David Balan smiling, in a black hoodie against a dark background

About

I started in a classroom.

I was an Education Specialist, designing and teaching STEAM and social-emotional learning programs. The visual eye was always there, and I started designing as an outlet while I taught. Then I began teaching design itself, built around the social issues the kids cared about. We made campaigns. Somewhere in there it stopped being a side thing.

At Harvard, studying technology, innovation, and education with a focus on human-computer interaction, I learned to fuse the two on purpose. What I care about hasn't changed since. I want people to understand something in the moment and still remember it later.

Since then I've designed training for Google Fiber's customer service teams, campaigns, brand sites, and design systems for oncology brands at FCB Health, Havas, and Omnicom, and the brand and website for the Pilates studio I helped my wife found.

Email me LinkedIn

At a glance

Where I've worked, what I studied, and what I work in.

Where I've worked

2025 to nowArt SupervisorOmnicom (Remedy Edge, formerly DDB Health)
2023 to 2025Instructional DesignerGoogle Fiber, on contract through Nelson Connects
2022 to 2023Senior Art DirectorHavas Life
2021 to 2022Art DirectorFCB Health
2020 to 2021Experience DesignerHarvard University
2017 to 2020Education SpecialistHaitian Americans United for Progress

Education

Harvard Graduate School of EducationEd.M., Technology, Innovation, and Education (Human-Computer Interaction)
CUNY Brooklyn CollegeB.A., Sociology

Tools

Design: Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Cinema 4D
Learning: Articulate Rise and Storyline, Camtasia, Intellum and Axonify

Outside work

I run brand and creative direction for Cornerstone Pilates, the studio in Jersey City I helped my wife found. She owns it and runs it; the brand is my part, alongside my day job. I designed and built the site, and I still approve everything that goes out, working with our social media manager and studio team so the brand holds together.

I'm also designing 3D printed achievement pieces for the studio, keychains and mini plaques that mark how many classes someone has taken, and testing them with clients and instructors.

Why I mention it

It's the one place I own every decision, from the first sketch to what happens after launch.

Craft

Most of this was made for no client. The composites were exercises, a way to stretch my thinking by working through surrealism, Afrofuturism, and the styles around them. Nobody taught me. I learned by making the next one.

That side of me has its own page now: the composites, the posters, the drone flights, and the first house I built in 3D.

See the Dream page