Narrative & graphic designer

Designs With Character

I make things that don't exist worth caring about.

About

Characters are how
I got here.

I'm Aidan. I designed my own major at Duke — Character Studies: Personality, Storytelling, and Embodiment — because no existing one let me study characters the way I wanted to: as psychology, as narrative device, and as a form of self-reflection, all at once. I originally came in as a math major, which I mention because people assume this was always the plan.

What I actually do with that is make things and put them in front of people. Games, a solo show, a VR demo, three years of graphics for a campus makerspace. The through-line is that I start with who someone is before I decide what they look like or what they say, and I've found that holds whether the character is a person, a puppet, or a promotional email.

I co-founded Duke's first game development club, our jam teams placed in the top 0.5% of 7,000+ submissions two years running, and I once played chess in VR as a tiny cat. For research.

↑ scroll-scrubbed flipbook — it flips as you scroll

Toolbox

  • Unity
  • Blender
  • Substance Painter
  • Photoshop & Illustrator
  • Procreate
  • Canva
  • Playwriting
  • Storyboarding
  • Puppetry

Work

Four projects I'd want
to be judged on.

Click any project to open it right here in the page. Filter by tag and everything else I've made joins the list underneath.

More work writing, illustration, VR, research, and a band

Contact

Let's make something
with a pulse.

If you're hiring, collaborating, or just want to talk about characters, the form goes straight to my inbox and I'll write back. I'm most interested in narrative and game design work, but I'm happy to hear about anything that needs someone who can write and draw.

© 2026 Aidan Klein · Designs With Character · Every pixel has a motivation.