As part of their senior coursework at DigiPen, students in the BFA in Digital Art and Animation are tasked with an important assignment: Develop a professional portfolio with the goal of landing your dream job in the industry. When 2023 graduate Kacey Lei Quillopo arrived at that final assignment, she also arrived at a crossroads, torn between two very different portfolios. The first showcased a collection of 3D environment art she had created for her DigiPen classes and game team projects. The second showcased work she’d done outside of class, bit by bit, throughout her entire student career — a growing body of graphic and apparel design products she’d been creating both for DigiPen and her own online store.
With graduation looming, a decision had to be made, so she sat down with Department of Animation and Production lecturer Ebae Kim for advice. “Some of my hesitation may have come from imposter syndrome. I hadn’t taken official graphic design classes, and I was studying to be a game developer,” Quillopo says. “I had an epiphany moment during my conversation with Ebae Kim. The key takeaway was, ‘What are you doing? You already have professional experience in graphic design. Why don’t you pursue that?’”
Kim’s advice proved wise. Today, people can spot Quillopo’s designs not only on the hoodies, joggers, and t-shirts of countless DigiPen students around campus, but also in malls across the United States and Europe thanks to her job as a production artist at multinational clothing retailer Zumiez, headquartered in Lynwood, Washington. “I love that I get to bring my background and experience into my designs and share that across the world,” Quillopo says.
Quillopo came to DigiPen’s BFA program in 2019, inspired by her love for Destiny — a game whose development studio, Bungie, was employing lots of DigiPen art graduates, she’d noticed. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit during the second semester of her freshman year, Quillopo’s own destiny saw her turn to another one of her inspirations — her experience growing up in Hawai’i. “During the pandemic, since everything was online, I had a lot of free time to research and start selling my art,” Quillopo says. “The tight-knit community in Hawai’i and its support for small businesses inspired me.” Quillopo opened an Etsy shop, Kacey Lei Designs, and decided to sell her own work for the first time. Her initial products included a line of hats, stickers, and enamel pins sporting original aloha, shaka, takoyaki, and boba tea graphics.
Although she didn’t take courses explicitly focused on graphic design, Quillopo says being a three-year teaching assistant for fine arts lecturer Michael Lorefice, as well as tackling UI artist roles on her game team projects, all helped develop her burgeoning skill set. “A lot of the fundamentals from the painting classes and figure drawing really helped me understand what looks good for graphic design. Going over that content and teaching it to others helped reinforce it in my brain,” Quillopo says. “The thought process behind making practical UI assets also subconsciously helped me think about what made graphics look good on products too, like apparel.”
Fast forward to her junior year, a friend of Quillopo’s spotted a job posting for a merch designer role at the Dragon Shop, the on-campus and online store for official DigiPen merchandise and apparel. “My friend sent it to me saying I’d be perfect for it,” Quillopo says. “During my interview with [Vice President of Operations] Alex Comair, my experience designing and producing my own products is what opened the door for me.”
Quillopo quickly made a big impact on The Dragon Shop, developing a flurry of new, non-traditional apparel designs with eye-catching graphics. Some of her initial designs came from prompts Comair gave Quillopo to consider. “The ‘Return of the DigiMac’ design stemmed from Alex’s initiative to promote bringing back the DigiMac and create lore behind it,” Quillopo says, referencing a legendary Bytes Café menu item on campus that topped cheese pizza with mac and cheese. “We intentionally wanted a bold, retro pizza character.” Others, like the “Camp Shirt,” pushed Quillopo to expand her talents. “The idea was to replicate the national park shirts that we see, especially throughout the Pacific Northwest, but a ‘Welcome to DigiPen’ version. That was a challenging design for my graphic skills at the time, but I learned a lot during that development process,” Quillopo says.
Soon, Quillopo was creating DigiPen apparel designs independently, like the hoodie and jogger combo “Sakura Set,” inspired by spring cherry blossoms. “Your drip is always insane,” one poster commented in response to photos of the Sakura Set drop on DigiPen’s social media pages. Quillopo even got a Dragon Shop shirt design named after her, the long sleeve “Kacey’s Screen.” The shirt’s sporty, minimalist take on the classic DigiPen logo was inspired by major athletic apparel brands.
“I started seeing other students wear them around campus. It is one of the most rewarding and validating feelings when I see strangers and students wear my designs,” Quillopo says. “Every time I head into the store it feels surreal. Every time.” Quillopo’s Dragon Shop work led to additional graphic design projects for DigiPen’s K-12 Open World program as well, giving Quillopo even more experience. By the time she reached senior year, Quillopo had a sizable showcase of apparel and graphics work under her belt, but those initial Bungie dreams that brought her to DigiPen still gave her pause, even after receiving Ebae Kim’s portfolio advice.
But Quillopo’s own destiny intervened yet again — this time with some encouragement from folks working on Bungie’s Destiny. At a senior on-campus networking event, Quillopo connected with a DigiPen alum employed at the studio who gave her the final nudge she needed. “She was a production artist at Bungie and she worked on the apparel that they release for employees and players. It really opened my eyes that there is still a place for my skill set in the game industry,” Quillopo says. “That allowed me to hard commit to pursing graphic design.”
After graduating in 2023, Quillopo dove into the world of shirt production headfirst, landing a job as a production lead at Buttonsmith, a shirt manufacturing company in Redmond. “It was an invaluable experience learning what goes into direct-to-garment printing versus screen printing, problem solving, collaborating with engineers, and getting management skills,” Quillopo says. While working directly on the manufacturing floor helped her get a better grasp on apparel production overall, Quillopo still wanted to find an opportunity to put her apparel design skills at the forefront of her career.
When a job opened up at Zumiez in 2024 for a production artist on the retailer’s graphics team, a role that combined apparel design with the exact kind of production knowledge she had picked up at Buttonsmith, she jumped at the opportunity. “Zumiez works closely with direct-to-garment printing for their products, and myself being an artist with that experience is why I got the role — a perfect fit for my skill set,” Quillopo says.
As a production artist, Quillopo works closely with the design, production, and buying team to make sure graphics across the retailer’s “Private Label” brands, sold exclusively at Zumiez, are up to quality and on trend. Much of her role involves developing “tech packs” for Zumiez apparel and goods — comprehensive documents that include all the design details and guidelines manufacturers ultimately use to create the final product. “I work with our production team so that these products are executed exactly how the graphics team envisions it,” Quillopo says. “If my bandwidth allows, I can also help develop artwork, which is what led to my graphics landing in stores!”
Indeed, at the beginning of 2025, Quillopo’s first professional, original garment graphics hit malls around the world. Available at Zumiez stores across the U.S., her “A.LAB Spacedude” shirt sports a cute purple alien whose self-declared mission is “Cosmic Mischief.” “The graphic was heavily inspired by the Y2K retro aesthetic, and they specifically wanted our own space dude robot,” Quillopo says, calling the assignment’s request for a simple, cutesy design, “right up my alley.”
The second apparel item — her “Embrace the Journey” hoodie, available at Zumiez’ European counterpart, Blue Tomato — encourages wearers to “Flow Through Life” with its waterfall design. It’s a message Quillopo herself took to heart throughout her DigiPen career, one that has landed her in the unexpected, but very welcome position she’s in today.
“Only a handful of people can walk into a store and say that they designed that shirt that’s for sale. With Zumiez, it’s a similar feeling to the DigiPen merch, just that surreal feeling of apparel I’ve designed being sold in Europe and being worn by our customers,” Quillopo says. “My friends also let me know whenever they see my designs being worn in the wild!”