Design has always been how I make a living. I'm reminded it's also a gift I can use to give back. Not every design project needs an invoice.
Our church has been going through a sermon series called Gifted, centered on using the gifts God has given us to serve others.
After this weekend’s message, I felt called to put that into practice.
I've been following what Brandon Lake and his family are doing with Awendaw Farms, and having close friends who farm, I know how much heart and hard work goes into that life.
So I did what I know how to do. I designed.
I put together a merch collection for Awendaw Farms, including tees, long sleeves, and trucker hats featuring a custom AF monogram and a little Bigfoot inspiration. Brandon has a hot pink bigfoot statue in their garden 😂
Hoping to donate the entire collection of designs to their mission. No invoice. No strings attached.
#DesignForGood #BrandDesign #MerchDesign
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A Telegram tap-and-build game where players grow a business from nothing. Progress earns in-game stars through play. Real Telegram Stars buy something different: actual business assets, generated and delivered for real.
THE DESIGN PROBLEM
Two currencies in one interface. The earned currency drives the game loop. The real one crosses from simulation into fulfillment — a player running a fictional business can buy a real one's worth of assets without leaving the chat. The two have to feel connected enough that the purchase is a natural next step, and separated enough that nobody confuses play money for a payment.
HOW IT WORKS
Node.js, Express, and MongoDB, with a Telegram Mini App front end. The game engine is server-authoritative: the client sends intent — "10 taps" — never outcomes. XP, levels, compounding upgrade costs, passive income, and missions are pure functions, with every balance number in a single catalog file.
The money path is the part worth reading. Telegram Stars invoices run through pre-checkout validation to fulfillment. A unique index on the Telegram charge ID means a replayed payment is caught and ignored. Stars debit through a conditional atomic update, so two concurrent purchases can't both succeed. Generation failures after a successful debit refund automatically.
Claude is treated as untrusted input. The router validates its JSON, overwrites the user ID with the authenticated Telegram ID, re-derives prices from the catalog rather than trusting the model, and rejects any function outside a four-entry allow-list.
Every request carries HMAC-validated Telegram initData, plus a webhook secret. The server returns render-ready screens through a JSON UI contract, so the client holds no prices and no rules.
Verified by 33 unit tests and 20 end-to-end HTTP tests against a real database. Rate limiting, structured logs with secrets redacted, health checks, Docker, deployed on Railway.
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AI product owner, AI builders. I set up Claude Cowork as a product owner that hands tasks to Claude Code sessions on my machine through an OAuth-protected connector. Each session works in its own git worktree and returns a pull request for review. The infrastructure runs as always-on Windows services; the end-to-end loop is in testing.
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