“The year the bus drivers went on strike in Pittsburgh, I was twenty-th...” — Said Sayrafiezadeh Quote

The year the bus drivers went on strike in Pittsburgh, I was twenty-three and living on the edge of the city in a neighborhood that was on the verge of becoming a ghetto. I had just been fired from a good job as a cartographer in a design studio where I had worked for about four months.

In many ways I'm similar to Barack Obama, who also has a strange name but was raised by a white American mother. His background is far more complicated than his name would suggest. Furthermore, the fact that I was a child during the hostage crisis has caused me to equate being Iranian with being alienated.

We were poor, my mother and I, living in a world of doom and gloom, pessimism and bitterness, where storms raged and wolves scratched at the door.

My childhood was defined by my father's absence. His presence looms so large. Up until the age of 18, he was a superstar for me.

I wanted to create a toolkit which I would have wanted as an entrepreneur to use these principles of psychology in product design. Some startups totally forget the trigger. In some, the action is too complicated. Others don't have a variable reward, which maintains mystery.

I had a great teacher who was really encouraging and said I should go to Central Saint Martins. So I worked my socks off, and I managed to get a place there. It was there that I developed a real love for design.

I'd call my work 'instinctual design.' I like to find the spirit of a piece that defies time, age, and occasion. My clothes give the wearer the chance to develop their own voice within a wardrobe, and I think of them as curators of their personal style.

Sound design is always critical, especially when you're doing a thriller with a lot of suspense and tension.