Cara Dreifuerst - About Me

My name is Cara Dreifuerst (CARE-uh DRY-first) and I am a multi-disciplinary designer with a MS in Human Factors and a special interest in accessible design.

My mantra for my professional self is "Thinkin' about it." The motivation behind this is to emphasize what I believe are my strongest attributes as a designer. I take a very creative, thoughtful, and deliberate approach to all of my work. I am always turning over ideas in my head for multiple projects and I pride myself on my ability to explore multiple design options. I have consistently been recognized for my ability to problem solve and come up with creative solutions across my professional and personal work history.

I am originally from Rhinelander which is a small town in North-central Wisconsin-- go Hodags! I moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota for college and have enjoyed living here since.

When I'm not creating or designing something, I really like going on runs around the city, figure skating, playing pickleball, going on bike rides, playing piano, painting my nails, journaling, rooting for the Timberwolves, and watching comedy TV shows and Youtube video essays.

Feel free to reach out to me! Find me here:

I graduated 7th in my class of 200 students from Rhinelander High School in Northern Wisconsin. Here, I was president of National Honor Society, vice president of Student Council, and participated Varsity Track & Field, Key Club, German Club, and Drama Club.

Residential Construction • Misc Sewing • Puppet Stage

I graduated undergrad in 2022 with High Distinction from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. I received a Bachelor of Individualized Studies with a major in Communications and Interdisciplinary Design. I also received two minors in Leadership and Digital Media Studies.

Graphic Design • Video Projects

I received a MS in Human Factors in Design from the University of Minnesota in 2024. This was a two year interdisciplinary program that focuses on user centered design and human interaction. I studied human movement in kinesiology and anthropometry, as well as psychology, human-computer interaction, statistics, human work analysis, UX and UI design, and design principles and heuristics.

After working on an independent contractor project with Onni Creative in August 2024, I decided I should create a sole proprietorship for myself in order to operate as a small business. In January of 2025, I officially registered my small business, itty bitty builds. During this same month, I secured my first vendor deal with the Bakken Museum located in Minneapolis. Shortly after that, I became a vendor at the Meet Minneapolis Visitor Center. In July 2025, my products went up for sale at the MSP International Airport.

I am in charge of all of the marketing for this business, retail coordination, digital & graphic design, website management, financial record keeping, and product design.

The current inventory consists of magnetic topographical lake maps, keychains, magnetic picture frames, ornaments, notebooks, and tote bags-- with more designs to come!

If you are interested in learning more, you can visit the itty bitty builds official website at www.ittybittybuilds.com.

Magnetic Topo Maps • Magnetic Picture Frames • Keychains • Skyline Ornament • Wedding Favors

Photo/Adria Carpenter

I worked at the HSL Makerspace during the last year of my undergraduate degree and for both years of my maters program. The Makerspace is a lab available for all students, staff, and others who are affiliated with the University of Minnesota. There are SLA & FDM printers, sewing/embroidery machines, a CNC mill, laser cutter, Cricuts, and Adobe software, to name a few. My job was to learn and understand the equipment so I could help attendants with their creative projects. I also created instructional material, display items, and conducted workshops. I won an award at this job for Outstanding Student Employee in 2024. You can learn more about the award and my work at the Makerspace in this article.

Keychains • Paper Crafts • Anatomical Heart Plushie • Christmas Stockings • Skyline Shadow Box • LED Signs

Onni Creative, a LA based set design company, reached out to me in the summer of 2024 to ask if I could help them with a sewing project. They wanted 50 pillow cases to send to US movie theaters for the promotion of the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice movie-- with the permission of Warner Bros. I consulted on the pillow case design and fabric type and sent the team my proposals for each. In addition to this, I sent them projections for material and labor costs. Once everything was finalized, I sourced the material and sewed all 50 pillow cases with an industrial sewing machine and serger. I then mailed the pillow cases to Onni Creative.

Beetlejuice Pillows

At this research project, another student researcher and I, on behalf of the UMN's Human Dimensioning Lab, partnered with a start-up medical device company based in Canada. We designed and carried out usability tests on their finger scanning device in order to report to the company on its current ergonomic state. We ran the test on 10 participants which included having them manipulate the device to their comfort level, taking photos of their preferred positions, and taking 3D scans of their hands with and without the devices so we could take measurements. We wrote a report for the company explaining our findings, as well as offered recommendations on how the company can improve the ergonomics of their device. We also gave them measurements of our participants' hands and fingers, as well as general recommendations from national anthropometric databases such as ANSUR in order to inform their design decisions of the device.

Medical Device Ergonomic Evaluation & Usability Testing

I worked at the Rouman Cinema in Rhinelander, Wisconsin from January 2017 until I moved out of state for college in August of 2019. During most of my summer breaks, I would come back and work this job-- the last time being summer of 2022. After working as a regular employee for 7 months in 2017, I was promoted to a manager position. At this job, I supervised other employees, sat in on interviews, trained new hires, built the employee schedules, open and closed the building, made bank deposits, and inventoried and ordered stock for the arcade. The owner of the cinema also ran a candy shop and on the weekends, I would often drive around Wisconsin to cater at weddings, graduation parties, and city wide events where we served gelato. I was also responsible for creating hand-drawn designs for these events which you can view here.

Chalkboard Event Signs

I worked with OTE my first year of school at the University of Minnesota. I worked as a Transitions and Experiences Intern and was in charge of a lot of the communications and programming for some of the Living Learning Communities (LLCs) on the UMN Twin Cities campus. These are communities of students who live in on-campus housing and receive support from the OTE office. I wrote many of the digital communications that Orientation and Transition Experiences put out including emails to the entire class of second year students and transfer, Facebook posts, and designing and writing newsletters. Another aspect of this internship was the coordination of events for the LLCs I was in charge of. Also at this job, I helped with the orientation of incoming first year and transfer students during Orientation Week.

In this role as a teaching assistant, another assistant and I helped a professor lead a class of 30 undergraduate students. In this role, I generally helped plan the weekly in-person classes and facilitated classroom discussions. I graded assignments, posted Canvas announcements, and coordinated our virtual classes. I also often worked with students on an individual basis- checking in on them if they missed multiple classes and addressing their questions and concerns about assignments. This position ended up being particularly unique because the professor suddenly had to leave their position due to medical reasons. We got a new professor assigned to the class and it was my and my co-assistants responsibilities to fill them in on the material. Strangely, again, this professor also had to leave for medical reasons so we had yet a third professor assigned to the class. I felt like I bore a lot of the responsibility of these transitions because I took a lot of initiative to keep the students informed and made some executive decisions about holding and canceling classes. My co-assistant and I also were the only consistency in the teaching team throughout the semester and I took that very seriously because I valued the education of the students enrolled in the class.