Chengcheng Hou
( Mitchell )



Chengcheng Hou, is an interdisciplinary designer and visual artist working at the nexus of digital health, user experience, and urban storytelling. His practice spans the realms of product design, typographic experimentation, and documentary photography, weaving together form, function, and narrative to create evocative, human-centered experiences.

As the lead product designer at Tia, he architects digital systems that redefine healthcare interactions, translating clinical complexity into seamless, intuitive interfaces. His work on Tia’s first web-based EMR system has transformed provider workflows—minimizing friction, automating care coordination, and expanding patient access.

Learn about Tia here.

Parallel to his work in digital design, Chengcheng engages with print and photography as a medium for spatial and cultural documentation. His work in risograph printing and type design further extends his exploration of ephemerality, layering textures, typography, and archival fragments to construct visual narratives that straddle past and present.
Chengcheng’s work has been featured in publications, design forums, and academic institutions, including a speaking engagement at the School of Visual Arts (SVA), where he shared insights on crafting portfolios and navigating the evolving design industry. His practice is an evolving inquiry into how design mediates human experience—whether through the ergonomics of a clinical interface or the patina of a city in flux.

For exhibitions, collaborations, or inquiries, please get in touch.  


Work Experiences
  1. Tia, Inc. (Senior Product Designer,  Nov 2021 – Present)
  2. Oak Studios LLC (UI/UX, Product Designer, Oct 2019 – Nov 2021)
  3. Studio None (Freelance Designer, Aug 2019 – Nov 2021)

Awards
  1. Creative Communication Awards
  2. Communication Arts
  3. UX Design Award
  4. Paris Design Award
  5. International Design Awards
  6. Graphis New Talent Annual
  7. Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

Press
  1. Marketers Media (Tia Celebrates Senior Product Designer Chengcheng Hou, Sept 30, 2024)
  2. AIGA NYC (Community Spotlight, Jan 30, 2024)
  3. Cargo Collective (Site in Use, Site of the Week, Feb 20, 2021)

Exhibitions
  1. Las Laguna Art Gallery (Outstanding 2022)
  2. The University of Southern Mississippi (Southern Miss National Poster Show, 2022)
  3. Open Collab Exhibition (Typographic Session, 2021)

Memberships
  1. International Society of Typographic Designers (MISTD)
  2. AIGA – The Professional Association of Design
  3. One Club for Creativity
  4. ADPList (Weekly Product Design Mentor)
  5. Vand (Taken Oath Designer)



Useful Links



Wanna chat with me? Click here!

Site last updated Feb 2025
Projects 

El Paso, Van Horn, Marfa, Big Bend

Photography

2025

Latest Product Design Portfolio

Design

2023

Latest Graphic Design Portfolio

Design

2022

Note: At present, my Graphic Design Portfolio and Product Design Portfolio exist as a Figma archive and a PDF dossier, serving as evolving records of process and practice. In time, these works may find a more integrated presence within this site—an unfolding curation in dialogue with the shifting nature of design itself.
3/18/2025

Lately, as a designer and someone trying to navigate a city that seems to promise everything but deliver little in return, I’ve found it harder than ever to feel connected. What’s more unsettling is realizing how eerily similar the current job market and the modern dating scene have become—both locked in the same exhausting loop of endless trapping.

This isn’t quite a design rant, though design is always on my mind. Nor is it just about dating, though I’ve been on more than enough dates in New York to know that something about the entire system feels broken. You’d think that in a city of 8.2 million, where cultures and identities endlessly intertwine, connection would come easily. But ask anyone—regardless of age, education, gender, or orientation—how their dating life is going, and you’ll get the same reaction. A furrowed brow. A slow exhale. A squint, as if searching for the right words. And then, inevitably:

"New York is the worst place to find a date."

It’s not just the city’s relentless pace or the ambition that keeps everyone moving, untethered. It’s that we live in an era of infinite choice—or at least the illusion of it. Recently, I re-entered the dating scene, and like any product designer, I couldn’t resist the urge to analyze my own experience. Out of my current 1,500 matches, maybe 10% led to a conversation. Of those, 5% resulted in an actual meeting. And those who made it to a second date? A third? A relationship? No data. The sample size, at least on my personal data, is too small.

Oddly enough, this reminds me of the tech industry I’m in. Two years ago, job descriptions for product designers rarely mentioned artificial intelligence. Now, if AI isn’t on your résumé, you won’t even make it past those cold-hearted parsing tools before you can talk to a human. The industry has shifted overnight, demanding a new kind of fluency, a new kind of designer. It’s no longer enough to be talented; you have to be optimized.

But what if you don’t fit the mold? What if you don’t care about the trends everyone else seems to worship? What if you’re not fluent in design systems but excel in front-end engineering, storytelling, and understanding user psychology? Of course, learning new skills is important, but at what point does the pressure to be the perfect designer—just like the pressure to be the perfect date— the things that make us unique?

Because just like the job market, dating in New York City is an arms race of self-optimization. Everyone is trying to maximize their profiles, curating their personalities into digestible, marketable packages. But at the end of the day, what makes you, you?

The more I observe both worlds, the more I see the same forces at play: the relentless pursuit of perfection, the constant optimization, the realization that effort alone may not be enough—because the game[Algorithm] itself is designed to keep you searching, swiping, applying, waiting.

Through years of mentorship, I’ve spoken with countless designers who have sent out hundreds, even thousands, of applications, only to be met with silence. Their frustration echoes the same sentiment I hear from friends about dating—putting in so much effort only to receive nothing in return.

I suppose this is the part where I’m supposed to offer some hopeful insight, a call to action about persistence, about finding the right fit, about the importance of human connection in an age of algorithms. But the truth is, I don’t have an answer. What I do know is that we are living in an era filled with more doubt about ourselves than ever before.

Some nights, as I scroll through job listings and dating profiles with the same dull sense of obligation, I wonder: has society finally outpaced me? Or, in this algorithm-driven age, has it simply become harder than ever to feel a real human connection?

Remember when you could meet someone randomly on the street, strike up a conversation, and fall in love? Or when your dad could walk into a bar, chat with a stranger, and leave with a job offer?

I wonder if those days are truly gone—or if we’ve just lost the patience to find them again.Design Rant Archive