses a “learner’s mindset”, in that he believes everyone would benefit from exploring passions and skills in their daily lives. “Having a positive connection [to] learning is important… Every experience will get you closer to where you're meant to be. There's never wasted moments,” he said to future Vandals.
He added on, “Just enjoy the experience. Take classes that are outside of your comfort zone or that you wouldn't normally take… College is the time to do it. Some of my favorite classes were ones I took on the history of anime or archery, stuff like that.”
Elisha’s story is one of a persistent desire to follow passions, even if they take you in seemingly different directions at first. Future Vandals should take to heart the importance of doing what you love — if you’re passionate about it, you will find a way to make it work for you. Here at Career Services, our mission is to help make it work for you too. Keep an eye on this artist — we can’t wait to see where Elisha goes next!
Victoria Kingsmore
Career Services Marketing Intern
