By day, Cynthia Chen is a product designer at Block — but outside of work, she has been steadily building a creative universe all her own. A designer, illustrator, tattoo artist, and now rug maker, Cynthia’s tufted creations transform nostalgic Asian snacks like Hello Panda, Sangaria Milk Tea, SPAM, and Yakult into plush rugs, pillows, and runners. Each piece pays homage to her childhood and can take months to finish, the soft textures inviting both memory and play.

Cynthia’s curiosity doesn’t stop at fiber arts. This year, she launched Dog-e-dex, an iPhone app dreamed up years ago and finally brought to life through what she calls “vibe-coding” with AI tools. The app, inspired by Pokédex, lets users snap photos of dogs, identify their breeds, and add them to a personal collection — a whimsical blend of tech and delight that has already touched users in surprising ways. One person even used it to memorialize their late dog, a gesture Cynthia found deeply moving.

Whether she’s tufting rugs, designing press-on nails for craft fairs, or coaxing an AI to generate code, Cynthia approaches making with the same mix of persistence, humor, and imagination. For her, creativity is a way of expanding possibility — proving that with enough curiosity, even the most playful ideas can become something tangible, sharable, and deeply human.